Category: Steam power

Arthur Ransome fans work to buy Swallow replica at Turk’s film prop boat auction

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

Arthur Ransome film boat Swallow for sale

Swallow is included in the Turk’s sale

Swallow, one of two dinghies made for a 1974 film of Arthur Ransome’s popular children’s novel Swallows & Amazons, is up for auction in a few days and Ransome enthusiasts are looking for supporters to help raise cash to buy her.

The idea behind the campaign is to get Swallow on the water so Ransome fans can have an experience just like in the books; anyone will be allowed to sail in her for a small fee, and those who have donated to the original appeal will be given credits towards an appropriate number of sailing visits.

Volunteers who skipper Swallow for the benefit of a non-sailing crew, drive her from place to place as needed, or undertake maintenance will not be required need to contribute. However, as the organisers of the bid say, the boat is not likely to be cheap, and they will need a lot of pledges to get their attempt to buy the boat off the ground. See the group’s website here: http://sites.google.com/site/swallowbid.

A separate bid to acquire the important 1906 steam launch Cygnet in the same sale has also been put together by the Heritage Steamboat Trust, the Thames Boats Trust and The Consuta Trust, which plan to bid for the important old craft and to exhibit and store her at Beale Park. The organisers believe they can access matching funds for 50 per cent of the purchase, but are also looking to enthusiasts for funds – as they say, if she was sold abroad or modified by a private buyer part of the UK’s marine heritage would be damaged or lost forever. For more information on the Cygnet project, see www.steamboattrust.org.uk/cygnet.htm.

The boats are part of an auction of boats used as film props currently to be held at Chatham by the long-established Thames boatyard Turk’s – click here for more on the sale.

Got a Yahoo account? Start receiving the weekly intheboatshed.net newsletter: sign up here

Water Craft magazine for March-April 2010 will be out very soon!

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

The latest Water Craft will be with us any day

It’s almost time for the next edition of Water Craft magazine to land on our doormats – so what’s in store this time around? Lots of boating goodies as usual – including the first of two big features by our friend Ben Crawshaw in which he reports on his adventures sailing his Light Trow named Onawind Blue. That feels like a real privilege, I must say, even though I’d prefer to seem my design used for rather less extreme adventures…

Here’s what Water Craft editor Pete Greenfield has to say about the upcoming issue:

So – how has boat craftsmanship, amateur and professional, fared through the long hard winter and the much longer and harder recession? In W80, we seem to have some of the answers.

Interestingly, for many professional wooden boat builders, the answer seems to be they are managing rather nicely thank you… though mostly with repairs rather than new builds.

At Peter Freebody & Co, for example, spiritual home of so many traditional Thames craft, Melanie Freebody tells Kathy Mansfield there may be snow on the roof but the boatshops beneath have rarely been busier.

Giving up the well-paid but stressful job in IT to learn to build wooden boats is a good idea for some. Certainly, on a dark dank morning in December when the students of 2009 launched the fascinating variety of craft they’d built at the Boat Building Academy at Lyme Regis, our Dick Phillips detected little stress… though maybe the champagne helped.

No nerves on the part of our tame amateur boatbuilder Peter Goad either, when Messrs Phillips and Chesworth turned up to sail the Cape Henry 21. Perhaps, as Peter explains in his final fit-out article, a five-year project encourages a relaxed and patient frame of mind.

Watch, on YouTube.com, Ben Crawshaw’s reports on sailing a small boat in the Med and you’ll see rather more evident anxiety. And reading about how he built his first boat, a slender lugger called a Light Trow intended for more sedate waters, in a public garden in Spain, you’ll encounter few manyana moments.

More sail than oar but definitely a craft to cope with exhilarating sea sailing, we think Paul Gartside’s free plans, complete with lines and offsets, for his 20ft (6m) lugger will persuade many a putative backyard boatbuilder to stop saying manyana and take the plunge.

As may the editor’s outdoor boat….

But outdoors, as Colin Henwood of Henwood & Dean Boatbuilders explains in his masterclass on painting and varnishing is not the ideal place to give your boat the finest finish for the new season. You need a big tent, kind-of like Water Craft itself.

Buy a subscription now (see the link in our right-hand column here at intheboatshed.net and pay with your credit card via PayPal) or find the March-April Water Craft in your local newsagents – to find a stockist in the UK see http://availability.mmcltd.co.uk

If you’d like to receive a weekly intheboatshed.net newsletter sign up here.

The First Melbourne Wooden Boat Festival

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

Wooden Boat Association members of the Melbourne and East Gippsland areas out on the water – click on the image for a video of local members’ boats

The people of Melbourne are going to have fun this coming weekend – for their Victoria Harbour is to be home to the first Melbourne Wooden Boat Festival.

The event involves all of the major wooden boat and classic yacht groups in the area, and is intended to be a great event for boating enthusiasts but also connect the broader public with the spirit of wooden boats, boating and traditional boatbuilding.

It sounds like a big old do, with on-water and landside displays, model sailing and racing boats, trade displays, shanty singers, in-harbour sailing, working boats displays, boat maintenance classes, a shipwright’s conference. Naturally there will be sailing, rowing, steamships, tall ships, knot tying, boatbuilding, book stores, classic powerboats and, thankfully, the coastguard will be on hand to tell people how to do it all safely. It’s all being organised by the enterprising woodenboat.com.au.

If you’d like to receive a weekly intheboatshed.net newsletter sign up here.