Tag: adrian morgan

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.

intheboatshed.net finds one of its photos used elsewhere

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Morning at Beale Park, with one of Adrian Morgan’s
pretty skiffs in the foreground

I try to give credit where it’s due and a link wherever possible, so I was mildly disappointed by Ready, Aim, Inspire’s use of one of my photos without either a credit or a link. But there’s a saving grace: it’s accompanied by a great quotation from one of my favourite writers, essayist and author of Three Men in a Boat (to say nothing of the dog), Jerome K Jerome:

‘Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need – a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.’

If you’re out there and listening, Mr or Mrs Ready, Aim, Inspire, we’d like a credit in return for our photo please! All those not equipped with a killer JKJ quote will be asked to pay, of course…

Freshwater – a skiff-like salmon trolling boat built by Adrian Morgan

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Freshwater – as usual, click on the picture for a much larger image

Launched in the last few weeks, Freshwater is a 16ft trolling boat built for salmon fishing in a loch near Aviemore. Built along the lines of a Scottish skiff with a narrow waterline, she is clinker-built of larch on oak, and has a small fore-locker and removable bench seats aft.

She replaces an older boat that was past her prime, and perhaps for this reason every effort has been made to prevent pockets of stagnant water causing rot – which is the reason for the unusual open gunwales.

Adrian reports that the price was under £5,000, excluding long-shaft Yamaha 6hp outboard. The boat is kept on a mooring on Loch Insh.

See Adrian Morgan’s website.