Category: Boating, boats, ships and the sea

The moment every boat restorer looks forward to, hopes for, and dreams about

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Ross Lillistone’s restored Finn

Sailing in perfect conditions and looking good… Here is a Flickr set of boatbuilder and restorer Ross Lillistone’s restored Finn thought to have been built for the 1956 Olympics. As Ross points out, the sail isn’t quite right, but she looks great to me!

Here’s Ross’s email to me about it:

‘Dear Gavin,

‘The set was put up by Michael Storer after I sent him a few pictures of the boat after an on-line conversation.

‘The boat was restored by an apprentice at Norman Wright & Sons in Brisbane quite a few years ago, and passed through several hands before coming to me. Research suggests that she was originally KA 6, but in the photos she is carrying the sail KA 151, which itself carries a stamp from the 1970 Finn Gold Cup. I’m afraid that I can’t take credit for the restoration, but I am the custodian and maintain her. She is a beautiful boat, built from five layers of diagonal cedar, with an Australian red cedar plywood deck. Super to sail, even for a 54 year-old like me!

‘You may be interested in other photos which appear on my website. The boat I’m working on at the moment can be seen under the buttons labeled Periwinkle Photos (1, 2 and 3). She is a design and build commission, and you will see that her layout bears a striking resemblance to Nathanael Herreshoff’s Coquina. This was definitely not a case of copying, but rather an example of convergent evolution, separated by one-and-a-big centuries. The rig configuration determined the layout.

Please let me know if you want more photos (or drawings) of any of my stuff.

‘Cheers,

‘Ross’

Thanks Ross. To you and to other professionals, I’d say that intheboatshed.net focuses on traditional, traditionally built and vintage boats, with occasional forays into modern designs derived from traditional types. If you’ve got a story to tell, please get in touch. I need good photos, and 200-300 words or a little more if you need them to tell your story.

Photos of the Regates Royales de Cannes 2008 from Guy Capra

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Swept decks to die for

Guy Capra sent me links to some photos he took of this year’s Regates Royales de Cannes annual meet. Guy, you may remember, is the inventor and promoter of the Godyoto.

Here’s his note:

‘Hello Gavin,

‘Here are some photos of the Regates Royales de Cannes I took – you can use or point to them if you want

‘I think the young man on the large yacht Moon Beam is an apprentice carpenter seen on the French TV today at the news TF1 13h.

‘Also, these photos show details of the Amerigo Vespucci when she was in Toulon recently, and here is an an interesting short video of making a traditional rope.

‘Guy’

Thanks Guy – some nice photos there!

Boats of the Humber Estuary

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Humber dusters – click on the image for more

The Humber blobber – click on the image for more

The striking Paull shrimper – click on the image for more

Some intriguing gems this morning from Goole on the Web. I grew up on the southern side of the Humber Estuary, and I’m always interested in the bits of information about the area’s boats that occasionally come my way.

The Goole on the Web folks have put up a series of pages on each of several important boat types, including the Humber duster,  the blobber, the Paull shrimper and the Humber trawler, as well as the better known billyboy, Humber keel and Humber sloop.

I can’t begin to guess why some of them have such intriguingly unfamiliar names!

It seems the area also had crab boats borrowed from Cromer on the Norfolk coast, and of course its own packet boats.

If the Hull-type duster looks familiar, this might be the reason! I gather the maritime museum in Hull has an example of a duster, by the way, but can find no pictures on the web, which seems a shame – I think both the duster and blobber have potential as the basis of modern-day small cruising boats.

PS The musuem at Hull has interesting links to pages and pictures of the ancient Ferriby boats, the Hasholme boat, and the impressive and even older Brigg log boat.

PPS – I’ve just learned that the illustrations that Goole on the Web have put up are likely to be the work of George Holmes, which would make sense. I’ll add more later when I know more, but in the meantime here are some samples of his artistic work from the Albert Strange Association weblog.

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