Category: Small boats

Fogo Island Regatta – a ten-mile rowing race on the open sea

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Fogo Islanders hold an annual ten-mile rowing race in traditional carvel-built rowing boats. I recommend you take a moment to enjoy the videos, and the deteminedly traditional rules. This isn’t a race that just anyone with a boat can enter:

‘A punt may be disqualified from The Great Fogo Island Punt Race to There and Back if it contains fiberglass, particularly if the hull has a fiberglass coating.’

‘The seam between each plank can be spunyarn, marlin or oakum. Petroleum-based sealants are not permitted.’

And

‘For a punt to be eligible to enter The Great Fogo Island Punt Race to There and Back it must be built by a local boat builder on Fogo Island or Change Islands.’

Fogo Island Regatta

PS – I’ve just discovered this very nice if slightly tricky website about traditional boatbuilding in neighbouring Winterton. Read the story explaining boatbuilding, or use the line of little white boxes to navigate the collection of photographs. There’s even a little song to learn…

Some odd bits of news in my in-box

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Dylan Winter\'s videolog Keep Turning Left

Dylan Winter’s engaging vlog Keep Turning Left

– A grand naming ceremony for two new Shetland sixareens

•Flyer’s Boat Yard restores the Old Pro

•Three Buzzards Bay 30s restored in Maine

•Ian Best traditional Shetland boatbuilder

•Catalogue for the 2008 Woodenboat show at the Mystic Seaport Museum, Connecticut

•Dylan Winter’s engaging video log Keep Turning Left

Light Trow Onawind Blue celebrates her birthday in style

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Light Trow Onawind Blue armed to the teeth for a substantial open
boat cruise along the Spanish East Coast. Photo by Ben Crawshaw

From The Invisible Workshop:

Tuesday, 24 June 2008; Onawind Blue’s birthday

‘A fitting day to leave but despite my best intentions I didn’t get going until 11am, the family waving from the beach as OB, under full sail, bore off south southwest beneath grey skies in a light, easterly breeze.

‘Blessed with a favourable wind we ran quickly down to Tarragona and then, as the wind increased—almost certainly due to the un-forecast deep, dark clouds grumbling on the western horizon, even more quickly.

‘To windward the gunmetal waters were flecked with white… ‘

Read the rest of the series here.

For more intheboatshed.net posts about the Light Trow, click here.

Light Trow Onawind Blue

Onawind Blue moored – photo by Ben Crawshaw
from his second report