Category: Rowing boat

A love song about the Montagu whaler

Montagu whaler – a boat type that inspires a deep affection among some of those who have known them well

There’s a song about everything in my experience, and I’m not shy about reminding folks of this important cultural fact. I find they nod and smile, and pull expressions that show they think I’m being silly.

But this is an important matter, and I know I’m right, and that the evidence is there for those who look for it. So I was delighted this week a thread on the astoundingly bonkers Mudcat forum that led me to a song that pays  tribute to a famous boat used by the British Navy – the Montagu whaler. Made by a chap called Bernie Bruen and sung here by Shep Wooley (thanks for the correction in the Comments John D Salt!) it’s available from the British Library sound archives website.

Bernie has a nice way with words, I’m sure you’ll agree.  Listen to it here.

For more Intheboatshed.net posts about whalers, click here.

PS –

BBA students launch their boats on the 5th December – and you are invited

 

Readers are invited to join Boat Building Academy students and staff at 10am on the 5th December to see this year’s class of 18 students who have completed the 38-week course launch their boats into the water at Lyme Regis Harbour.

It will be a morning to remember, as the students launch their boats, and in many cases mark the beginning of what we all hope will be successful careers in boat building.

To see the boats going together and to find out more about the students as the big day looms, click here.

To get a taste of the event, there are some photos of the BBA’s last student launch day here.

A classic flattie skiff on the river Vilaine, Brittany

 

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.