Category: Traditional carvel

Traditional carvel plans and boatbuilding

The grim grandeur of South Georgia

Stromness from the pass – the point where Shackleton, Crean
and Worsley first saw safety

Stromness Bay

Jeff Cole has kindly sent us some photos taken by ‘Bill‘, a friend of his father-in-law, showing scenes from South Georgia, the South Atlantic island where Sir Ernest Shackleton and his escaping polar explorer crew landed in the original James Caird, a small ship’s boat adapted to make the journey from Elephant Island.

Having landed, a big task still faced them, as they they then had to cross the mountainous island to reach safety at Stromness. If anyone has any doubt about the scale of the task, these stark photos should make it clear. This page describes the geography and history of the place.

Thanks Jeff – there’s something great about these photos. For more photos that Jeff has provided over the last 18 months or so, click here.

For more posts on the James Caird, the replica of the original boat being built by the IBTC for a new expedition to repeat the voyage led by Tim Jarvis, click here.

A whaler’s graveyard, a desolate beach,
and an abandoned whaler

Plaque in commemoration of the Shackleton expedition’s
arrival at the manager’s villa, Stromness

The Wikipedia has much more good stuff on Shackleton, but I think the quote from early in expedition member Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s wonderful book The Worst Journey in the World is perhaps the expedition leader’s best memorial: ‘For a joint scientific and geographical piece of organization, give me Scott; for a Winter Journey, Wilson; for a dash to the Pole and nothing else, Amundsen: and if I am in the devil of a hole and want to get out of it, give me Shackleton every time.’

Hoymen and barges

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Sailing barges Pudge, Wivenhoe and Zylonite

Wivenhoe. I took both photos on the Blackwater,
while sailing with Yahoogroup Openboat
moderator and old friend Johnny Adams

This morning I have some fairly random bits of content about Thames sailing barges to share.

The first is this website about hoys, the occupation of hoymen and Thames sailing barges, written from the perspective of someone descended from a family of 17th century settlers, some of which were hoymen.

Yahoogroup Boatdesign moderator and developer of helpful calculators Peter Vanderwaart pointed out the  striking photograph below showing three barges sailing briskly – they come from a Flickr photostream put up by the National Maritime Museum.

If you happen to be in the market for something marvellous, Kitty, an 1895 Harwich-built sailing barge launched in 1895, is for sale.

Sailing barges off Northfleet


Ben Crawshaw looks at the traditional boats of the Spanish coast

Top: barque de mitjana Sant Isidre at Barcelona. Bottom the intriguing hull
of a polbeiro at a boat exhibition. Photos by Ben Crawshaw

Ben Crawshaw of the Invisible Workshop has been putting up some splendid posts about the exotic-looking boats he encounters along Spain’s coasts.

As usual, it’s best to read weblog posts in order – in reverse order to the way they’re presented. So I’d recommend looking at this one on the history of the heavily built boats of Catalonia first. They seem to be built for the grandchildren, in the local saying.

Then turn to this introduction to the polbeiro (just look at that rig and the astonishing tiller!, and this post on the cross-oared rowing technique, which also shows its interesting hull form. I’d say it shows some potential that could be exploited by today’s plywood boat designers.

The next instalment takes us to Barcelona, where Ben runs into the skipper of the Sant Isidre, who he met some time ago while cruising in his Light Trow, Onawind Blue. And finally, he tells something of the astonishing and complicated story of this 1925-built lateen-rigged barque de mitjana, which has done service as sail-powered fishing boat, been used for smuggling, pressed into service as a POUM gunboat during the Spanish Civil War, been used for diving and was finally restored and given her old rig back in 1993.

Finally, you might by now be ready for this whimsical piece about nice old boats that have been used as a kind of garnish for roundabouts. Thanks for this entertaining, informative stuff Ben!