Small boats – Page 47 – intheboatshed.net

Rescue Wooden Boats celebrates its second birthday

Norfolk’s Rescue Wooden Boats has just celebrated its second birthday and published the latest edition of its newsletter – and there is lots of news to share.

The first phase of the visitor centre just beyond the High Sands Campsite office at Greenway Stiffkey (NR23 1QP) is now open at weekends from 10:30am to 4:30pm for the summer. On display are films, photos and artefacts, and the restoration work going on in the workshop on the lifeboat and Dunkirk veteran Lucy Lavers. George Hewitt and Ben Riches have been fitting a new centreboard, and David Hewitt is working her canopy.

Rescue Wooden Boat’s online collection has now reached 80 short films and sets of photographs that provide an insight into the lives of the people who crewed the boats and used them to make livings through them using them.

Built by Billy May in 1974, the Norfolk crab boat Pegasus has been in Scotland for about 15 years in the hands of Bernard Thain.

During this time she has earned her keep supplying their restaurant and farm shop with seafood, but Bernard and family have decided to give Pegasus to the Rescue folks, and she arrived home in July.

See the Rescue Wooden Boats newsletter here.

Sharpies and a skiff up for auction at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum

Sharpies

An email from the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum has reminded me just how much boat types vary around the world – and it has to be said that the contrast between the form of the curvacious-lined and heavily built Whitstable oyster smack Emeline and the sharpies of the East Coast of America, also often used for oystering, could hardly be greater – as the shots above show.

The photos from the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum depict a series of boats given to the museum for sell for fundraising.

Apart from the 34ft sharpie and the 20ft Chesapeake sharpie shown at the top of this post, there’s also an example of RD Culler’s Good Little Skiff design up for sale, and an example of L Francis Herreshoff’s widely admired Rozinante design canoe yawl. These too are very unlike the general run of British boats – we do have our own small flatties, but there aren’t many of them and we don’t generally think of flat bottomed boats as being desirable.

It’s worth checking out the geography of the Chesapeake area to get a sense of the waters for which some of these boats were developed.

There’s a lot of other stuff up for sale by the museum – the auction is to be held on the 31st August, and the boats for sale by the museum are listed here.

Good Little Skiff

Rozinante

OGA celebrates 50 years in colourful style despite strong winds

Strong winds meant that just 60 boats completed the OGA’s 50th anniversary race at Cowes on Saturday, but it didn’t prevent the organisation’s members having a lot of fun.

Almost 200 traditionally rigged sailing boats gathered in Cowes Yacht Haven and Shepards Wharf Marina from all round the UK, and from as far afield as Holland, Belgium and France.

Some 141 boats registered to participate in Saturday’s big race, which would have set a new record for gaff-rigged boats racing together. However, strong winds deterred entrants, and only 94 boats started the race. Many then retired as the wind got up and the sea became rougher. But 60 stalwart boats soldiered on and finished the course.

One of the photos below by Keith Allso shows the 18ft Chough owned by Christine and David Christine Hopkins, which at 18ft the smallest boat to finish the race.

At the other end of the scale, the deep sea smack 68ft Pioneer was the oldest boat at the festival. originally built in 1864 and recently restored by the Pioneer Sailing Trust in Brightlingsea.

She once worked the fishing grounds off Terschelling, but now she takes groups of up to 12 young people from all sorts of backgrounds out to sea for an experience of a lifetime. This weekend she was crewed by a group of young carers.

Pioneer picked up more than one prize in the racing: she was first over the finish line, second in her class on handicap, and to top it all she was awarded the Youth Cup for the crew with the lowest average age.

OGA president Mike Shaw announced the launch of an OGA-sponsored youth fund to support the work of Pioneer and others like her.

Dutch visitors to the festival challenge the different UK OGA areas to make up a simple model racing boat using a kit comprising a clog, a shaped wooden keel and a lump of lead for ballast. A race was held in the marina as part of the regatta, and the winner was awarded a carved wooden tulip awarded by the Dutch skippers.

There’s more to read on the Sailing By website, and more here from Bonita.