Category: Traditional clinker

Clinker plans and boatbuilding

Welcome developments at Faversham

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

It feels as if there has been a welcome change in the atmosphere in Faversham: the town now has a new draft neighbourhood plan including improvements sought by the Faversham Creek Trust and others, and the to vote on in October.

What’s more, the town’s new mayor Shiel Campbell has chosen to make the FCT her appointed charity – after the furious arguments that were going on in the town a few years ago, this seems like an excellent development.

What’s the photo above? It’s a half-scale replica Anglo-Saxon boat based on a 9th century craft found on Graveney marshes, and I happened across it while it was at the FCT’s Purifier Building premises recently as a fund-raising attraction.

BBA class of September 2015 launch their boats on the 9th June

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A date for your diary: the Boat Building Academy has sent out an invitation to the next student launch on Thursday the 9th June.

This season’s crop of boats include:

  • 11ft 6in Iain Oughtred Guillemot
  • 17ft International Canoe
  • 19ft Replica of a traditional Beer Beach Boat
  • 20ft Paul Gartside daysailer Terror
  • 21ft 6in Gil Smith South-Bay Catboat

If anyone is able to get along and to send me some photos, please do! Email me at gmatkin@gmail.com . Thanks!

Viking ship sets sail to America

Viking ship sails for America via Iceland and Greenland

Reproduction Viking ship Draken Harald Hårfagre has set sail for North America via Iceland and Greenland, and we can follow its progress here and on this Facebook page.

Great good luck to them. This will be an amazing and challenging trip, of course, and the crew will experience conditions few of us could face and will be far from any sort of quick rescue.

We live in very different times and it’s striking that this voyage will in some ways be different those experienced by the Vikings, and for good safety reasons. The skipper and crew have waited for a suitable weather window – in an open boat, you would. Modern weather forecasting must be a huge blessing.

Also I gather the ship is only permitted to carry 30 crew, not the 100 it would have had in the Viking era – which means she cannot be rowed in the way the Viking forefathers did, and so is motorised.

Still, I can’t imagine there’s a red-blooded sailor alive that wouldn’t love to spend some time sailing a craft like that – particularly if (like me) they have good reason to believe the Vikings were among their ancestors…

Do you want to see the sailing? See below!