Gavin Atkin's weblog for the sort of people who like looking inside boat sheds. It's about old boats, traditional boats, boat building, restoration, the sea and the North Kent Coast
24-ft Truro River oyster dredger Softwing at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall
Visitors to the National Maritime Museum Cornwall this summer can take 90-minute cruises around Carrick Roads and the Fal estuary aboard Softwing, a 24-ft traditional Truro River oyster dredger.
Designed to be operated by one man, Softwing was built at Yard Point, Penpol Creek in 1900 by Frank Hitchens. A working boat for sixty years, she was first Continue reading “Softwing, a Truro river oyster dredger”
It seems to me it was at least ten years ago that Mike Storer’s Beth lug-rigged yawl sailing canoe design first caught my interest, but maybe it’s just that I’ve thought often about the design and my shaky memory is just playing its tricks again.
Influenced by racing sailing canoes of the 1890s, the Beth is a design that should interest anyone with a yen for a boat that is simple in form and easy and cheap to build, while offering real sailing performance.
Before going any further, however, I should warn you that Continue reading “An 1890s sailing canoe for today’s home boat builder”
Photos by Michael Wootton
This curious and rather Dutch-looking spritsail-rigged craft is a recreation of the shallop, a boat from four centuries ago.
‘On June 2, 1608, Captain John Smith and fourteen English colonists set out from Jamestown in a 30-foot open boat or shallop to explore and map the Chesapeake Bay. Travelling over 1,700 miles in just over three months, Smith and his men witnessed the Chesapeake at its productive peak, with its incredible ecosystem intact and a multitude of American Indian cultures thriving along its shores. The observations and sketches made by Smith during his travels would form the basis for his remarkable 1612 map of the Bay, which served as the definitive rendering of the region for nearly a century.’
Smith’s voyage is being recreated as I write – read all about it here: http://www.johnsmith400.org
Thanks to Ed Bachmann for pointing this one out!
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