Category: Sailing boat

Becky Brown at the Boat Building Academy has written with some photos and more details from the December 2015 student launch. (See Pete Bromwich’s shots published here a few days ago.) She writes:

‘We had some terrible weather this week but yesterday morning, just as the boats were being walked to the harbour, the sun broke through the clouds and the wind calmed enough for us to launch two of the four boats built by the class of March 2015.

The two boats that launched were a cold moulded, bright-finished 18ft7in Robert Steward electric motor launch, Barbara Anne, and a traditional clinker 16ft Norwegian faering built from plans by Iain Oughtred.

‘The two larger boats built by the class are a 22ft7in Iain Oughtred Kotik with a two-berth cabin, and a replica of a Herreshoff 12 1/2. However, these could not be launched – due to some awful luck several members of the class had to take time out of the course – one student was hospitalised after a car crash, another had to spend time in Austria after his father had a serious accident, and two others had to spend weeks away due to illness.

‘As a result the two boats weren’t quite ready and, with the bad weather, it was decided that they should not be launched. They were big projects and visitors invited to an open workshop after the launch could see at close quarters the beauty of the enormous amount of work put into them.

‘When the two unlaunched boats are finally put in the water in Australia and Austria, their respective homes, students Andreas and Steven have promised to send video.

‘It was a great day nevertheless, and thank you to everyone who made the day such a splendid celebration.’

For more photos of the boats completed and in build, click here.