Category: wooden boat

The year at Intheboatshed.net

According to Google Analytics, Intheboatshed attracted 690,595 pageviews during the year (468,612 uniques) – and the most popular posts and pages were those offering free plans. Free stuff is usually popular, I guess.

Next in popularity after the plans posts comes David Dimbleby’s TV show about sailing his Heard 28 named Rocket to various ports and some of the interesting things he and his researchers found for us to learn about. The story turned out to be more controversial than expected (check the comments), but hopefully the interest this one received also demonstrates what the BBC series Coast showed some years ago – that the British public continues to be fascinated by its coasts and perhaps also in sailing.

What comes next is perhaps more surprising – it’s the Songs tunes and videos page. I had thought that this was an eccentric enthusiasm just of my own and a few pals, but this result is a wakeup call. I will – I must – remember to put up more of this kind of stuff in the coming year.

The underwater shots of the Titanic I posted years ago still get a good level of interest, as does Cheris Perkins’ prize-winning sailing canoe Scotch Mist constructed to Iain Oughtred’s Macgregor design. It is good to know that great photos and boatbuilding are still important topics for this weblog – and they’re definitely not going away, so long as my cherished readers keep sending in their stories!

In other news, just over half way through the year we changed internet service provider, which has meant that the site is now easier to find – sadly the previous (very well known) ISP was delivering a terribly slow service, which was causing Google to rank Intheboatshed.net further and further down in its searches. I don’t think we’re back to where we were yet in Google’s rankings, but our rather less well known new ISP has proved cheaper and much faster.

And in the coming year? I’ll still be here if you are. Here’s to a great year for all of us – better boating weather, more fascinating boats and bits of history, and more good company – not forgetting the odd glass accompanied by a song or a story.

RLYC launch Mary likely to launch in late spring, Ben Wales reports

Ben Wales has been in touch to report on the steady progress he and friends have made on restorating of the clinker-built 18ft former Royal Lymington Yacht Club motor launch Mary, which was used in Operation Dynamo, otherwise known as the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940.

Ben and his helpers have been working out of doors until recently, but I’m pleased to say a car port tent has made all the difference.

Here’s what he says:

‘Hello Gavin,

‘Since the Summer we have completed the work in renewing the engine beds and installed one new floor – the original beds were hard-nailed to the bilge planking, which was far from ideal. The new engine beds are now braced with brackets, and are a better fit than the originals.

‘The project had to be put on hold for a few weeks in late August as the weather was too hot and sunny for working on the boat.

‘The next phase of work was to fit new forward and aft bulkheads, and rather than fitting these in the same way as before (screwed to the topside planking) we riveted and screwed them top and bottom. We also made them up in tongue and groove planking to provide stronger bulkheads than previously.

‘In November we were given permission to erect a car port tent over the launch and were able to work up to mid-December, when we had to take down the cover because it was taking a battering from the high winds we have been having.

‘However, we did manage to pre-steam the main rubbing strakes and then fit the top port-side rubbing strake before the weather stopped our work.

‘We hope to resume work in February, when we hope to start laying a new deck and complete the final fit-out ready for what hope will be a late spring relaunch.

‘I will advise you further progress news in the New Year.

‘Regards, Ben’

The Thames Ironworks Heritage Trust’s grand plans

Thames Ironworks Heritage Trust

The Thames Ironworks Heritage Trust launched in November aims to bring boat building (and apprentice training) back to the north bank of the Thames in East London by restore a series of boats made over a century ago by the Thames Ironworks Shipbuilding Company, and then employing them to conduct heritage tours of the waterways in and around Stratford’s Olympic Park.

The drawing above from the Thames Ironworks Gazette published in 1899 shows some of the lifeboats made by the Thames Ironworks company at that time. The company also built ships including HMS Warrior, the first ironclad supplied to the Royal Navy – Warrior is still afloat and moored at Portsmouth.

The trust’s plan is audacious, you have to say. It already has access to a number of Thames Ironworks-made lifeboats but it can’t really get started until it has established itself a site for a new boatyard close to the site of the original Thames Ironworks company.

Once operating, it will offer offering routes to training in qualifications conferred by the Guild of Registered Tourist Guides, boatmasters licenses, and City and Guilds qualifications

The trust is confident the economics can be made to work – with over 9m tourists and others expected to visit the Olympic Park each year, it believes the heritage tour service should run at profit sufficient to support its operations and make regular contributions to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution – but the first step is to fund the project’s early stages, including educating the first group of shipwrights.

Here are some links for more information:

Thames Ironworks Heritage Trust: Homepage includes links to history, plans, lifeboats and so on

Thames Ironworks Heritage Trust: Twitter feed

Thames Ironworks Heritage Trust: Facebook page

Shipshape Network: About the Thames Ironworks Heritage Trust

Shipshape Network: Heritage Trust aims to revive Thames shipbuilding

West Ham United Football Club: The Thames Ironworks lives on!

The good folks at the Peggy Bawn Press have written to point out that the Thames Ironworks built many lifeboats to GL Watson’s plans, and have written an interesting post about one particular example: The Weekend Watson – Charles Henry Ashley 

And here’s a great map of the Thames Ironworks site from 1894:

Thames Ironworks Heritage Trust map