Category: Rowing boat

Projects at Stirling and Son, autumn 2011

Stirling and Son 14ft dinghy ashore in the mud Stirling and Son 14ft dinghy with one reef

Stirling and Son Victorian Yacht Hull Planking Complete and Faired Stirling and Son 14ft dinghy with All Plain Sail Stirling and Son 14ft dinghy Sailing Twice Reefed Down

Stirling and Son Mast Making Stirling and Son Lock Gate - Tenon Measuring Stirling and son Lock Gate Timbers

Click on the thumbnails for bigger images

Those busy folks at Stirling and Son have been getting on with an amazing range of projects. Building and marketing beautiful small traditional clinker-built dinghies is one thing, rowing to Magnetic North Pole is another, but how about building lock gates or appearing in adverts for soap? All this and a regular round of repair and restoration jobs are all in a day’s work for those Stirlings…

  • As the photo above shows (click on the thumbnail for a much larger image) the hull of the Stirling & Son Victorian yacht named Integrity is complete, and the rudder has been hung. The mast has also been hewn from a tree selected in a local forest. I say Integrity looks amazing and I believe she is available for sale.
  • Will has taken the 14ft sailing dinghy out for a trial. It was fairly windy, so he began with two reefs, and later shook them out as the wind fell and sailed under all plain sail. He reports that it was so much fun they kept sailing on past high tide – and it was a pretty muddy business getting her back out…
  • In a surprise non-boat project, Stirling and Son are building a new lock gate and cantilever bridge in oak for the Tavistock Canal. Due to the size of the timbers and the poor access, both have to be assembled in the shed, dismantled and then taken to the site in order to rebuild them in position. I guess it makes sense, for there’s no doubt that anyone who can build a Victorian-style yacht knows something about working with oak.
  • And what about the soap? From the Stirling & Son newsletter I gather the makers of Dove soap products decided that Will should be the subject of a shower product advert, and so their ad agency visited with a film crew.

Stirling & Son is based at Tavistock, Devon and can be contacted via the website at www.stirlingandson.co.uk or by ‘phone on 01822 614259.

The first volume of Rudder online

Rushton ad The Rudder magazine

The first year’s issues of the famous 19th century stateside boating magazine The Rudder placed online by Mystic Seaport is liberally sprinkled with strongly expressed views that seem deliberately calculated to offend someone or other.

Today, it all seems quaint but slightly crazy – yet many magazine editors will wish they could be so forthright today.

‘In a paper I saw the following wonderful what is it offered for sale : “A keel sloop, cutter rigged.” We shall soon hear of keel schooners, sloop-rigged and cutter-rigged catboats being bought and sold. How a yacht can be both sloop and cutter at one and the same time is something beyond me. The truth, sad to relate, is, very few if any of our large single-masted racing yachts are sloops; many of the best of them are cutters or that bastard rig which is so far nameless.’

I guess the writer means the rig with a single foresail on a jib. What is that called?

Again:

‘One thing strikes the buyer who reads the catalogue of J H Rushton: it is the perfect way in which everything is described. The most minute details of construction and finish of his craft are put down in plain English so that a purchaser knows just what he is going to get for his money. For that reason it is one of the best tracts for the suppression of profanity we have ever seen: he leaves the worst cranks no chance for a growl.’

And again:

‘The black-blight that invades and destroys the racing spirit in yacht clubs is the steam yacht. What quality of blood runs in the veins of a man who will willingly exchange the exciting and exhilarating pastime of sailing for the monotonous privilege of being driven around in a kettle? With obligations to the late Lord St Vincent, we remark that a yachtsman who descends to running a steam yacht is d——d for the sport!’

Thanks to The Good Old Boat Redwing weblog for the linking to these entertaining sets of scans.

Adrian Morgan builds an Oughtred Tammie Norrie

Iain Oughtred-designed Tammie Norrie built by Adrian Morgan of Viking Boats Iain Oughtred-designed Tammie Norrie built by Adrian Morgan of Viking Boats

Columnist and boat builder Adrian Morgan of Viking Boats has been putting together a handsome Iain Oughtred-designed Tammie Norrie that is destined for a Highland estate. In fact, it’s one of two lug-rigged dinghies ordered for use guests and family on a huge private loch.

The timber is old slow-grown Scots pine from Her Majesty the Queen’s estate at Balmoral and larch from the Oban area, with oak knees etc. He’s used larch too for the steamed timbers, as he believes it is longer lasting and more supple than oak, and also for the garboards.

Read all about it on Adrian’s engaging weblog The Trouble with Old Boats.