Free boat plans online – Page 8

Light Trow Onawind Blue flies past (reprise)

Ben Crawshaw sailing Light Trow Onawind Blue in ‘entertaining’ conditions

I’ve posted this clip before, but can’t resist doing so again, after the chap who runs out local chandlery and I watched it again this afternoon. ‘It’s not a slow boat,’ I said, a little surprised as I’d forgotten how well the little Light Trow looks in this clip.

‘It’s a great advert,’ he said, ‘in fact it’s creaming along.’ I said little, but I can tell you that the designer blushed with pleasure!

There’s a serious message here for all of us: even in the UK this could be you, this summer. Get or build a boat and let’s all go sailing! (See the free boat plans page for a set of drawings for building this boat.)

For more posts about our friend Ben and his Light Trow, click here.

A beautiful and touching short video made by friends of Ben Crawshaw

This is a lovely piece of film, but don’t let that distract you from noticing how Ben Crawshaw has the art of launching down pat – or the way he uses a topping lift to enable him to row efficiently. This fella has something to teach us.

And, as usual, he has his boat looking great, and the low sun looks even better on the sparkling water of Spain’s Mediterranean coast in January this year.

I found the Vimeo link on Ben’s website a bit difficult – if you have trouble making it work well, look out for a button that takes you to a YouTube presentation of the same snatch of film.

Brian King makes progress on his project to build Barton skiff low-power outboard boat

Despite all the tragic news from Japan, the apparently unnecessary attacks on the economy and our right to protest, the horrors in Africa, and the slow, sad procession of those who have inspired us ‘going aloft’, there are still things that please and excite us.

In our household one of them is Brian King’s progress on the first Barton skiff in Pembroke – see our free plans page for more information.

I haven’t much to add, beyond that it looks like the boat I drew (I’m so pleased Brian hasn’t changed anything), that he has been perfectly gentlemanly about a couple of errors that he found, and that, as he builds his little craft, he reports that he’s increasingly sure it’s the craft he wanted.

Myself, I can’t wait to see it on the water with its owner at the controls, sitting on the water as it should and rushing along making the most of its small outboard, as it is intended to do. To follow his progress, join the Yahoogroup gmaboatbuilders.

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