Category: River boats

A little classic to build this spring

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Forest & Stream skiff in Sweden

Forest & Stream skiff in Sweden Forest & Stream skiff in Sweden Forest & Stream skiff in Sweden

It’s the LITTLE boat you’re meant to look at,
darn it! Not the BIG one!

Judging by the mail in my inbox, the boat-dreaming season is giving way to the boat-building season just a little before the buds open.

So I thought I’d pull a rabbit out of the hat – free plans for a little plywood dinghy anyone can build, but which happens to have classic proportions and an appealing, old-fashioned look. It could be built using the old-fashioned method using internal chine logs, or by stitch and glue.

It might appeal to model makers too, and in any case I’d argue that it’s always worth building a model before going the whole way to a full-sized boat.

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About the time I started to play with CAD and hull modelling software, someone – I think it was Craig O’Donnell of the Cheap Pages – kindly sent me some scans of a little sharp-bowed from a copy of the magazine Forest & Stream dating back more than a hundred years. He knew I was interested in understanding sharpies and skiffs at the time, and thought this one would catch my attention.

He was right. Not only was it a sweet boat, but I could see it making a nice early project for someone just learning to work CAD software. Click on the image below for the scan he sent me:

Forest & Stream skiff original scan

Forest & Stream skiff

There was just one snag. Continue reading “A little classic to build this spring”

Shipwright in Training makes a long garboard

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Shipwright in training makes a long garboard Shipwright in training makes a long garboard Shipwright in training makes a long garboard

Shipwright in Training is one of the most informative weblogs for old boat enthusiasts to be found anywhere. In this post, our hero makes a long garboard, and explains how he does it. It’s handsome, impressive stuff.

I’ve only one quibble – while I like the thought of his advice about doing one thing at a time and can see it working in the workshop, it’s surely impossible elsewhere. I speak, of course, as a parent, freelance journalist, house-holder, event organiser, amateur cook, musician, weblogger and…

Subscribe to comments – intheboatshed.net is now a little more social

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We’d love to have more comments and discussion here at intheboatshed.net – social networking is now such a big part of many people’s daily life, that we think regular intheboatshedders should also have better ways of communicating with each other.

A small step in that direction today is a gizmo that allows readers to subscribe to comments – when you make a comment now, you will be able to subscribe to particular comment streams, so that you know when comments are added to a post of particular interest. I’d guess this will be useful to anyone interested in knowing about responses to a comment they’ve made.

Another innovation that many will find easy to follow is the Recent comments box in the left-hand column. So get commenting, and come back to see what the others are saying!

And still another is the introduction of Gravatars – little 80 by 80 pixel images that you can use to represent yourself when you comment. It could be a photo or drawing of yourself, or your boat, or whatever – but please play nicely children! Go to http://gravatar.com to set yours up.

Why not tell us what you think of all this using the comments link below? Is it a step in the right direction – or is it pants?

Gavin