Britannia Rules – a super half hour film about the Big Class and the J Class eras

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Brittania Rules

Britannia Rules – a cracking little programme now available from Channel Four’s on-demand 4OD gizmo

Don’t miss out on this – if you haven’t already done so, find half an hour in your programme to sit down and watch this cracking little half-hour documentary about Britannia, the Big Class and finally the J Class.

If you’re outside the UK, I fear you may not be able to see it, but it really is a super half hour of telly even if it is on a computer screen. There are several programmes here that seem to be worth watching, and I’ll report further at some point.

Britannia Rules: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/classic-ships/4od#2928477

For more intheboatshed.net posts about Brittannia, click here.

Nov-Dec Water Craft magazine preview

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Water Craft Nov-Dec 2009 320

Water Craft’s latest issue marks the beginning of the boatbuilding season, which editor Pete Greenfield says begins when the sailing season ends.

It has pretty well ended here in the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere, but I’m not so sure that the boat building starts quite yet. But I do think November and the run up to Christmas is a time when many of us get into some serious boat-dreaming and boat noodling – my name for the delicious process of thinking through what kind of boat we want, what we’re capable of building and what would use it for?

As usual, the latest Water Craft is full of interesting crumbs to feed our obsession.

Designer Paul Gartside presents the first of a series of complete plans, including offsets, for boats you can build; this time it’s a shapely double-ended 12ft  rowing boat for traditional carvel (or clinker) construction.

Fancy strip planking? Read how Nick Paull built the Canadian canoe that won him Water Craft’s special prize for the most professional-loooking home-built boat at the Beale Park Thames Boat Show.

More, Patrick Curry explains how he made hollow wooden spars for his traditional Dutch yacht, Bob Lloyd shows how to make a razee.

Pete  is still working on his Phil Bolger-designed Chebacco boat in the outdoors (brrr! – rather him than me!) and Dick Phillips has been sailing a Chebacco built by Connie Mense that many of us saw on show at Beale. (For an intheboatshed.net post on this boat click here.)

Jo Moran has been sailing another boat we saw at Beale, the electric day-sailer Cirrus and Kathy Mansfield has been to Portsoy’s Traditional Boat Festival.

Subscribe to Water Craft now – the drawings for that Gartside pulling  boat alone will make your investment worthwhile!

Peterborough canoe launched at the Boat Building Academy

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A's canoe after the launch

A in progress A workshop 3 Canadien Canoe

Detail A Threipland 4

Strip built Peterborough canoe built by Alexander Threipland and Russell Gale at the Boatbuilding Academy, Lyme

Boat Building Academy students Alexander Threipland and Russell Gale built this strip built 16ft Peterborough canoe, and launched it along with their fellow students’ projects back in June.

Alexander and Russell built their canoe in glass-sheathed western red cedar, with wicker seats, a cherry thwart and fore and aft decks with ebony detail. Since leaving the course Alexander has started a business, Wilton Woodworks, with Will Reed, a former student and instructor whose boat was first launched at the Beale Park Thames Boat Show this year. Hopefully we’ll hear more from them in the near future.

My thanks once again to Academy principal Yvonne Green for the photos.

For more on student launches at the Boat Building Academy, click here.

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