Category: Sailing cruisers

Sailing yachts used for cruising, or as cruiser-racers.

Home Built Boat Regatta meeting, Cirencester, 1st and 2nd September

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

UK Home Built Boat Regatta

UK Home Built Boat Regatta meeting UK Home Built Boat Regatta meeting UK Home Built Boat Regatta meeting

Some snaps from previous UK HBBR meetings – Breton caps appear to be de rigeur!

I’ve been asked to tell you about the September UK Home Built Boat Regatta. Despite the name, it’s not really a regatta but is more like an American-style messabout, as many people will recognise from the photos.

The HBBR people are a loosely organised group who like to get together to discuss boatbuilding, sail their home-built boats and generally swap hints and tips. The next meeting is their National Rally at the Cotswold Water Park, on 1st and 2nd September.

I’d go if I wasn’t already booked to play my duet concertina in Suffolk. A range of canoes and small day boats are expected, including designs by Iain Oughtred, Paul Fisher, Conrad Natzio and Andrew Wolstenholme. The event is very informal with no trade stands and no catering (bring a picnic!), but there are basic camping facilities available on site. Just go along and bring your boat Continue reading “Home Built Boat Regatta meeting, Cirencester, 1st and 2nd September”

Steve Taylor’s 1923 Hillyard Dorma back under sail again

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

Click on the images for larger photos

Dorma

Dorma Dorma Dorma

Steve Taylor’s 24ft Hillyard-built yacht, Dorma, and Steve himself

Some days ago, Steve Taylor, Bob Telford and friend Paul Tambini took Steve’s newly restored 24ft 1923 Hillyard yacht Dorma out for her first successful sail after a well executed but respectful restoration. Well, I suppose one could say it was successful in a sailing sense; the engine proved to be a disaster area. (I don’t know Paul, but gather he’s currently fixing up a Blackwater sloop by the side of Faversham Creek and runs a tool store – see the link below.)

Bob takes up the story:

‘The wind was perfect, the sun shone, the tide was right and everything was set for Dorma’s first proper outing.

‘We had taken her out once before, briefly, and had to return early when the bobstay parted; that’s what a shakedown is about, after all. Repairs and improvements completed, we awaited everything to be in place for a proper first sail.

‘When the day came, the engine took us down to the Swale, by which time we had raised the main; the jib and stays’l took over from the engine – and the suddenly quiet was shattering. Now I know why people hated those diesels thirty years ago.

‘We left a reef in until we had the feel of her; it was four gusting five and we wanted to stretch her gently, especially after our first experience.

‘She sailed well, seemed well balanced under reefed main, and Click here for the rest of the story: Continue reading “Steve Taylor’s 1923 Hillyard Dorma back under sail again”

Some personal highlights from summer 2007

Dorma

Dorma Dorma

My pal Steve Taylor’s newly restored 1923 Hillyard-built yacht, Dorma, on the creek at Oare. The boat beside Dorma is now being rescued by a local boat- and ship-wright. I suppose the last of this group of three is as much about Oare mud as anything else – but if Oare is where you keep your boat, it’s important to find something to like in the stuff

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

Summer 2007 Summer 2007 Summer 2007

Mummers play from the fishing village of Sidmouth; the new Short Flattie at the Watchet Boat Museum; plaque commemorating John Short, Watchet shantyman, sailor and fisherman


Click here for more photos: Continue reading “Some personal highlights from summer 2007”