Category: Sailing boat

Three of the NMMC’s exhibits are on the water – and please vote to support the museum

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Andy Wyke onboard Curlew at the NMMC, aileen, pipkin, curlew, nmmc, national maritime museum, cornwall, national maritime museum cornwall, falmouth quay punt, falmouth regatta, catboat, cape cod catboat, yacht racing aileen, pipkin, curlew, nmmc, national maritime museum, cornwall, national maritime museum cornwall, falmouth quay punt, falmouth regatta, catboat, cape cod catboat, yacht racing

Pipkin, Curlew and Aileen

The pontoon at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall is busy again, now that summer is here: after a winter in the museum workshop Curlew, Aileen and Pipkin are all in the water. All three can be seen sailing up and down the river Fal throughout the summer.

Curlew is the oldest boat returning to the pontoon. A Falmouth quay punt that has travelled the world as a yacht, her career is one of the most varied, as it ranges from fishing boat to leisure cruiser to race winner.

Aileen is the very first St Mawes One Design. She was designed by Frank Peters after he was defeated in races off St Mawes, and was built for speed. She won three Falmouth Town Regatta Class races.

Pipkin is based on the design of the Cape Cod catboats and is used by the volunteers to hone their sailing skills.

On the subject of the NMMC, I’ve been asked to ask a favour of intheboatshed.net readers. It seems that the Our lighthouses: life on the rocks exhibition has made it to the semi-finals in the Best heritage project category of The National Lottery Awards, and needs your votes to make it through to the final.

Just 10 Lottery-funded projects are in contention. Voting is now open now and ends at midday on Friday 18 June.

To vote call 0844 686 7951 (calls cost 5p from a BT landline) or log on to www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/awards (which is free).

International 10 metre for sale, needs some attention

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international, 10 metre, metre yacht, racing yacht, for sale, £100, restoration project, yacht

Go on someone – take this one on, and you could become a restoration legend!

Click here to buy her for a princely £100!

My thanks to Dave Rowlands for spotting the advert.

Stunning Norfolk wherry Solace and her pretty marshman’s punt

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marshman's punt

Norfolk wherry Solace and her marshman’s punt

Still on the Norfolk Broads, my grateful thanks go to Nigel Royall for taking me down the river from Hoveton to see Solace, a stunning pleasure wherry built in 1903, and which has been in use every year since that date.

The Royall’s business makes much of its income from hiring Broads motor cruisers and dinghies, but also does a fair amount of restoration and maintenance work, as well as the occasional small build – of which more later. The jewel of this side of the business is caring for Solace for the Rudd family, who have owned Solace since the 1940s and are only the third family to do so.

So we set off to Wroxham Broad in Nigel’s gun punt Shoveler, and while Nigel and his colleague Steve got to work putting up a shelter on  the bows of the boat, I took some shots of both Solace’s stunning exterior – it’s wonderful to see a grand old boat that is so clearly loved by its owners and carers over so many years – and one of the bows of the family’s Brown Boat or Broads One Design called Redshank.

I also took quite a few shots of the little 16ft marshman’s punt tied to her stern. Royall’s recently made this little boat for the Rudds, and Nigel and Steve describe this as their favourite small boat at the moment.

Moulded in GRP from a traditionally-built marshman’s punt Nigel built some years ago, they say that it’s a superb rower, and looking at it on the water I have no doubt that it is – and I also have little doubt there will be some others in the area who would be interested in having a similar little boat, perhaps to tow behind a Broads cruiser or tie to a dock in their garden. Would Royall’s be willing to make further examples of this pretty little boat to order? I think they might be persuaded…

There’s more on Norfolk wherries here and here (there’s quite a lot here so you’ll  need to scroll down and use the links to go back through previous pages), and more on Royall’s yard and Nigel’s small boat projects here.