Category: Sailing cruisers

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

Legendary work and cruising boat designer William Garden passes away

Bill Garden plank on edge cartoon

‘I love to design boats. Rather design boats than eat. Often do. So let’s get going on the perfect ship before you are so old that you have to be carried aboard.

‘I have drawers full of stock plans and a head full of boats that want to be launched.

‘Whether you want the ultimate in a motor or sailing yacht or a one cylinder clam hound, I can fix you up with a plan to suit.’

So wrote the legendary William Garden, who died last week. Born in 1918, he was a Canadian boat designer who drew boat plans for many hundreds of craft in a long career, including both yachts and workboats, and anything in between.

Many of them as attractive as you’ll find anywhere.

He also created a distinctively salty and positive style in writing about his plans and the boats that could be built from them – a style that was very much in keeping with the confident and determined young man we see in the photo on this biographical Mystic Seaport web page. He also had a puckish sense of charm and humour, which is clear from the salty little cartoons he often added to his drawings and plans – such as the one above showing a contented pipe-smoking fella getting progressively less comfortable as his plank-on-edge yacht heels further and further…

Garden must have been quite a character.

There’s a particularly nice article here, and a list of Garden designs held by the Mystic Seaport Museum here.

My thanks go to Peter Vanderwaart for alerting me to Bill Garden’s passing.

Photos of Bremerhaven harbour, and its almost lost dry dock

Old dry docks at Bremerhaven

The 1850 dry docks at Bremerhaven, photographed last week

The dry dock photo from Bremerhaven harbour above shows what can happen when these treasures of industrial archaeology fall into utter neglect. No doubt the folks of Appledore will take careful note, and perhaps these photos will also seem relevant to those interested in the future of Faversham Creek.

The shot was taken on a brief trip last week by regular contributor Hans-Christian Riecke of Nordhorn’s Graf Ship Association. (By the way, we’re going to be at Nordhorn’s Canal Festival in a few weeks. If you’re in the area, please stop by to say hello!)

Here’s what Hans has to say:

‘Last week I have been on a short trip to the port of Bremerhaven. It was founded in the 19th century, when the River Weser became so severely silted that the original port of Bremen could not be reached by seagoing vessels.

‘Soon it became a thriving coastal town, with famous shipyards like Vulcan, Lloyd and Tecklenborg. Later it was the centre of German high sea fishing. But changing times claimed their toll and by 1995 nothing was left, the yards were bankrupt, the fishing industry was gone and unemployment was soaring.

‘Now it has been developed somewhat, with the Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum (our national maritime museum), the Klimahaus (which is devoted to the subject of the world climate) and the Columbus Centre. It is also a great rallying point for traditional wooden boats and historic ships, as you can see from the photos [below].

‘One shows the last working steam icebreakerWal, and in the background you can see as replica of a German-built replica hansekogge, the famous medieval trading vessel. Another is of a part of the port reserved for traditional boats. On the third you can see the remains of the old drydocks of 1850. It is not only in Appledore that they fall in decay.’

Steam icebreaker Wal and kogge Bremerhaven Kogge at Bremerhaven traditional wooden boats at Bremerhaven

For more on the Graf Ship Association, zompen, tjalks and the rest, click here.

 

 

Antifouling Sunday – sun and the prospect of summer bring out the boat maintainers

Antifouling Sunday_owner at the top of his boat's mast 2

Antifouling Sunday_at the bottom of the mast Antifouling Sunday_owner at the top of his boat's mast Antifouling Sunday_working on an area of dodgy woodwork

Antifouling Sunday_it may be hard work but it's still a great place to be

I think there’s a special Sunday each year when those who need to ready their boats for the season suddenly rush down to the moorings and get to work – I call it Antifouling Sunday, but you won’t find it in any church’s calendar.

My guess is that what happens for many is that the first days of sunshine and the promise of spring get the sap rising in the boating enthusiast’s veins, but their consciences (and perhaps their families) insist they first complete a selection of household jobs on the Saturday. But then Sunday is their own…

Last Sunday I was down there with the rest of them, rubbing and scrubbing and getting antifouling in my hair and on my sunglasses, and wondering which particular kind of magic stuff to try on my woodwork next (nothing I’ve ever tried has lived up to its promise, no matter what the magazines say) and what other jobs I really need to do.

It might have been hard work but, in that setting and with the sense of community moorings and yards have, it was a great place to be.

There were a companionable lot of us down at Hollowshore, near Faversham, and these photos show just a few of the things that were going on – I was particularly impressed by the chap swinging about on a bosun’s chair sorting out shrouds for his Maurice Griffiths-designed yacht. I hate heights…