Tag: boat building

Photos from the Beale Park Boat Show 2011

Pierette at the Beale Park Boat Show 2011

1894 Desvignes-built steam launch Pierette, photographed by Pete Williamson

Cordless Challenge entrant Beale Park Boat Show 2011 Water Craft amateur boatbuilding competition Beale Park 2011

Unknown dinghy


Reader Pete Williamson has sent in some snaps of this year’s Beale Park Boat Show, including this shot of the wonderful steam launch Pierrette, and some entries for the kit section of the Water Craft amateur boatbuilding competition (Pete’s boat is the dark blue Selway-Fisher coble made from an Alec Jordan kit).

Also there’s something very unusual here: an entrant for the cordless challenge, in which entrants were asked to race each other around a course on the water using motor power derived from by battery driven cordless power tools. There are a couple of jolly pieces of video showing some of the entrants craft’ at Graham Neil’s weblog and at the Water Craft website. It makes you think, doesn’t it? At least some folks found a use for some old tools…

Finally, I’m not quite sure what the boat in this collection may be or who made it, but I remember being told that it contains a lot of old timber from somewhere, and thinking that the builder had done a nice job when I dropped in at the Barton Home Built Boat Rally meet at Barton Turf at Whitsun. I’ve posted some of my own photos of this craft taken at Barton below.

Thanks Pete!

Youjay dinghy at Barton Youjay dinghy at Barton Youjay dinghy at Barton

Win an eight-week BBA boat building course in the Gail McGarva workshop raffle

Gail McGarva and friends working on lerret at the BBA

There’s always something going off down at the Boat Building Academy, and this time it’s a raffle to raise money for a permanent workshop for Gail McGarva. You could win an 8-week BBA boatbuilding course…

The Academy folks are very keen to keep Gail in Lyme – as well as having superb woodworking and teaching skills Gail also manages to involve a wide selection of the local community. For example, when she was building a lerret recently she organising a ‘knees-up’ in which a widely disparate group of people came together to help make knees; the group ranged from royal warrant holders to socially excluded young adults. See the photo above.

It’s a mark of the BBA’s enthusiasm that it is prepared to raffle its courses which – a £1 ticket could win you any of the following:

  • First prize: an 8-week woodworking course and £100 towards materials for a personal project piece
  • Second prize: a 5-day traditional wooden boat building or wooden boat restoration short course
  • Third prize: work for a day with Gail in her workshop

For more information see the BBA’s raffle page. Tickets can be bought on line or by ringing the Academy’s office.

Big crowds and strong winds at the Boat Building Academy’s summer student launch


Boat Building Academy launch crowds summer 2011 photos by Tracy Marler

Boat Building Academy launch crowds summer 2011 photos by Tracy Marler Boat Building Academy launch crowds summer 2011 photos by Tracy Marler

Photos by Tracy Marler

For years Boat Building Academy students at Lyme have been amazingly lucky with the weather on their big launch day – but not this time. These shots were taken at the summer launch day on the 7th June. The weather was mean and moody, and although the rain kept off for most of the day, Academy principal Yvonne Green reports that the big issue was wind.

‘Two of the boats couldn’t go in: the harbourmaster saw the Yachting World Dayboat zip through the harbour and decided the Haven 12 1/2 and the Half Rater were staying on the shore,’ she says, ‘but the other ten were launched to the cheers of a crowd of between three and four hundred people.’

It’s a shame about the weather, but what a great turn out!

I gather Yvonne is gathering together photos of the original boats for us. To read about the twelve boats the students build over the winter, click here.