wooden boat – Page 225 – intheboatshed.net

BBA Academy students build and launch a Beer beach boat

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Beer beach boat Steadfast at sea off North-West Scotland

Beer beach boat Steadfast on launch day

Another craft launched in July by Boat Building Academy students was a 16ft 5in Beer beach boat, built to lines taken from a boat on the beach at Beer, Devon, by one of the students, Alasdair Grant.

The youngest student in the Boat Building Academy’s Class of September 2009, Alasdair first contacted the academy when he was 14. Four years later at the end of his course he was given a special BBA award in recognition of his outstanding dedication and hard-work during the build of his aptly-named boat Steadfast.

The award was a brass plaque reading ‘Made in England’. Alasdair, it should be understood, is a proud Scot – so I hope he appreciated the well meant joke…

Alasdair is from a fishing family in Aultbea in the North West Scotland, and wanted to build a working boat. After seeing and taking the lines from the Beer beach boat, Alasdair brought some his own Scottish influence to the construction, including very heavy framing. He and another student building the boat, Jim Walsh, went on to include seven big frames in the build and the finishing touch, and Scottish-style tyres for fenders.

Steadfast is now being used by his family as their water taxi to and fro the Scottish mainland and the Isle of Ewe, and is said to have coped well in recent gales.

Since graduating in June, Alasdair has began work with Cockwells in Cornwall.

A classic work on the beach boats of Britain is this book: Beach Boats of Britain.

More on Nick Smith’s latest motor launch

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Nick Smith has written in with some more photos of his current project, which he’s given the working title of Bamboo Viper II, because she’s very much like an earlier boat he built by the same name – you can see earlier posts here and here. Here’s what he says about his preparations for putting in the ribs.

‘BV II is now planked up, primed inside so the frames have paint behind them and less likely to rot out the contact faces between rib and plank. I have located some good New Forest oak and have machined that up ready at 15/16ths of an inch by 9/16ths.

‘I have had to pick and choose to avoid knots,short grain and sap, and despite that usually allow an extra 25 to 50 per cent extra for breakages anyway. It’s a nuisance to run short then have to machine and steam a second batch or even just an annoying one or two to finish off.

‘The oak is ‘green’ – that is wet almost straight from felling. It steams better having moisture inside, and in the meantime the ribs are wrapped in wet cloth and then polythene on the outside until they are ready to go in the steam box.

‘The cost of the material is around £200! English oak isn’t cheap, and amazingly kiln-dried American white oak is cheaper!

‘It’s getting ever more difficult to get hold of all three key components – seasoned planking timber, good oak and copper fastenings. The price of copper has rocketed in the last two or three years.

‘I’ll send some photos of the steaming out process and the planked and framed hull when it’s done – it’ll be a couple of weeks yet. Meanwhile I have jumped ahead a stage or two and machined the gun’ls and risers ready to go in on top of the frames.

‘Cheers

‘Nick’

Nick comes from Devon, learned boatbuilding the traditional way and specialises in new builds in clinker and carvel for sail, motor and rowing power from 8ft to 28ft with a special emphasis on West Country style and design, and also takes on repairs and refits from 25ft to 50ft. These days he’s based in Hampshire, and can be contacted by email at nick_smith_boatbuilder@yahoo.com and by phone on phone on 07786 693370.

Want to learn more about boatbuilding using the clinker technique? Try John Leather’s book Clinker boatbuilding at the revived intheboatshed.net A-store.

The Medway by paddlesteamer

VIC 56, just outside Chatham Dockyard. Click on the images in this post (and most others!) for much larger photos

The weather forecast predicted strong winds and thunderstorms – so I decided against going sailing. But what to do instead? Julie and I decided to take a river trip down the Medway on the wonderful paddlesteamer Kingswear Castle, starting from Rochester Pier, just by the city’s impressive Norman castle, and these are a selection of photos from the outing.

I hope you’re seated comfortable, for there are lots of shots here – and quite a few questions. If you know the answers, please fill me in using either the Comment button below, or by emailing me at gmatkin@gmail.com.

TID 164, VIC 56, redundant lightships on the Medway

The river had a lot to show us that was intriguing, to say the least. What’s the story, we wondered, behind this neat little schooner? Or the pretty and comfortable-looking motorsailer?

There was this beautiful old cutter – is she a conversion? And this pretty little clinker built pocket cruiser. And what about this elegant cruiser apparently on the brink of going somewhere?

Two photos of the same old-fashioned yacht, and a smack yacht moored near Upnor Castle

This old fashioned chine-hulled dayboat, very like one I’ve seen many times moored at Queenborough – I wonder whether they were made by a local builder? I’m sure generations of visitors have been intrigued by this sinking building in the grounds of Chatham Dockyard

Old smacks stand ready for a race; Harvest Queen looks like a converted wooden motor fishing vessel

There was this pocket cruiser – I haven’t figured out to which design she was built, but will be looking her up – and this smart Dutch tjalk, and the small Thames barge Whippet

Hope of Porthleven, and cormorants guarding their buoys

Steam tug John H Amos – I gather there’s hope she will be restored; a mystery yacht I’d like to know more about; one of the forts known as Palmerston’s follies

A Squib returns from Sunday racing; a motor fishing vessel that looks a lot like Jay Cresswell’s model of a ring-netter

Another very well looked-after MFV conversion, Thames barge Edith May is also looking great following her restoration

The Medway’s Cold War-era Russian sub, however, is very down-at-heel

You can’t moor here; and here’s why

Finally, what’s this craft? I’ve never heard of the Bella-something of Dover, and the Internet seems to be unaware of her also. What is her future to be, I wonder?

The Medway Pilots webpage has a useful history of the River Medway.

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