Category: Small boats

Mike Lowson helps rescue an unusual pram from becoming a prize-winning flowerbed

Kinloss pram dinghy repaired and restored by Ian Lawther of NorthboatsKinloss pram dinghy repaired and restored by Ian Lawther of Northboats

Out here in what we laughingly call the real world, I think we know that boat restoration isn’t all about swept teak decks, priceless customised bronze castings and acres of spotless Dacron subtly shaded to imitate the best Egyptian cotton.

But I was nevertheless tickled to hear that Aberdeenshire-based boat builder Mike Lowson, proprietor of Northboats, has helped save a 40-year old pram dinghy from becoming a flower planter in the Moray town of Forres.

The 11ft 6in dinghy was apparently built in the late ’60s or early ’70s by personnel at RAF Kinloss, a few miles from Forres, for use by the Kinloss base’s angling club. The  boat spent most of its life at a nearby inland loch.

With the announcement earlier this year that the base was to close, the boat was earmarked to become firewood or to end its days in the town as an ornamental flower bed – Forres is a five-time overall UK Britain in Bloom winner.

‘A former employee at the base heard of the plan and, thankfully, rescued her from an ignominious fate that no wooden boat should face,’ Mike told intheboatshed.net. ‘He and his son then began stripping her back to start the process of making her fit for a return to angling duties.’

Mike was asked to re-frame her and to tackle some of the other deficiencies caused by the ravages of time.

‘The boat was rustically built, to put it politely, and the utility-timber planking is not of the best, but by carefully removing the remaining cracked frames one at a time to keep her shape, I was able to fit new frames of Scottish oak, traditionally nailed and roved in place.

‘I also added a couple of new floors, too, plus a new aft seat in matching oak and a new quarter-knee to replace one that was missing.’

The boat’s owners now intend to make the boat watertight and return her to her original mooring.

Mike added: ‘She is much too interesting to be scrapped and I look forward to her being filled with fresh-caught brown trout rather than begonias and geraniums.’

Mike is a 2008 graduate of the Boat Building Academy at Lyme Regis, and in January 2009 set up Northboats near Insch, some 30 miles north-west of Aberdeen.

Currently, he is completing a faering built to Iain Oughtred’s Elf design, restoring a small yacht tender and refitting a 35-year-old Westerly Centaur.

Mike Lowson can be contacted via his business’s website at www.northboats.co.uk.

Ready About on the River Blackwater, by Creeksailor Tony Smith

Creek Sailor Book Cover Goldhanger Creek

Blackwater book cover; Goldhanger Creek 

Ready About on the River Blackwater is a delightful little book by Creeksailor.

His real name is Tony Smith, but as his self-chosen name and title suggest, Creeksailor is a small boat enthusiast fascinated by the creeks and shoals of the northern part of the Thames Estuary and of the Blackwater in particular.

It wouldn’t be too much to say that Tony adores the place, but I only discovered why very recently. I have once sailed on the Blackwater but it was an open water sail and, naturally, I came away thinking it was a pleasant and sheltered estuary with some interesting features that should be seen at closer quarters.

Fair enough, you might think, but one evening this summer, by chance we found ourselves standing on the seawall at Goldhanger Creek where – bang! – it came to me. Finally I saw what Tony sees: an extensive sheltered area of inlets and creeks waiting to be explored and few people to disturb the peace.

We have our own creeks and ditches around the Swale of course but some day, when there’s time and the right weather, I hope to sail over and have a good look round from our own shoal-draft boat.

In the meantime, what does Ready About on the River Blackwater have to offer?

It opens with a foreword by Tony’s guru, legendary East Coast sailor and navigation expert and teacher Charles Stock. What follows is not a guidebook, but describes a series of visits and a series of places, which Tony does pretty well.

He’s informative, gives an up to date picture of how things are on this coast, takes the time to tell just enough of the history, and, like many earlier sailing writers on this area, has some good stories to tell. It’s quite enough to get anyone interested in sailing the Blackwater, and will be well worth taking afloat to re-read for points of local interest while waiting for the tide. Handily, it’s a fairly slim volume that’s easily carried.

But what Tony’s book offers that most earlier prophets of East Coast sailing could not is photos – lots of them, and in colour. With earlier writers, you have to close your eyes and half-guess half-interpret what’s being described – which is difficult for beginning sailors, and those who only sail keelboats. Just how small can a creek be and still be navigable?

With Ready About in your hands, it’s possible to see what he’s so enthusiastic about, and make your own judgements.

The book could have done with a bigger map (in two parts, perhaps?), and that here and there it might have benefited from slightly sharper proofing (as could this weblog, no doubt). But these are tiny things: it’s a super little book, and when I finally closed the back cover, I wanted more. I hope Tony goes on to write and publish more of this kind of thing.

PS Creeksailor is also a busy weblogger, who’s well worth following. Read his weblog here – I guess it’s also the best place to find out where and when copies of Ready About may be bought, and I gather there a new print run is just about to arrive on Tony’s doorstep…

Boat Building Academy students Martin Nott and Alistair Munro build a 6.5m Charles Sibbick Half-Rater

Victorian Half Rater built in strip plank Victorian Half Rater built in strip plank - Martin Nott - DT

Photos by Derek Thompson and Emma Brice

Two students at the  Boat Building Academy have built and launched this remarkable skimming dish designed by Charles Sibbick.

The story began in 2006 when after a 30-year career in sports magazine publishing Isle of Wight-based Martin Nott decided he needed a new challenge and restored a 1902-built boat  Sibbick boat, Witch.

When he became the proud owner of the National Register of Historic Vessels-listed boat, he enrolled on the  Academy’s one-week boat restoration course to gain more knowledge and skills relating to the construction of traditional boats.

He then became increasingly fascinated by wooden boats and joined the Boat Building Academy in September 2010 to start the 38-week boat building course during which he was able to build another Sibbick design, Diamond, a 6.5m fin-and-bulb keel carvel-built skimming-dish half rater dating from 1897. He worked from an old set of lines and from photos.

Alistair Munro, who helped Martin build Diamond, was previously managing director of an advertising agency. The boat building course was the start of a major career change.

A mixture of traditional and modern construction methods were used in building Diamond: she has a red cedar strip-planked hull with a yellow cedar deck and mahogany coamings. She is partially decked, has a cockpit and is fitted with a traditional lug rig, and bronze fittings, many of them custom-made. See Martin’s weblog of the build here.

Diamond is now on the Isle of Wight, where Martin plans to race her, and to build a 30ft Sibbick Rater. He is currently working one day a week for Classic Boat and Yachts & Yachting, while looking for work as a shipwright or boat builder.