The next BBA student launch day is on the 7th December – and you’re all invited!

Boat Building Academy student launch December 2011 invitation

Intheboatshed.net readers (and everyone else, to be honest!) are warmly invited to the Boat Building Academy’s class of March 2011 student launch at 2pm on the 7th December.

The boats include:

  • 13ft cold-moulded motor launch designed by Andrew Wolstenholme
  • 17ft clinker-built pilchard larker
  • 10ft foam-sandwich composite dinghy
  • 19ft epoxy-ply Caledonian Yawl (designed by Iain Oughtred)
  • 15ft West Greenland kayak
  • 14ft strip planked ‘Cassy’ canoe yawl (designed by George Holmes)
  • 14ft 1in strip-planked catboat
  • 14ft stitch and glue-built speedboat (designed by BBA instructor Mike Broome)
For building photos of these boats, click here.

See more photos from last year’s December launch:

BBA students build a Yachting World Dayboat

Yachting World Dayboat Yachting World Dayboat

 

Photos by Emma Brice and John Palmer

This Yachting World Dayboat was built by Boat Building Academy student Sean Quail, with the help of Charlie Yetton.

Sean joined the BBA’s long boat building course after deciding to make his hobby of woodwork into a career, and went to Lyme after completing his A Level exams – though first he took time out to travel through Australia, Canada and Thailand.

Charlie completed a foundation course at Chelsea College of Art and Design and a BA in fine art sculpture at the University of Brighton, and then worked as an artist’s assistant for a period. He then decided he needed what he called ‘real’ skills – and chose boat building and carpentry as the area in which he was most interested.

The Yachting Day Boat was originally designed in 1949 by G O’Brien Kennedy; Sean’s was constructed using oak ribs, spruce planks and mahogany-veneered plywood.

This is the second YW Dayboat to be built at the academy – see Locky McKenzie’s build, click here. On Sean’s boat, the plank lines were tweaked a little, and the Highfield
lever
was left off the forestay in favour of tensioning the rig using the jib halyard.

To view Sean’s weblog of the Dayboat build click here.

I gather Sean is now living and working in Hampshire.

PS – If you’re interested in what the BBA can teach and might consider one of its short courses, take a look at its 2012 short course programme.

BBA students build 10ft traditional clinker dinghy

Clinker built dinghy made by Ollie Rees and Tim Herman  Clinker built dinghy made by Ollie Rees and Tim Herman

 

Wally photos by Jon Palmer and Derek Thompson

Ollie Reed built this 10ft clinker dinghy while on the Boat Building Academy’s38-week course over the past winter and spring. It’s a replica of a dinghy called Barnacle belonging to instructor Mike Broome, and is built in mahogany with oak ribs and a mahogany fit-out.

While working as a labourer building building oak barns, houses and doing house repairs, he decided to do the BBA’s eight-week woodworking skills course to learn more about this kind of work – and while doing that was so impressed with what he saw going on with the 38-week long boatbuilding course that he decided to make it his next move.

Ollie felt the long course would take his skills to a higher level and open new doors – and that the skills involved in boat-building would be transferable to all sorts of things and offer a variety of opportunities in the long term.

Tim Herman helped Ollie to build the dinghy. Tim, who comes from Brighton, was previously a tree surgeon. He also plays saxophone with his band, Los Albertos.

With the end of the course nearing, Ollie decided that boat building is the industry in which he would like to work, and is now working locally while looking for a job in a traditional boat yard. Tim is currently building timber-framed houses in the Lyme area and playing with his band.