River boats – Page 131 – intheboatshed.net

How to have fun racing punts and getting wet at Tuebingen, Germany

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Punt racing, Tuebingen-style

Chris Partridge reports that the folk of Tuebingen race battling punts powered by hand-paddling. And then they drink beer or cod liver oil, depending on whether they’ve won or lost.

This is just the kind of harmless activity healthy young blokes should be allowed to enjoy, and it would be good to see something similar caught on in Manchester, Birmingham or at Camden in North London. Of course, I’m far too old for this sort of thing myself, particularly the cod liver oil part!

More seriously, has anyone else noticed that these boats bear an uncanny resemblance to the kinds of boats many people would expect Phil Bolger or Jim Michalak to design for the purpose? Read what Jim has to say about seas of peas.

Read all about these crazy, happy Germans at Rowing for Pleasure.

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A well-travelled skiff

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Venus, a well-travelled Thames-style skiff spotted in Australia by Jeff Cole

Lest we get too doomy, and serious I’ve decided to post this photo of an 1880s single-scull Thames-style skiff hanging in a country nursery at Victoria, Australia. Jeff Cole, who spotted and photographed Venus for us, says the story is that she was imported from Scotland, and was built by the nursery owner’s great-grandfather.

It’s clearly very well-travelled for a small river boat. I wonder what the rest of the story may be – did a River Thames boatbuilder move to Scotland? Did a Scot learn boatbuilding on the banks of the Thames? Or was great-grandfather an amateur who worked from a book? Or were skiffs of this kind far more widespread in the last 19th century than we tend to think?

Whatever the answer, the boat in the photo looks very much like the one shown in this earlier intheboatshed.net post.

Once again, my thanks go to Jeff Cole. To see some earlier material he has sent us, including some mouthwatering shots of early 20th century racing yachts, click here.

For some photos of later skiffs with rather more sheer at Ruswarp on the River Esk in Yorkshire, click here.

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