Category: Free boat plans online

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Hoymen and barges

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Sailing barges Pudge, Wivenhoe and Zylonite

Wivenhoe. I took both photos on the Blackwater,
while sailing with Yahoogroup Openboat
moderator and old friend Johnny Adams

This morning I have some fairly random bits of content about Thames sailing barges to share.

The first is this website about hoys, the occupation of hoymen and Thames sailing barges, written from the perspective of someone descended from a family of 17th century settlers, some of which were hoymen.

Yahoogroup Boatdesign moderator and developer of helpful calculators Peter Vanderwaart pointed out the  striking photograph below showing three barges sailing briskly – they come from a Flickr photostream put up by the National Maritime Museum.

If you happen to be in the market for something marvellous, Kitty, an 1895 Harwich-built sailing barge launched in 1895, is for sale.

Sailing barges off Northfleet


Two excellent free boat calculators

Sailcalc in operation

Boating enthusiasts love to fiddle with things – for many of us it’s part of the joy of owning and using boats. Some, like me, go further and start to create actual new boat designs, even if we do keep our creations on the small and simple side of the street.

If you’ve tried designing or re-designing a rig, you’ll know that the arithmetic can be tiresome and if you have you’ll be interested in these two calculators developed by one of my friends from the Yahoogroup Boatdesign, Peter Vanderwaart.

The first is Boatcalc, a handy calculator for use with boat hulls modelled using Gregg Carlson’s very useful Chine Hull Developer. See the Boatcalc_documentation. Even if you’re not working on a boat designed using this software, it may be worth reverse-modelling an existing hull in order to make your calculations, and to study its hydrostatics, wetted area and so on.

The second is Sailcalc, a fabulously useful rig calculator that works out centres of effort, sizes and dimensions – from experience, I can tell you that it’s a boon when you’re trying to balanace up the hull of a boat, its skeg and centreboard, and a mast that can only be in one place and a variety of sail options.

Free Scandinavian-style skiff boatbuilding plans

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Mark Wallace’s elegant Black Skiff

Boatbuilding plans for the Black Skiff have been designed and made available for free by Mark Wallace – he says all he asks for is to be given the credit for designing the boat.

I think it’s an elegant design. The plans are not likely to be the easiest for first-time boatbuilders to follow, but it would be well worth picking the required skills up by reading one of the classic books on this kind of boatbuilding. See the Intheboatshed.net Amazon bookshop for something suitable.

Mark ways she’s a strong light-weight boat loosely with strong links to Scandinavian types. She proven to be an excellent rower, has a capacity of four adults and has a flat bottom for easy beaching.

Go to Mark’s website for more information and plans in pdf format: http://www.markwallaceshipwright.com/plans.html

By the way, don’t miss Mark’s impressive collection of testimonials.

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