Gavin Atkin's weblog for the sort of people who like looking inside boat sheds. It's about old boats, traditional boats, boat building, restoration, the sea and the North Kent Coast
Events such as historical events, races, exhibitions, processions, regattas and so on.
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:
If anyone is able to get along and to send me some photos, please do! Email me at gmatkin@gmail.com . Thanks!
We in the UK live in a strange country – one that is more exotic than we may all realise. In Whitby Harbour there’s an ancient tradition of building a short piece of fencing each year – the Penny Hedge, and this YouTube filmed by Doc Rowe with help from Jill Pidd shows it being built last year.
Just for the record, it’s a tradition that goes back nearly nine centuries…
Historic West End, London chandlers Arthur Beale Ltd are putting on a talk by navigator and historian John Blake on The Sea Chart.
The event is to be held on Wednesday the 4th May at St Giles in Fields Church just over the road from Arthur Beale and proprieter and sailor Alasdair Flint tells me it is a free event!
Alasdair suggests arriving early to browse the selection of nautical goods in the shop and notes that there’s a tendency to end up in a pub or going for a curry afterwards.
Please email talks@arthurbeale.co.uk to reserve your place.
Bloomsbury has just published the second edition of John’s book The Sea Chart with a foreword by Sir Ben Ainslie CBE, an additional 55 pages and 44 more illustrations of early sea charts and maps which will be available to purchase after the talk at a special price of £22.50.
Here’s Arthur Beale’s promotional blurb:
‘John Blake served in the Royal Navy and in the Reserve for nearly 16 years as an executive and navigating officer, attaining the rank of Lieutenant Commander.
‘During his naval time he served extensively in sea-going ships and qualified as a navy underwater diver and a naval air defence specialist. On leaving the service he gained a business diploma and moved into retailing, opening three retail stores in Covent Garden, London; Boston, Massachusetts and later in Osaka, Japan, featuring exclusively British gift products.
‘He is a keen maritime historian and a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation and writes regularly on maritime history for yachting and maritime magazines. He is a member of the Society of Authors.
‘John Blake’s talk will look at how the sea chart was pre-eminent in exploring and discovering the world since the earliest known chart of c.1275 with illustration from seventeen major archives and museums across the world, including those from Europe, China, India and Arabia, America and of course the foremost explorers of the 19th century Britain.
‘John has given highly acclaimed talks at the National Maritime Museum, Royal Ocean Racing Club, The Darwin Centre, Pembrokeshire, Royal Thames Yacht Club, United Kingdom Hydrographic Office, Royal Southern Yacht Club, New York Yacht Club, Royal Lymington Yacht Club, Little Ship Club, London, Marlborough College Summer School, Bath Sailing Club, Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers, Wessex Cruising Association and the Indian High Commission (Nehru Centre), London.
‘In 1991 John Blake and his wife started an Intellectual Property Licensing Agency, Classics Licensing Company, and in 1996 helped initiate and run the licensing of the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office archives, producers of the Admiralty sea charts, as their Licensing Agent for six years under the brand name The Admiralty Collection.’
On the 9th June Alasdiar and colleagues will show the 1950s film Ha’Penny Breeze. Set in Pin Mill on the River Orwell, he says it is a little gem. Calling all East Coast Sailors!
