A double-ended 15ft rowing boat built by Adrian Morgan

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15ft double-ender built by Adrian Morgan

This Adrian Morgan boatbuilding project started with a message you don’t often hear: ‘We’re digging a lake, and building a boat house, and now we need a boat.’

A couple from West Sussex who wanted a 15ft rowing boat for their family. The delivery date was two weeks hence, May 2007, in time for a father’s birthday – but that was too tall an order, so the boat was delivered a year later, in time for his next birthday.

Adrian says: ‘The boat is essentially a scaled down version of my standard 18ft sjekte, with correspondingly more beam in relation to its length to create a stable boat that’s still easy to row.

‘The form is almost symmetrical fore and aft, with a bold sheer forward which sweeps up slightly at the stern. The price was around £4,500, finished clear varnished inside and outside, with a white bottom to set things off nicely. I have to say that the planking was a joy, the strakes almost made themselves, so sweet were the curves. They conformed almost effortlessly to the moulds, and there’s little or no tension anywhere, which promises longevity.’

See Adrian Morgan’s website.

Racing pilot gigs, a chapel and other nice things at the little fishing village of Cadgwith

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Pilot gigs at Cadgwith – as usual, click on the
thumbnails for much bigger photos

There’s something very sweetly charming about the tiny Cornish cove village of Cadgwith, and the Cadgwith Pilot Gig Club’s kind invitation to look at their boats is entirely in keeping with the pleasant tenor of the place.

They’re saving up to pay for a new gig, however, as their boats are apparently having trouble keeping up with the leaders in races! Please contribute, if you can. The photo below explains the problem:

Cadgwith Pilot Gig Club needs your dosh!

Cadgwith beach, fishermen’s chapel, and
an unexplained plaque

The beach and its fishing boats surrounded by granite buildings and jagged schist rocks are unforgettable, as is the romantic little fishermen’s chapel.

And what about that plaque? I don’t know who these people were but I notice that the club has a boat named after Buller.

No doubt that wall could tell some stories. Presumably no-one sings now, as people hardly sing in public anywhere now unless they’ve got a geetar and a public address system – but what kind of progress is that anyway? And have you noticed that whistling has died out? Can you remember hearing someone whistle in the acrobatic way the old boys used to do when we were all kids?

It must be time for some songs again soon…

If you’re going to Cornwall you may need this: The Rough Guide to Cornwall

Pierhead painter Reuben Chappell watercolour arrives at the NMMC

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The Jane Slade watercolour by Reuben Chappell

Mrs Adams presents the painting to museum staff

The National Maritime Museum Cornwall has been presented with a watercolour of the Jane Slade by Reuben Chappell. The donation came from Mrs G Adams, whose husband was given the painting by Ernie Slade of Slade’s Boatyard, and came with book entitled Practical Navigation.

The museum’s notes on the painting reveal that the Jane Slade was named after the only woman shipbuilder in Cornwall, and that she who took control of her family’s business on her husband’s death in 1870. Her legacy lived on through successive generations of shipbuilders, repairers and mariners and in this ship named after her. Jane’s story inspired Daphne du Maurier’s first novel The Loving Spirit.

Reuben Chappell (1870-1940) is one of this country’s best known pierhead painters. An artist who spent his entire working life making portraits of ships for seamen, his work is in the best tradition of pierhead painting painted not for galleries or art collectors, but for the men whose lives and livelihoods were intimately entwined with the subjects of the painting.

Chappell lived and painted in Cornwall from 1904 until his death in 1940.

The book dated 1852 is believed to have been owned by Jane Slade’s son Thomas, one-time captain of the schooner. Inserted inside are four pages which relate to Thomas receiving his Master Mariners Certificate headed Plymouth School of Science and Navigation – these are an extremely rare find.