Category: Techniques

The horizons of Ben Crawshaw

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It’s been an entertaining and cheering couple of days here at Intheboatshed.net Towers. Following yesterday’s jolly boat-nut’s outing to Turk’s boatyard at Chatham, today brought two nice pieces of news relating to the Light Trow: first that another Light Trow is about to be built in Australia, and, second, that a TV documentary about Ben Crawshaw’s boat building and sailing adventures made by a Catalan television company is now available for all of us to see over the Internet.

Click here to go to Ben’s own weblog post about the documentary including a link to the programme itself. It’s an entertaining and nicely shot piece of work, even if like me you can make out only a few words.

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POST-SCRIPT The drawings for the full-sized Light Trow Mk2 are now close to complete. If you’re interested in building this boat email me at gmatkin@gmail.com, and I’ll send you them – but only if you promise not to share them without my permission!

More photographs from Hastings: statues and portraits of historical celebrities

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francis drake, nelson, cloudesley, shovell, admiral, hastings, photographs, monuments, house

francis drake, nelson, cloudesley, shovell, admiral, hastings, photographs, monuments, house francis drake, nelson, cloudesley, shovell, admiral, hastings, photographs, monuments, house

The house that once belonged to Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell’s mum

Also in Hastings we found this extraordinary house. Perhaps the last time I walked along this road I failed to make the obvious connection, but this time I didn’t fail to make it and took the shots that duty required.

The story of Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell is that he happened to be in charge when a large but off-course portion of the British Navy hit the Scilly Isles instead of sailing safely up the English Channel, as had been expected.

It was a miserable end to what must previously been a glittering career full of successful heroics – but it wasn’t in vain because the historians say that the renewed interest in navigation that followed led to the development of the chronometer.

Sir Cloudesley’s body was found washed up on a Scilly Isles beach, and he is now commemorated in Westminster Abbey by a monument made by the legendary Grinling Gibbons, no less.

Hastings seems to be keen on its big-name maritime heroes; within a quarter of a mile of the Shovell house, we came upon these reminders of Sir Francis Drake and Admiral Lord Nelson.

francis drake, nelson, cloudesley, shovell, admiral, hastings, photographs, monuments, house francis drake, nelson, cloudesley, shovell, admiral, hastings, photographs, monuments, house

Win a Native American birchbark canoe in Penboscot museum raffle

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Win, birchbark canoe, Penobscot Indian, canoe, raffle

The birchbark canoe being raffled by the Penobscot Maritime Museum; photos courtesy of Jeff Scher

Penobscot Maritime Museum officials are raffling what I’m told is is a very fine replica of a Wabanaki
birchbark canoe of the early 19th century.

The Wabanakis were the indigenous people of Maine and New Brunswick, and included the Micmac, Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Malecite and Abenaki tribes, and the canoe certainly sounds splendid from the description. It’s 16ft overall and made from birchbark lashed to white cedar gunwales using split spruce root, with seams sealed with a mixture of pine sap and fat.

It was built at the museum by a team of Native Americans from Maine and New Brunswick, led by Maine boatbuilder Steve Cayard; and the proceeds of the funds will be used to pay for another similar boatbuilding project at the museum in 2010.

Click here for details and to buy tickets: www.penobscotmarinemuseum.org/pressreleases.html