Category: Model boats

Southwold’s Sailor’s Reading Room

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

southwold, sailors, reading room, models, photos, fishermen, coastguards, museum, boats, ships, beach boats, harbour

southwold, sailors, reading room, models, photos, fishermen, coastguards, museum, boats, ships, beach boats, harbour southwold, sailors, reading room, models, photos, fishermen, coastguards, museum, boats, ships, beach boats, harbour

southwold, sailors, reading room, models, photos, fishermen, coastguards, museum, boats, ships, beach boats, harbour southwold, sailors, reading room, models, photos, fishermen, coastguards, museum, boats, ships, beach boats, harbour

southwold, sailors, reading room, models, photos, fishermen, coastguards, museum, boats, ships, beach boats, harbour

Southwold’s famous Sailor’s Reading Room was built in 1864 in memory of a Captain Rayley, who had been an officer at the Battle of Trafalgar, and had died the previous year.

I knew the building as a boy and remember thinking it was as fabulous then as I think it is now. It really hasn’t changed in close to 50 years, and the only sadness is that photography is forbidden and I can’t show you how splendid it really is.

What I can say without fear of contradiction is that the old reading room is packed with a huge variety of treasures, including photos, models and other memorabilia of the local fishermen, sailors and coastguards of years gone by.

Often generations of brothers, fathers, sons and cousins worked at these trades at the same time, and because they so often bore the same name they were often given colourful nicknames – I particularly like the name of one bearded old salt whose photo appears on the Reading Room’s walls.  He must have gloried in his handle of ‘Crikey’ Rogers!

Of course, many of them were also lifeboatmen, and since we’ve been to the old town recently in a day or two thanks to some great local friends I’ll add some photos of the restored local lifeboat now on show in a new home near the beach, and some shots from the harbour – including the wonderful Leila. Make sure you come back!

Sign up to start receiving the weekly intheboatshed.net newsletter: sign up here

Scottish Coastal Rowing Project grows to 19 St Ayles skiff boatbuilding projects

st ayles, skiff, iain oughtred, rowing, scottish coastal rowing, alec jordan, jordan boats, plywood boats, boat kit

Rowers trying out the original St Ayles skiff at Eyemouth last weekend

Alec Jordan of the Scottish Coastal Rowing Project tells me that he received the 19th order for a St Ayles skiff kit this week.

Nineteen St Ayles skiff building projects in less than a year reflects a fantastic explosion of interest in the SCRP project since it began. See my post about legendary small boat designer Iain Oughtred drawing the plans for the St Ayles skiff for the Scottish Coastal Rowers here: Iain Oughtred draws the boat that will bring coastal rowing races back to Scotland. It appeared only in July last year!

Alec, whose business Jordan Boats makes up the kits, says that planning is well underway for the first regatta at Anstruther on 29 May, and that seven or eight completed boats are expected to be ready and on the water for the event.

He’s careful to observe that some of the teams won’t have had much time to practise rowing by that time and  however, and suggests the standard of the rowing should be a little bit higher by the time of the Portsoy Festival four weeks later, when there may be even more of the new boats competing.

Other news this week is that the first official women’s crew from Anstruther will have had its first practice.

A particularly striking development is that I gather there have even been expressions of interest in the SCRP from south of the border with England…

st ayles, skiff, iain oughtred, rowing, scottish coastal rowing, alec jordan, jordan boats, plywood boats, boat kit st ayles, skiff, iain oughtred, rowing, scottish coastal rowing, alec jordan, jordan boats, plywood boats, boat kit

Start receiving the weekly intheboatshed.net newsletter: sign up here

Light Trow Mk 2 – drawings for making a model


Light Trow model package plywood boat Gavin Atkin boat plan

Here’s a jolly little project for Easter – making a model of the Light Trow Mk 2. The drawings are here: Light Trow Mk 2 model, and they’re in the form of a zip file containing no less than 18 pdfs.

Almost all you need to do is print out each pdf in the zip package on the same-sized paper, stick it to card, model-maker’s plastic sheet or balsa, and cut it out and assemble as shown in the drawings… However, you’ll need some extra bits of balsa and nice white paper or cloth to make a sail and – Hey Presto! – you’ll have your own table-top Light Trow to play with. Have fun everyone! (Drawings now corrected to include the hole on the aft deck for the mizzen mast!)

For more on the Light Trow and trows generally, click here.

POST-SCRIPT The drawings for the full-sized Light Trow Mk2 are now close to complete. If you’reinterested in building this boat email me at gmatkin@gmail.com, and I’ll send you them – but only if you promise not to share them without my permission!