Tag: alec jordan

The September/October issue of Water Craft magazine will be out soon

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Water Craft magazine September October

Editor Pete Greenfield has sent us his preview of the September/October issue of Water Craft magazine.

Click here to subscribe to this excellent publication!

Here’s what he says about the next issue:

‘In our September/October 2010 issue – in good newsagents from 26 August – you’ll find….

•Some 16 years designer Nigel Irens launched his radical 30ft (9m) lugger named Roxane. Now Dick Phillips has built a not-so-conventional gaff-sloop version in wood and Peter Goad has sailed her….
•Did you see the BJ17 at the Beale Park Boat Show? Bart Jan Batts asked Nigel to redesign his 3-masted 17’ (2.2m) King Alfred School Expedition Boat– with a Roxane-style lug rig. Kathy Mansfield sailed her.
•And talking of 17-footers, Alice Driscoll says the new water-ballasted BayRaider 17 from Swallow Boats is two boats in one.
•Designer Paul Gartside presents home builders with full plans and offsets for an easy-to-build 9ft (2.74m) tender.
•It’s less than a year since Alec Jordan launched his first kit-built 22ft (6.7m) St Ayles skiff for the Scottish Coastal Rowing Project. Now as many as 22 are in build, and six community groups have completed – and raced – their own boats.
•And, talking of Scotland, did you know that when Robin Hood wasn’t up there riding through the glen, he was surfboating in Wales? We didn’t either. And when Ridley Scott’s new film Robin Hood needed a fleet of mediaeval surfboats, Mark Edwards’ Bridge Boathouses had to make them without chopping down Sherwood.

Plus the best of the Beale Park Boat Show, Water Craft’s own Amateur Boatbuilding Awards and all our regular features.’

Once again, Water Craft offers excellent value – the tender plans alone will be worth ten times the cover price. Get your subscription now!

Scottish Coastal Rowing Project grows to 19 St Ayles skiff boatbuilding projects

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Rowers trying out the original St Ayles skiff at Eyemouth last weekend

Alec Jordan of the Scottish Coastal Rowing Project tells me that he received the 19th order for a St Ayles skiff kit this week.

Nineteen St Ayles skiff building projects in less than a year reflects a fantastic explosion of interest in the SCRP project since it began. See my post about legendary small boat designer Iain Oughtred drawing the plans for the St Ayles skiff for the Scottish Coastal Rowers here: Iain Oughtred draws the boat that will bring coastal rowing races back to Scotland. It appeared only in July last year!

Alec, whose business Jordan Boats makes up the kits, says that planning is well underway for the first regatta at Anstruther on 29 May, and that seven or eight completed boats are expected to be ready and on the water for the event.

He’s careful to observe that some of the teams won’t have had much time to practise rowing by that time and  however, and suggests the standard of the rowing should be a little bit higher by the time of the Portsoy Festival four weeks later, when there may be even more of the new boats competing.

Other news this week is that the first official women’s crew from Anstruther will have had its first practice.

A particularly striking development is that I gather there have even been expressions of interest in the SCRP from south of the border with England…

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The big day approaches for the St Ayles skiff

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The St Ayles skiff being built in Alec Jordan’s workshop receives a few coats of paint prior to its big day – launch day with the press, various notables in attendance and no doubt a good party.

My thanks to Chris Perkins who sent me the shots, though I gather they were originally taken byAlec. Nice chap that he is, Chris has promised to send me photos of her in the water when they’re available – I gather there may even be video.

Drawn by Iain Oughtred, the boat was designed for the Scottish Coastal Rowing Project, a scheme to encourage rowing racing for the people of Scotland. The boat in the photo is the first to be built, but I gather a boat kit for Ullapool’s rowers has already been ordered!

For more on this project, click here.

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