Designs and designers, boat plans,books of plans – Page 75

Brian King makes progress on his project to build Barton skiff low-power outboard boat

Despite all the tragic news from Japan, the apparently unnecessary attacks on the economy and our right to protest, the horrors in Africa, and the slow, sad procession of those who have inspired us ‘going aloft’, there are still things that please and excite us.

In our household one of them is Brian King’s progress on the first Barton skiff in Pembroke – see our free plans page for more information.

I haven’t much to add, beyond that it looks like the boat I drew (I’m so pleased Brian hasn’t changed anything), that he has been perfectly gentlemanly about a couple of errors that he found, and that, as he builds his little craft, he reports that he’s increasingly sure it’s the craft he wanted.

Myself, I can’t wait to see it on the water with its owner at the controls, sitting on the water as it should and rushing along making the most of its small outboard, as it is intended to do. To follow his progress, join the Yahoogroup gmaboatbuilders.

‘Instant boats’ boat builder and author Dynamite Payson passes away

Dynamite Payson pictured on the front of his book about building the legendary Light Dory

It is with great sadness that we mark the sudden death of Maine lobster fisherman, boatbuilder and author Harold ‘Dynamite’ Payson.

His passing is the end of an era in home boatbuilding in which he and boat designer Phil Bolger inspired many thousands of home boat builders during a long and highly successful collaboration that began in the 1960s. Bolger died in 2009.

The Light Dory pictured above is one of the most important boats involved in this story, as the easily built light, fast and good looking rowing boat became the tender of choice for many US yachtsmen.

Where Bolger wrote intriguing and tantalising books about his designs and their possibilities, Payson wrote simply and clearly about how the boats were intended to be built, calling them ‘instant boats’.

As you might expect I read as many books from both authors as I could, gripped as I was by the idea that even a woodworking duffer like me could build a boat, launch it and be free of the drudgery of work, the demands of capricious and difficult bosses, and a difficult home life.

It was a heady mix. If what you need to improve your life are a few water-borned dreams capable of being achieved, Payson and Bolger are still among the authors you should read – although in one might use epoxy resin in place of Payson’s favoured polyester resin.

I was never lucky enough to meet Payson, but there are a number of obituaries available online that are far more informative than I could write. See The Bangor Daily News and Village Soup. (Thanks to reader Mike Goodwin for pointing these out, by the way.)

Payson’s impressive range of books describing how to build Bolger’s small boats, a variety of model boats and aspects of shop practice are available from Amazon.

An enquiry from folklorist Bob Walser – what do we know about Firth of Forth oyster boats?

This Illustrated London News engraving from 1862 is the latest clue in Bob Walser’s continuing investigation into the background of a series of ‘dreg songs’ recorded by folklorist James Madison Carpenter from families in the Firth of Forth area.

Bob asks whether intheboatshed.net readers can provide any information about the boats pictured, the use of two sweeps simultaneously, and about oyster fishing in the Firth generally please?

I haven’t any specialist knowledge of the area, but I’d say that the boats rather resemble the early fifie shown in the Washington Report of 1849, though rigged with a single mast rather than two – which makes sense what appear to be fairly small boats. The full sized early fifies are described by the Chatham Directory of Inshore Craft as beamy, double-ended entirely open boats with upright stems, which seems about right. The boats were made to be full ended at the sheer and had hollow waterlines forward but were a more bouyant shape aft.

The two sweeps make practical sense to me, not least because they would enable the boat to travel in a reasonably straight line, without using the rudder so far over that it acted as a brake and made hard work for the crew.

These are just my untutored guesses. What do the rest of you think – or, even better, know about Firth of Forth oyster boats of this era please?

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