Category: wooden boat

1908 Falmouth-built rowing boat White Owl is restored and back on the water

White Owl arrives at the Museum White Owl Launch

The 1908 15ft rowing boat named White Owl has been restored at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall.

White Owl was built in Falmouth in 1908, by Jacketts Yard, which priced her at ten shillings per foot – one of Jacketts’ best known customers was the Newlyn School painter and photographer Henry Scott Tuke. See his entry at the Wikipedia website to see some of his works and for his story.

Although White Owl has undergone extensive work, she is said to retain much of her original timber.

The conservation and restoration was started by the well known local boat builder Ralph Bird before he died, and finished by a team of Museum volunteers led by Henry Wylie.

The team is now starting work on restoring a Mevagissey tosher.

Sea Queen was built at Mevagissey in 1924 by legendary boat builder Percy Mitchell – she was in fact only the second boat he built. The first stage of her restoration is being funded by a donation from one of the Museum’s trustees and the Museum is currently seeking funds to purchase the materials for the remaining work.

Percy Mitchell’s son Gary will be giving a lunchtime lecture at the NMMC 3 March next year, where he will be discussing his father’s life and work – he built no less than 360 boats ranging from dinghies to racing yachts. To book seats call 01326 214546.

Sea Queen

A trip to the Plymouth Breakwater

They must have a different kind of sea at Plymouth – for at the end of November, just a couple of weeks ago, fearless Will Stirling actually went swimming in it and survived, as the photos above show. Ugh!

Here’s what Will has to say about the escapade:

‘We visited the breakwater in the summer in our new expedition dinghy.

‘Our anchor fouled and I had to swim out to the boat and cut the rope. Last week we recovered the anchor which had become caught under a rock but was none the worse after four months in Mr D Jones’ locker.

‘Best wishes, Will’

Will reports that the construction of Plymouth Breakwater began in 1812 and completed in 1841. It is 1,560 metres long, 13 metres wide at the top and 65 metres at the base, lies in about 10 metres of water and is composed of 4 million tons of rock.

The beacon on the Eastern End has a spherical steel cage on top that can accomodate six shipwrecked sailors – though Will is dubious about the the benefits of dying slowly from exposure in the cage rather than dying quickly by drowning.

Thanks for the photos and the story Will!

Traditional yacht Builders and wooden boat repairers Stirling and Son Ltd are at the No 1 Covered Slip, South Yard, Devonport, Plymouth and has a website at www.stirlingandson.co.uk. The 14ft Expedition dinghy is one of the company’s range of handsome clinker-built dinghies.

Rivers of the South – The Thames

Rochester Castle and Cathedral from the River Medway

These pages about the Thames past and present come from are from Rivers of the South by AB Austin with photographs by J Dixon Scott, published in 1938.

It starts off rather dreamy, historical and angry about the changes the author sees in the landscape of the Thames, but changes in style as it proceeds.

There’s an outstandingly bonkers and dated passage that reads:

‘Until recently the paradox of the richest river in England, and possibly in the world, has been its shunning of those things which bring quick wealth. It has been a trading river, an argosy-bearing river, the river of the merchant-adventurer, not of mass-production, lighting-profit manufacturer. Now its lower valley shelters our light luxury plants, the monotonous assemblers of motor cars, wireless sets and every kind of glossy, brittle synthetic substance, even bakelite insulating boxes to make fool-proof the intestines of cinema organs.’

No quick wealth? What about spice traders, the slave trade and the City of London? The man was a dreamer but he could write a resounding paragraph…

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