Category: Rowing boat

Great finds discovered and restored: two Macgregor canoes and a Salter’s rowing gig

Macgregor canoe

Salter's skiff before restoration by Adrian Morgan Salter's skiff restored by Adrian Morgan

Adrian Morgan wrote a couple of weeks ago to remind me of some treasures that I might have missed. He’s right, I need to make amends – though in my defence nobody mentioned them to me at the time!

(Note to traditional boat builders: please tell me what you’re doing, as this website gets seen by a lot of people!)

One important find was two rare and very beautiful MacGregor canoe found in the Marquess of Aberdeen’s sawmill loft a year or so ago – Macgregors are very rare and Adrian says the canoes came with full documentation. Adrian says the canoes were like Bugattis found in a barn: complete with chicken poo and swadust, they had been untouched for nearly 100 years.

Naturally, the Royal Canoe Club were over the moon and the canoes have since been restored by Colin Henwood.

There’s more about Macgregor here and here.

Another discovery at the same site was a half-rigged rowing gig made by Salter’s, which Adrian went on to restore – there’s more about this boat at Adrian’s website, but he says the colour of the Brazilian mahogany that appeared after weeks of stripping the gig was amazing. After treating the splits, liberal doses of Varnol brought the timber back from dry lifelessness to rich, deep colour.

Traditional boat builder Adrian Morgan is based at Ullapool and has a website at www.viking-boats.com and a weblog at www.thetroublewitholdboats.blogspot.com. The weblog is certainly interesting: recent posts argue for working with your hands rather than a mouse; praise the Jumbo, the Solent and the work of  Fair Isle boat builder Ian Best; and appeal for plans for longish gun punts.

PS – I’m reminded that informative notes on the Rob Roy canoe are included in Macgregor’s book The Rob Roy on the Baltic, which is available from Dixon-Price Publishing. There’s also some material in the book Practical Boat Building For Amateurs.

Wooden Boatbuilding – a review

Wooden Boatbuilding Jean-Francois Garry

Baffled by the difference between a futtock and a fashion piece? Would you like to be able to read a set of offsets or take off some lines? Would you like an attractive, nicely illustrated guide to the principles of traditional-style boatbuilding to read over Christmas?

Wooden Boatbuilding could well be the book for you.

The first in a new series about classic boats from Adlard Coles, this is a very attractive and nicely designed book written by a well known French boatyard and chandlery owner Jean-François Garry, and translated into English.

There are sections discussing boat plans and how to choose between designs, taking-off lines, lofting, timber types, the various components of traditionally built boats and the techniques required to plank hulls and decks, boat carpentry and maintenance. Despite the book’s claims for itself, I wouldn’t want to attempt any of this stuff having read this book alone, but it certainly provides a useful introduction.

There’s a very Gallic theme among the photos and illustrations, and the occasional appearance of words in settings unfamiliar to a native English speaker remind one that the material was originally written in French. In the foreword, for example, we learn that the book gets to the point in a helpful manner ‘by deliberately overlooking difficulties that an amateur would not encounter’. Elsewhere, ‘oak is widely used for classic yachts but so too are red woods’. We know what’s meant but we haven’t heard it put quite like that before.

Happily, the technical side of the translation seems to be correct throughout, so I don’t think there’s any danger of learning something that later turns out to be misleading. There’s also a very useful collection of recommended reading, a short section on the Recreational Craft Directive (RCD) and a glossary. The only thing that lets it down are some rather dodgy and fuzzy photos that look like they’ve been placed at low resolution by mistake.

This very attractive and useful package would make a nice gift for many people interested in traditional boats, and is available from Amazon.

BBA student launch day December 2010

Boat Building Academy class of March 2010 in crab and lobster boat Witch of Weymouth

Boat Building Academy class of March 2010 in crab and lobster boat Witch of Weymouth. They make a heroic load for a 14ft boat

Boat Building Academy crab and lobster boat Witch of Weymouth Boat Building Academy student launch 2010 Boat Building Academy student launch 2010

More photos from the day – explanations will no doubt follow in the next few days

Boat Building Academy principal Yvonne Green has written to tell us about the student launch day at Lyme last Thursday. If you’re outside the UK, you may not know what we’ve had a generally horrible winter up to now – but that’s the reason for Yvonne’s enormous relief that once again the big launch event was blessed with good weather.

Here’s what she has to say:

‘It was a another brilliant launch day with boats and bright sunshine. We’ve had so much luck over the years that the Great Boat Builder in the Sky must be on our side

‘Nine students launched five boats, including Witch of Weymouth, and one student proposed to his girlfriend, on bended knee, in the middle of the harbour and on his boat’s first time out… It was a risky business but all went well and she said yes.

‘The boats were:

  • cold-moulded 13ft 6in electric motor launch
  • glued clinker 14ft Whitehall skiff
  • strip planked 15ft Chestnut canoe
  • 18ft strip planked gaff rigged daysailer
  • traditional clinker 14ft Dorset crab and lobster boat Witch of Weymouth

‘The BBC filmed Witch of Weymouth’s launch because of a piece they’d run about her build earlier in the year, but the other boats deserved just as much attention.

‘The motor launch is now on her way to Australia, the canoe was last seen heading for Norwich on a roof rack and the daysailer is stored in a garage until the summer. Witch of Weymouth will grace the workshop until after Christmas, when she’ll go home to Portland before heading off to the National Maritime Museum Cornwall at Falmouth.

‘Attached are some photographs of the day – our favourite is the class of March 2010 all looking jolly in Witch of Weymouth. More will follow next week.’

Chris Partridge of Rowing for Pleasure has more on the Whitehall skiff and it’s builder’s amazing public proposal here. There’s also a Youtube video including photos from the workshop here.

Thanks Yvonne! We’re looking forward to hearing more shortly. Also if anyone has any further photos, Youtube videos or anything else they’d like to send in, please let me know at gmatkin@gmail.com.