Category: Traditional carvel

Traditional carvel plans and boatbuilding

Projects at Stirling and Son, autumn 2011

Stirling and Son 14ft dinghy ashore in the mud Stirling and Son 14ft dinghy with one reef

Stirling and Son Victorian Yacht Hull Planking Complete and Faired Stirling and Son 14ft dinghy with All Plain Sail Stirling and Son 14ft dinghy Sailing Twice Reefed Down

Stirling and Son Mast Making Stirling and Son Lock Gate - Tenon Measuring Stirling and son Lock Gate Timbers

Click on the thumbnails for bigger images

Those busy folks at Stirling and Son have been getting on with an amazing range of projects. Building and marketing beautiful small traditional clinker-built dinghies is one thing, rowing to Magnetic North Pole is another, but how about building lock gates or appearing in adverts for soap? All this and a regular round of repair and restoration jobs are all in a day’s work for those Stirlings…

  • As the photo above shows (click on the thumbnail for a much larger image) the hull of the Stirling & Son Victorian yacht named Integrity is complete, and the rudder has been hung. The mast has also been hewn from a tree selected in a local forest. I say Integrity looks amazing and I believe she is available for sale.
  • Will has taken the 14ft sailing dinghy out for a trial. It was fairly windy, so he began with two reefs, and later shook them out as the wind fell and sailed under all plain sail. He reports that it was so much fun they kept sailing on past high tide – and it was a pretty muddy business getting her back out…
  • In a surprise non-boat project, Stirling and Son are building a new lock gate and cantilever bridge in oak for the Tavistock Canal. Due to the size of the timbers and the poor access, both have to be assembled in the shed, dismantled and then taken to the site in order to rebuild them in position. I guess it makes sense, for there’s no doubt that anyone who can build a Victorian-style yacht knows something about working with oak.
  • And what about the soap? From the Stirling & Son newsletter I gather the makers of Dove soap products decided that Will should be the subject of a shower product advert, and so their ad agency visited with a film crew.

Stirling & Son is based at Tavistock, Devon and can be contacted via the website at www.stirlingandson.co.uk or by ‘phone on 01822 614259.

Legendary Bristol pilot cutter Kindly Light is back on the water

Restored pilot cutter Kindly Light

 

 

Photo supplied by the National Historic Ships Register 

Here’s a piece of great news among the gloom of economic disaster and the incompetence of corrupt governments: the legendarily fast Bristol Channel pilot cutter Kindly Light has completed here long restoration and is now back on the water.

Kindly Light’s story is told here and those of her designer and builder are here.

The restoration has returned her to her original state as a sailing pilot cutter, with no modern systems, engine or electric, and I think those who worked to achieve this great end deserve great credit for this, including  her owner Malcolm Mckeand and shipwright David Walkey at Gweek Quay Shipyard.

Here’s what the Historic Ships people had to say about a rededication ceremony at Falmouth this week:

‘Some 350 people were gathered at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall on Saturday 1st October for a private ceremony to mark the 100th birthday of pilot cutter Kindly Light – re-launched after a meticulous 18-year long restoration, funded and masterminded by owner Malcolm Mckeand.

‘Revered Chris Courtauld led the assembled crowd in a rededication of the vessel and a rendition of the hymn ‘Lead Kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom’, following which Kindly Light was officially re-named by the daughter of boatbuilder David Walkey. In a remarkable turn of events, professional Barry seaman John Hart then produced the original coin from Kindly Light’s mast-step which he had removed for safekeeping following the vessel’s last sail when her mast was lifted on entry to Cardiff Museum. John presented the coin, dated 1854, to Kindly Light’s owner and it was later found that this was the birth date of the vessel’s designer, William Stoba.

‘All present at the ceremony were given the opportunity to go on board Kindly Light in groups and view the high level of authenticity which has been achieved with maximum care in the restoration. She has been returned as closely to her original specification as research would allow, complete with her build paint scheme (as depicted in a photo from her launch day), original accommodation layout, pilot cutter deck fittings and no engine installed. There was also an illustrated talk on her history and the restoration which was held in the lecture theatre.

‘All those invited to the ceremony had been keen supporters of the restoration, or had some connection to the vessel and her history. Amongst the guests was a descendant of Kindly Light’s pilot, Lewis Alexander, as well as members of the Ellis family – whose father, Chris Ellis, had founded the Ocean Youth Club with Kindly Light in 1960. Kindly Light will be kept on the River Fal this winter whilst the remainder of her rig is fitted.’

For more on pilot cutters, see the British Pilot Cutter Owners Association website.

 

The first volume of Rudder online

Rushton ad The Rudder magazine

The first year’s issues of the famous 19th century stateside boating magazine The Rudder placed online by Mystic Seaport is liberally sprinkled with strongly expressed views that seem deliberately calculated to offend someone or other.

Today, it all seems quaint but slightly crazy – yet many magazine editors will wish they could be so forthright today.

‘In a paper I saw the following wonderful what is it offered for sale : “A keel sloop, cutter rigged.” We shall soon hear of keel schooners, sloop-rigged and cutter-rigged catboats being bought and sold. How a yacht can be both sloop and cutter at one and the same time is something beyond me. The truth, sad to relate, is, very few if any of our large single-masted racing yachts are sloops; many of the best of them are cutters or that bastard rig which is so far nameless.’

I guess the writer means the rig with a single foresail on a jib. What is that called?

Again:

‘One thing strikes the buyer who reads the catalogue of J H Rushton: it is the perfect way in which everything is described. The most minute details of construction and finish of his craft are put down in plain English so that a purchaser knows just what he is going to get for his money. For that reason it is one of the best tracts for the suppression of profanity we have ever seen: he leaves the worst cranks no chance for a growl.’

And again:

‘The black-blight that invades and destroys the racing spirit in yacht clubs is the steam yacht. What quality of blood runs in the veins of a man who will willingly exchange the exciting and exhilarating pastime of sailing for the monotonous privilege of being driven around in a kettle? With obligations to the late Lord St Vincent, we remark that a yachtsman who descends to running a steam yacht is d——d for the sport!’

Thanks to The Good Old Boat Redwing weblog for the linking to these entertaining sets of scans.