Category: River boats

Would you like to see your project here?

Forest & Stream skiff

Just about everyone who comes to these pages is some kind of boat nut, and I’m a boat nut too. I’d like to make this weblog as interesting and useful to us all as possible, and I want to fill it with news and photographs about:

•Projects about old boats, historic boats, traditionally-built boats, and traditionally-derived boats.

•Boating history and traditions.

•The skills involved, the craftsmen and the available training.

So, whether you own these kinds of boats, work on them, sell them, build them, paint or photograph them, write about their history, design them, run a club or organise events, or collect old songs and stories connected with them – if you would like to bring your projects to the attention of a wider public, email me now at gmatkin@gmail.com!

Adding a small sail rig to an open canoe

We’ve had a lot of sailing cruisers lately, so I thought it would be good to draw some attention to the opposite – the sometimes nerve-wracking madness that is sailing canoes.

Leeboard support thwart

If you happen to have an open canoe and would like to be able to sail it, here’s a link to help you on your way:
http://www.enter.net/~skimmer/building/building.html

You might also want to consider this essay from Moray McPhail of Classic Marine discussing small boat bouyancy – I know I would!
http://www.classicmarine.co.uk/Articles/Reference%20buoyancy.htm

For these and many other essential articles on the techniques of getting your boat ready for the sprint, see the Techniques page at http://intheboatshed.net/?page_id=100

Temptation of a different kind, if you can stand it…

Well, I have to say she tempts me, and that you’d have to be very hard-hearted not to love her!

She’s a 1935 National 12, and has just been sold by Wooden Ships at Dartmouth. She’s just so sweet and with a new set of sails she could be ready for this summer…

The National 12 was designed by Uffa Fox before WWII as a class racing dinghy, and this example is in a complete time-warp, having been kept ashore for over 20 years after remaining in the same ownership from new until last year.

Built from clinker mahogany with all-copper fastenings, she has a galvanised-steel centre plate, a mahogany drop rudder, and is complete with an original gunter cotton sail on an original bamboo yard and a bronze main-sheet horse.

Clicking on the image will bring up a larger image.

http://www.woodenships.co.uk/

1935 National 12