Category: wooden boat

Two Witches on show at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall

Andy Wyke and Dorset crab and lobster boats Witch of Worbarrow and Witch of Weymouth Andy Wyke and Dorset crab and lobster boat Witch of Weymouth

Boat Collection Manager, Andy Wyke with Witch of Worbarrow (front) and Witch of Weymouth (back). Boat Collection Manager, Andy Wyke with Witch of Weymouth.

Boat builder Ian Baird’s Witch of Weymouth replica of a Dorset crab and lobster boat is now on show at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall, together with the 100-year old original on which she’s based.

Witch of Worbarrow was built in 1902, and was used for catching lobsters and crabs up to six miles out to sea in Worbarrow Bay, near Weymouth. She is believed to be the only boat of her type still surviving, but after so many years of use is now too frail to put on the water.

While as a student at the Lyme Regis-based Boat Building Academy, Ian decided to build a replica of Witch of Worbarrow and so built Witch of Weymouth. The result is a traditional clinker built boat, with larch planks laid over oak frames.

Naturally, the new Witch is now the only boat of her kind still in use.

‘It would be impossible to recreate over 100 years of modification and wear and tear that her older sister has endured,’ says museum boat collection manager Andy Wyke. ‘Ian, however, took great pains to accurately copy the lines of the old boat and the final result is a beautiful representation.’

The two Witches will be on display together NMMC until end of December 2011.

BBA students build 10ft traditional clinker dinghy

Clinker built dinghy made by Ollie Rees and Tim Herman  Clinker built dinghy made by Ollie Rees and Tim Herman

 

Wally photos by Jon Palmer and Derek Thompson

Ollie Reed built this 10ft clinker dinghy while on the Boat Building Academy’s38-week course over the past winter and spring. It’s a replica of a dinghy called Barnacle belonging to instructor Mike Broome, and is built in mahogany with oak ribs and a mahogany fit-out.

While working as a labourer building building oak barns, houses and doing house repairs, he decided to do the BBA’s eight-week woodworking skills course to learn more about this kind of work – and while doing that was so impressed with what he saw going on with the 38-week long boatbuilding course that he decided to make it his next move.

Ollie felt the long course would take his skills to a higher level and open new doors – and that the skills involved in boat-building would be transferable to all sorts of things and offer a variety of opportunities in the long term.

Tim Herman helped Ollie to build the dinghy. Tim, who comes from Brighton, was previously a tree surgeon. He also plays saxophone with his band, Los Albertos.

With the end of the course nearing, Ollie decided that boat building is the industry in which he would like to work, and is now working locally while looking for a job in a traditional boat yard. Tim is currently building timber-framed houses in the Lyme area and playing with his band.

Ian Baird restores a 1961 Burnham on Sea motor launch

Yoma II 1961 Burnham on Sea Motor Boat Company 'Sturdy 16' built at 14ft restored by Ian Baird Yoma II 1961 Burnham on Sea Motor Boat Company 'Sturdy 16' built at 14ft restored by Ian Baird

Yoma II 1961 Burnham on Sea Motor Boat Company 'Sturdy 16' built at 14ft restored by Ian Baird  Yoma II 1961 Burnham on Sea Motor Boat Company 'Sturdy 16' built at 14ft restored by Ian Baird Yoma II 1961 Burnham on Sea Motor Boat Company 'Sturdy 16' built at 14ft restored by Ian Baird

Yoma II 1961 Burnham on Sea Motor Boat Company 'Sturdy 16' built at 14ft restored by Ian Baird Yoma II 1961 Burnham on Sea Motor Boat Company 'Sturdy 16' built at 14ft restored by Ian Baird

Boat Building Academy graduate Ian Baird’s first professional commission is nearly ready to take to the water after an extensive restoration.

Yoma II is a 1961 Burnham on Sea Motor Boat Company-built vessel based on theirSturdy 16 model of the time. However Yoma was built at 14ft to the owner’s specification. ‘We think the original owner, Tony Palmer commissioned a smaller boat to make her more manoeuverable around the small harbour of her home port of West Bay in Dorset‘, says Ian.

‘This was a difficult restoration to take on as a first job. Yoma’s bottom had completely rotted out and everything from the fifth plank down from the gunwales had to be replaced.

‘Working as a one-man band isn’t easy, but I had help from some of the former BBA students from my 2010 course to get through the more difficult tasks, and she is now ready to go once her engine,  an original 1.5hp two-stroke Stuart-Turner, has been put back in.’

Her current owner, John Palmer, will continue to use her from West Bay as the tender to Yoma, a locally-built gentleman’s motor launch built in 1921.

While on the BBA course Ian Baird built the replica Dorset lobster and crab boat named Witch of Worbarrow – see an earlier post on this project here.