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
Click on the images for larger, more readable photos of the pages.
RT McMullen was a Victorian pioneer of single-handed sailing, and like many yachties today was fond of trying out ideas and schemes. In this excerpt from his log he sails along the North Kent coast – and on the next page he is found dead in his boat, sitting bold upright at the tiller.
Here are a few shots taken from the water of what seemed to me to be a classic small working skiff built from what looks like solid timber we sighted on the river Vilaine in Brittany while on holiday a few weeks ago.
It’s crude, heavy, basic and all the rest, but its interest lies in the fact that in England, just across the Channel from Brittany, we don’t really have boats like this – to the extent we often think of them as being exclusively North American boats, thanks to the work of American language authors writing in English such as Howard Irving Chappelle.
But I’m pretty sure the American models, some elegant, light and nicely made and some heavy workhorses, some called just skiff or maybe sharpie skiff, flat iron skiff or flattie skiff or a range of other names, must have developed from European craft like this one.
PS – In answer to Doryman Mike Bogoger’s query in the comments below, here are two photos of the interior of a somewhat different boat local to the same area as the skiff above. These are used for tending mussel beds etc in the Vilaine estuary. I don’t know how closely these boats are related, but I think their construction is broadly similar.
Percy Blandford
‘There is a tremendous satisfaction to be had from boating, and many possible ways of going afloat, canoeing offers something special in adventure and romance and particularly the satisfaction of being skipper of your own craft. That often misquoted bit by Water Rat about there being nothing half as much fun as simply messing about in boats is perfectly true, but there is even greater fun to be had out of messing about in a boat you have built yourself.’ – Percy Blandford, Canoes and Canoeing, published in 1962
Percy Blandford, the legendary designer of boats and canoes for home building and prolific author on huge range of workshop-related topics is 100 today. Happy birthday Mr Blandford!
Percy Blandford has been living in quiet retirement for some years, but that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten. Amazon has many of his books on sale – he is said to have written more than 100, including many on building and using boats, including his PBK series canvas-covered canoes, various sailing dinghies and small outboard boats, and the Lysander trailer-sailer.
For us, perhaps Build Your Own Boat, An Illustrated History of Small Boats and Canoes and Canoeing are among the most important.
Plugging his name into Google reveals armfuls of recent references on forums, many photos of his boats and a few of the man himself, a site dedicated to canvas canoes that opens with the quotation above, and weblogs detailing the building of his boats. Weblogger Bill Serjeant has a few words to add here and here.
Mr Blandford also seems to be a favourite subject of his local newspaper, the Stratford Herald, and there’s even a Percy Blandford Facebook group.
I should also mention that the Lysander has its own Lysander Owners Association.
Quite a few of the Blandford plans are still available from Clark Craft in the USA – although they may be a little difficult to identify.
The National Maritime Museum Cornwall also has a page about the great man.
If anyone has memories and photos of their Percy Blandford boat building projects and their experiences with the boats that they’d like to share via this website, please send them to me at gmatkin@gmail.com. I’ll also make sure they get passed on to Mr Blandford via the family.
PS – I’d just like to convey a couple of messages from my online friends: