Category: wooden boat

12ft rowing dinghy built by Stirling & Son of Tavistock

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Rowing Will Stirling 12ft Dinghy

Rowing Will Stirling 12ft Dinghy boat Bow and Fairlead Rowing Will Stirling 12ft Dinghy boat Stirling and Son - transom Rowing Will Stirling 12ft Dinghy boat Thwarts Aft sternsheets and transom

Stern of 12ft Dinghy Rowing Will Stirling 12ft Dinghy boat

A recent 12ft rowing dinghy by Stirling & Son

These delicious photos come from regular contributor, boat builder, historian and designer Will Stirling of Stirling & Son. The plans for this boat are available to buy, as his letter below explains:

‘Dear Gavin,

‘Attached photos of the most recent dinghy, a 12ft pulling boat. She is built of mahogany and oak with copper and bronze fastenings.

‘The clocks have gone back now so it is time to string up some lights otherwise the working day is too short.

‘I now have plans available in the following format:

  • two sheets of A2 tracing paper
  • two sheets of A1 tracing paper, a scantlings list
  • a list of materials
  • a CD with photographs of various stages and details of dinghy building

‘The A2 sheets contain the lines draught and consrtuctional detail, the A1 sheets have templates of the moulds and transom with the planking marked out and templates of the backbone members (stem, sternpost, stern knee etc).

‘Plans in this format are now available for a 9ft general purposes dinghy and an 11ft pilot’s punt of circa 1900 and a 17ft salmon boat. These plans cost £50 plus postage and packaging of £2.50 in the UK.

‘Plans without templates are available for a 21ft frigate’s longboat of 1757, a 37ft smuggling lugger of 1835 and a 43ft gentleman’s cutter of 1880.

‘I hope you are well. The Intheboatshed website is going from strength to strength; it is very popular with Google.

‘Best wishes,

‘Will’

Many thanks Will! I do hope your plans go as well as they deserve – it’s only a shame that there aren’t more professional and home builders of these kinds of boats in the world.

Stirling & Son is based near Tavistock, Devon. See the company’s website  www.stirlingandson.co.uk
tel 01822 614259.

Woodbridge: a dockside stroll in photos

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Woodbridge from along the estuary

Woodbridge from the head of the estuary. Click on the thumbnails for much bigger photos

Woodbridge mill Woodbridge mill from a distance

Woodbridge tide mill

Woodbridge motor cruisers Woodbridge liveaboard Woodbridge liveaboard 3

Woodbridge liveaboard 2 converted lifeboat

Liveaboards at Woodbridge

Woodbridge outstanding shed Everson's Woodbridge cruising club wind vane Woodbridge Deben Yacht Club wind vane

Eversons’ splendid sheds; wind vanes belonging to Woodbridge Cruising Club and the Deben Yacht Club

Woodbridge Arwen Woodbridge Arwen 2 Woodbridge Arwen 3

The intriguing and delightful Arwen

Woodbridge motor boat

A very sweet little motorboat

Woodbridge Lowestoft smack LO136 Woodbridge Bawley LO136 2

Bawley Good Intent, with a London port designation

Woodbridge interesting small yacht Woodbridge pretty small yacht Woodbridge yacht 2

Woodbridge dinghies

Pretty yachts and picturesque dinghies

Woodbridge wall detail 2 Woodbridge wall detail 1

Wall details from the old quayside, which is now set well back from the river

Calshot tender tug trust seeks 20ft lifeboats for Titanic maiden voyage 100th anniversary

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Tender tug Calshot with Olympic, sister ship to the Titanic

Tender tug Calshot with Olympic, sister ship to the Titanic

The Tender Tug Calshot Trust is seeking two 20ft ship’s lifeboats for the tender tug Calshot in time for an event marking the 100th anniversary of the day the liner Titanic left Southampton and set off on her maiden voyage.

Sadly, the Calshot’s original lifeboats were left in a yard by the former owners, with the result that they deteriorated to a point where they had to be scrapped.

The anniversary is on the 10th April 2012, and I gather television historian Dan Snow is scheduled to present a live television programme.

In addition to the two replacement lifeboats, the trust is also seeking information about whether any of the original Titanic lifeboats have survived, as it has learned that they were reallocated to other White Star liners following the ship’s famous and tragic sinking.

The Tender Tug Calshot Trust was set up in 1997 with the prime aim of restoring Calshot to the way she was in the 1930s.

She’s included in the National Historic Ships list of 200 vessels of pre-eminent national significance, and in fact she’s no ordinary tug. Built in Southampton by Thornycroft’s at Woolston, she was a tender as well as a tug, and was certified to carry 566 passengers in first and second class saloons: often the larger liners would anchor offshore as it was uneconomic to negotiate into the docks to transfer a few passengers, and Calshot would then ferry these passengers and small items of freight.

In her time, she also manoeuvred the world’s greatest ocean liners, including the Queen Mary, the Queen Elizabeth, the United States, the France and the Olympic, sister ship of the Titanic.