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Four Months in a Sneak Box – a small boat or dinghy cruising classic

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Nathaniel Bishop’s sneak box

Bill Serjeant’s recent editorial on the Melonseed skiff reminded me of Nathaniel H Bishop’s account of a 2600-mile voyage down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and along the Gulf of Mexico in a 12-ft sneak box, clearly a classic little duck hunting boat with a strong family resemblance to the Melonseed.

Titled Four Months in a Sneak-Box, it’s one of the classics of small boat sailing and can be read online here. Find out more about Nat Bishop and his amazing travels here.

It’s difficulty to guess how long this particular resource might remain available, so I’d suggest saving the text and drawings somewhere on your own computer – the home pages for this site are gone, which doesn’t bode at all well for the rest of the content.

Ben Crawshaw’s Light Trow appears in Wooden Boat magazine

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Light Trow built by Ben Crawshaw of The Invisible Boatshed

One of the best Christmas presents for me this year has been the news that Ben Crawshaw’s very nice project Onawind Blue built to my Light Trow design has made the launchings section of the superb US magazine Wooden Boat! Well done Ben – that’s quite an achievement with a first boat, and a plywood one at that.

I originally drew the Light Trow to be built on a strongback, but Ben built his using conventional stitch and glue at my suggestion, and we were both please when it worked perfectly. Some time I’ll revise the plans to eliminate the strongback, but in the meantime you can build the boat the same way using the plans Ben used. The free plans download is here.

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How to build a punt by Captain RF Wykeham-Martin, with plans

 

Wykeham-Martin sailing punt sailplan

Wykeham-Martin’s sailing punt. In his description he remarks that the leeboard could have been a little bigger

I was very pleased today to find this description of how Captain R F Wykeham-Martin built a sailing Thames punt.

It comes from a splendid collection of Thames-related material provided by Where Thames Smooth Waters Glide, an informative site sponsored by the River Thames Society. By the way, if the name Wykeham-Martin is familiar, it’s because this great gentleman also devised the widely-used foresail furling gear still known by his name.

If you’re at all interested in the Thames, check out the source of this material, Where Thames Smooth Waters Glide, which has links to many fine on-line books, including the stunning Our River by George D Leslie.

For more intheboatshed.net posts on Thames-related matters, including plans for a Thames skiff and a racing punt, click here.


L illo from George D Leslie’s Our river