Category: wooden boat

Classic Yacht TV – short videos about sailing classic yachts and working craft

Classic Yacht TV has been set up to offer short documentaries from the classic yachting and work boat scene on a monthly basis.

The folks behind it are London-based photographer and multimedia artist Emily Harris, who grew up sailing and sculling on the East Coast of England in smacks, yachts and dinghies, and photography and film production expert Robin Weaser.

They say they’re looking for advertising and I wish them better luck in that direction than Intheboatshed has experienced – despite notching up more than 18,000 uniques a month…

Viking Boats of Ullapool or The Trouble with Old Boats

I just love the cover photo of boat builder Adrian Morgan of Ullapool’s weblog Viking Boats of Ullapool or The Trouble with Old Boats. Read the story behind the shot here.

Lately he’s been posting about a duck punt (great photos by the way!), about the dilemma that boatbuilders face when for practical reasons it becomes impossible to precisely adhere totally to a designer’s drawings, and about Shetland boats. I say Read The Trouble with Old Boats here.

Can anyone save a Watson class lifeboat?

The Frederick Kitchin in Cambridgeshire

THIS BOAT HAS NOW PASSED INTO NEW OWNERSHIP

A chap called Alan has got in tough to say that he is desperately trying to find a new home for an ex-RNLI Watson class lifeboat, built in about about 1908.

She’s listed as the Frederick Kitchin by the National Historic Ships, which has got a small but useful few items of history. It seems she was the first motor lifeboat stationed at Beaumaris on Anglesey, and may have been the first to have an engine fitted during building.

I’m told she has a good double-diagonal construction wooden hull of Honduras mahogany. Alan’s son bought the Frederick Kitchin aiming to restore her, but the Cambridgeshire marina where it is based is closing and it has proved impossible to find somewhere affordable to keep her – and the alternative seems to be the old boat’s destruction.

There’s a little more about her history here and here.

Contact Alan at ajc2647@aol.com if you can help!