wooden boat – Page 14 – intheboatshed.net

28ft historic wooden boat for sale (or free to someone who will move it quickly)

Fellow musician and boat nut Alan Lamb is looking for someone interested in taking on a Royal Navy launch – he has found that he will be unable to use it for his original purpose.

If you’re interested, email me at gmatkin@gmail.com and I’ll put you in touch.

The 28ft, 10ft beam double diagonal construction mahogany on oak launch comes with a 68hp diesel engine. The boat was originally the launch for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary salvage vessel Kinbrace. It was built in 1945 and saw service during the Suez Crisis in 1956 and with the UN in Somalia in 1994.

The mother ship was broken up in 2004 and the launch was used for mackerel fishing out of Pool Harbour for some years.

He bought partly as a piece of experimental archaeology: I had moved to a cottage on the banks of the upper Severn near Bridgnorth. Knowing that much larger boats used the river until about 1900 (although they often had to wait till the water was high enough) I intended to restore the boat and see if it was sometimes still possible to use a boat of this size on the river – the boat has a fairly shallow draft and a large engine.

However, as I have got to know the river better over the last few years I realised that the fish weirs that used to be common on the river increased the depth of the pools.These fish weirs and the barge gutters that bypassed them were crucial to the former navigation by large boats, so I had to abandon my plans.

The planking seems sound and in general it seems a strong boat but there is some rot at the top of some of the ribs. A poor quality plywood and fibreglass deck was added at some stage and this would need replacing as would the steel sheathing on the keel timber. When I bought the boat two years ago I was told that it floated and that the engine was in working order but I have not tested either of these claims. The engine is out of the boat at present

The boat is on blocks outside building eight, The Royal Ordnance depot, Weedon, Northants and can be viewed at any time. It has to be moved as soon as possible and in view of this any reasonable or even unreasonable offer will be accepted. The new owner would be responsible for moving the boat and should make their own enquiries about haulage costs, if necessary.

Eyemouth museum boat and historic maritime items collection goes under the hammer

Auctioneer Sweeney Kincaid is selling the contents of the large Eyemouth World of Boats collection held at locations at Eyemouth, Cardiff and Lowestoft. Be quick, for it closes 12 Noon on Wednesday 26th July.

The item are being sold under the instructions of the liquidators of Eyemouth International Sailing Craft Association Limited (Eisca), a Scottish registered charity.

It is a genuinely big sale, with some 270 boats from around the world including working boats from the UK and round the world (fancy buying a junk, sampan, a pearling dhow or an Azorean whaleboat?) classic racing dinghies, a currach, and a gorgeous North American Whitehall skiff. There really is some very interesting stuff here…

There’s also a photo archive, books and maritime ephemera. To get a sense of it and find items you might be interested in, see the online listing.

The collection started life at the Exeter Maritime Museum (ISCA) in 1968 and was added to during the time it was in the hands of Eisca.

Frankly, it’s a stunning collection – and I don’t think we’ve seen anything like it since Turk’s sold its collection of boats used for film and television work some years ago. Both sales underline the fragility of collections held in the private and voluntary domains – if things don’t go well, at any moment collections and material can be lost, including both the artefacts and the information about them.

The entire contents of Eisca locations throughout the UK will be auctioned individually, here online, closing online on Wednesday 26th July at 12 noon.

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The Salcombe lifeboat disaster of 1916

‘On Friday, October 27th 1916, an appalling calamity befell the South Devon port of Salcombe. the lifeboat (the William and Emma) had been called out about six o’clock in the morning to render assistance to the schooner Western Lass, which was reported to be wrecked on Meg Rock, near Prawle Point.

‘In spite of the furious gale that was raging and the tempestuous breakers on Salcombe Bar, the gallant crew of fifteen succeeded in getting out to sea, and in reaching the vessel that was in distress; then, finding that the schooner’s crew had been rescued by the rocket apparatus of Prawle, and that no further help was needed, they started on their return voyage, but in crossing the bar their little craft capsized, and all but two of their number were drowned. Most of them were married men, who leave not only their widows, but also twelve very young children to mourn their loss.’

Read more about this terrible loss that befell the community of Salcombe in the midst of another, the Great War, here, here and here.

Here are some of the graves and centenary commemoration plaques in Salcombe’s graveyard.