Category: Techniques

Psssst… wanna apprenticeship job in boatbuilding?

 

Restoration projects by Abingdon & Skabardis

Kyle Abingdon of Abingdon & Skabardis Marine Carpentry  has been in touch to say that he is looking for a part-time apprentice to work at his company’s workshops at Dargate near Favershhsam.

No knowledge or experience is required, but a driving licence and transport would be useful.

Kyle adds that the yard has lots of work at the moment including building four Oxford punts and restoring an ex-RNLI Oakley class lifeboat. CVs should be sent to Kyle at info@marinecarpentry.co.uk.

Bid to restore Portsmouth Dockyard Boathouse and open Portsmouth branch of the IBTC gets initial approval

Photo: Peter Facey, via Wikimedia Commons

Heritage Lottery Fund officials have announced that a bid to develop Portsmouth Historic Dockyard’s Boathouse no 4 to include a traditional boat building training centre run by the International Boatbuilding Training College has successfully passed the first stage of its application for funding.

If the bid is successful, Boathouse no 4, which was constructed during the massive 1930s period of re-armament and used for constructing the secret three man midget X-Craft submarine during World War II, will be restored and opened to the public as the Boatbuilding & Heritage Skills Training Centre.

Visitors will be able to watch traditional boat building in action, as well as enjoy exhibitions on the story of small boats in the British Navy.

As well as securing the future of Boathouse 4, the project is expected to help produce the craftsmen needed to preserve iconic ships such as HMS Victory and HMS Warrior, although graduates will leave the academy with carpentry and engineering skills to enable them to develop careers in the marine and heritage sectors more generally.

The Portsmouth branch of the IBTC will be in addition to the long-established college near Lowestoft in Suffolk.

See the Heritage Lottery Fund announcement.

Where is Tara Tari?

Young Frenchwoman Capuchine Trochet is due to begin her crossing of the Atlantic from the Canary Islands today in a small boat built in Bangladesh using a composite material based on jute and recycled materials, and based on local fishing boats.

Mlle Trochet has a weblog about her adventure here and, if you’re into that kind of thing, there’s also a Facebook page.

If the name Tara Tari sounds a little familiar, it will be because a 26-year old Frenchman with no knowledge of navigation, Corentin de Chatel Perron, sailed her 8000 miles from Bangladesh to France via the Indian Ocean, through the Gulf of Aden and the Suez Canal in 2010, and wrote a book about the adventure.

There’s a boat show YouTube video that gives some idea of the boat here.

I gather that he won the Moitessier Literary Award for 2011, but I hope Tara Tari’s present skipper is better prepared!

National Geographic has a spectacular shot of a fishing boat with a similar hull form here.