Pierhead painter Dominique Perotin’s portrait of newly built Victorian racing yacht Integrity

Integrity Painting

French pierhead painter Dominique Perotin has produced this portrait of the newly-built Victorian gentleman’s racing yacht Integrity – and it seems to me that she has joined the wonderful yacht’s growing legion of admirers. (Click on the link to see her website.)

Integrity was designed and built by traditional yacht builders and wooden boat repairers Stirling and Son of Tavistock, Devon and is listed for sale via the company website. There are also quite a few posts about her here at intheboatshed.netclick on this link and follow the trail of ‘older posts’ links to find them.

Integrity sailing 6

Integrity in flight

On the subject of Stirlings, boat builders sometimes get some funny commissions. Will Stirling and his colleagues have recently been building a pair of dinghy seats for a pub. I guess if a drinker feels wobbly some time, they can put it down to sitting in a boat, rather than blame the beer and wine…

Stirling & Son dinghy seat

Boat building at Martha’s Vineyard

Beautiful boats and an inspiring underlying story – even if it does have more than a touch of Hollywood style sentimentality about it.

Thanks for the link Hans-Christian Rieck!

BBA December 2011 student launch – first two photos

Michael Tyler’s catboat 'Lucie' at the BBA student launch December 2011 David Campbell (waving) in his Caledonian Yawl at the BBA student launch 7th December

The Boat Building Academy staffer Emma Brice has kindly sent over a couple of photos she took at this year’s somewhat wintry-looking student launch. I hope it wasn’t too cold down at Lyme!

The catboat above left was built by Michael Tyler; the Caledonian Yawl above right was built by David Campbell.

I gather the Academy’s tutors were particularly pleased to finally launch Gary Thompson’s Haven 12 ½ built during the September 2010 course – it couldn’t be launched in June because of strong winds.

Thanks Emma!