Small boats – Page 297 – intheboatshed.net

Smell the Sea, Feel the Breeze exhibition of paintings at Falmouth gallery

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

Running for Home by Charles Napier Hemy, one of the paintings
at the Feel the Breeze exhibition. Click for full-size image

The same painting at 1600, 1280 and 1024 pixels across – choose a size for your desktop!

Mike Haywood’s Barnabbas, St Ives fishing boat; and Jamie Medline’s Pandora, will also be on show

This impressive and exciting painting by Charles Napier Hemy RA will be a key exhibit at the Smell The Sea, Feel The Breeze show at Falmouth Art Gallery next month. Certainly I can smell the sea and feel the breeze here, but just look at that sheet – it’s hardly more than inches from gybing in water rough enough to push the little boat around. I hope they get home.

The exhibition aims to capture the variety of water, wind and waves from dramatic sailing adventures in wild waters to paddling in rock pools with Rupert Bear, and is being made possible by the generous sponsorship of TMS Financial Solutions, and Arts & Business South West which funded the additional insurance and the transporting of valuable works by distinguished Cornwall artists such as Henry Scott Tuke RA, Charles Napier Hemy RA, William Ayerst Ingram, Frank Jameson, Mike Haywood and David Hills.

Important loans from the Royal Society of Marine Artists Diploma Collection have been made available through the National Maritime Museum Cornwall. Work by one of Britain’s greatest abstract painters, Sir Terry Frost, is also being made available through private collections. Sir Terry’s career spanned seven decades, starting with his introduction to art in a prisoner-of-war camp. The featured works drew inspiration in Cornwall from sailing boats bobbing on the tide.

Also showing will be original works by contemporary Falmouth artist Jamie Medlin. Jamie is one of the country’s leading marine artists and is known widely through his prints. He currently paints beautiful classic yachts, and some of the best of these paintings have been borrowed for this exhibition. His art was included in the recent Christie’s sale of Important Maritime Paintings.

Falmouth has a long and proud association with sailing. The packet ships, ocean-going clippers and the coastal trading sailing vessels have long ceased their trade, but Falmouth can still attract major sailing events, from the famous Regatta to the arrival of ‘round the world’ yachtsmen.

The exhibition is mounted to celebrate and promote the Funchal 500 Tall Ships Race, which will be held in September 2008.

A full programme of gallery events has been designed to complement the exhibition, which will include free workshops for babies, children, families, schools and community groups. A full colour brochure sponsored by TMS Financial Solutions will be available priced £4.50.

The exhibition can be seen at Falmouth Art Gallery from 1 March to 26 April 2008, Monday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm. Admission is free. For more information about activities and education please contact Natalie Rigby on 01326 313863.

Share this with your social network using the Share this link below.

Book a room in South-East England

A Thames skiff at the NMM Cornwall

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

1905 Thames skiff on show at the NMMC, Falmouth. Naturally, I’ve asked the
curator to let me know what the boats in the background are!

The National Maritime Museum Cornwall at Falmouth has added a clinker-built River Thames skiff to its collection for ‘flying boats’, which hang from the ceiling, and can be viewed from above and below. It will remain in place for the whole of 2008.

Skiffs have long been used on the Thames as pleasure boats around the turn of the last century. Many are still in use today and can be seen during Swan Upping, an annual ceremony where swans on the River Thames are rounded up, caught, marked, and then released.

The particularly skiff on display was built by Hammerton of Thames Ditton in 1905 and features all her original equipment including part of the original cane in the back seat. I’ve linked to an interesting set of skiff plans drawings at this intheboatshed.net post.

A similar boat famously featured in Jerome K Jerome’s much loved 1889 novel Three Men in a Boat, which tells the comic story of three friends taking a boating holiday on the Thames between Kingston and Oxford. The trip was recreated for the BBC some time agao by comedians Griff Rhys-Jones, Dara O’Briain and Rory McGrath. More recently the same trio appeared in another reality TV entertainment in which they raced on board Rhys-Jones beautiful Phil Rhodes-designed yacht Undina.

Visit the National Maritime Museum Cornwall website.

Share this with your social network using the Share this link below.

Book a room in South-East England

Watch out for the woodpeckers!

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

Damage wreaked by a confused Norfolk woodpecker; Slantendicular in flight,
photographed by Mary Moore of Moore & Moore Exposure

Joe Field of Navigators & General insurance got in touch with an oddball story late last week. It seems that a boat kept in a Norfolk Broads boatyard came under attack from a feathery predator. I’ll let the owner Steve Law tell the story:

‘On a couple of occasions during last October, on arrival at the boat at the yard we found what looked like wood chips scattered over the cover. The first time I merely brushed them off and went sailing, as you would. The second time, a week later, I became suspicious and asked the yard owner if he could shed any light. He came, looked, pondered and declared he knew nothing about it.

‘Then we competed in the end of season Downriver Race from Horning to Thurne, and pushed her quite hard. Wet decks are not something our boat Slantendicular normally suffers, but she did that day.

‘I muttered something about having to tighten the shrouds later, since they looked a little slack. Having returned to base, forgotten about the shrouds and gone back to work for the week, we returned the following weekend to find yet more woodchips on the cover, even more than before and now there were even hard varnish on one side of some of them!

‘Was it the lads in the yard having a laugh? The boss came and looked, looked again, looked up – and suddenly knew what had happened.

‘”So that’s where the woodpecker’s been hammering! We’ve heard him for a few weeks now, but every time we came to look it all went quiet. But now we know – he was up your mast all the time!”‘

‘I’d like to say thanks to Nav & Gen, who have accepted the claim and a new mast will shortly be made – they have been first class in their handling – no fuss, just accepted the story, rolled over laughing, and gave the OK!’

Navigators & General approved replacement with a new spar, as the policy covers damage caused by external accidents which means including vermin – though of course it isn’t strictly fair to call a bird such as this woodpecker by that name.

On the boat itself, Steve has this to say: ‘My boatbuilding career started with an old Enterprise dinghy, which I almost had to rebuild, and a Selway Fisher canoe I built from plans. And then I built Slantendicular from my own drawings, with much help from David Williams, who has built several Broads Cruisers and other boats. I owe him a huge debt of gratitude.

‘Building Slanty then took three years or 1500 hours in the garage, leading up to her launch in April 04.’

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: