Tag: boat building

Boat Building Academy and National Maritime Museum Cornwall launch short courses at Falmouth

Ropework course

The National Maritime Museum Cornwall and the Boat Building Academy have teamed up to run a series of short three- and five-day courses at the Falmouth museum’s premises.

The first weekend course, ‘Make a fender – decorative ropework and splicing’, with BBA visiting instructor Roy Gollop on 30 and 31 March will teach decorative ropework and splicing, and participants will make a fender to take away.

Roy began his marine career as an apprentice boat builder in 1946 before enlisting in the Royal Marines, where he was responsible first for landing craft operations before becoming senior instructor of seamanship.

He returned to Lyme Regis and managed the family fishing business for several years until he reopened his  toolbox and began building clinker dinghies and working boats for local people.

BBA  principal Yvonne Green says that running short courses at the NMMC gives the Academy the opportunity to offer short practical workshops outside the limited space available at its Lyme Regis premises.

  • hand tool sharpening and timber preparation 4th-5th May
  • basic joints 11th-12th May
  • dovetails 18th-19th May
  • wooden boat restoration 17-21 June
  • bending wood 22-23 June
  • half model making 29th-30th June
  • replace and scarf a plank 6th-7th July
  • repair a ply dinghy 3rd-4th August
  • ‘Knees up’ with Gail McGarva (shape a knee for a 12ft clinker sailing dinghy and have it fitted to a boat) 17th-18th August
  • basic woodworking skills continued 30th September – 4th October
  • oar making 2nd-3rd November

More information is in the programme: BBA courses at the NMMC 2013.

Also new from the BBA is a timber supply and machining service that will also cut timber brought in by customers.

Timber generally in stock includes sapele (25mm, 32mm and 50mm), American white oak (25mm and 50mm), European oak (25mm, 32mm and 50mm), Western red cedar (25mm and 50mm), Douglas fir (25mm, 32mm and 50mm), Far Eastern ply (4mm, 6mm, 9mm, 12mm and 18mm), Robbins Elite ply (6mm).

Machining of strip planking (with bead and cove) at 6mm and 9mm thickness is also available. Contact the BBA on 01297 445545 or email office@boatbuildingacademy.com.

Sawn timber

BBA students build and launch a clinker Paul Gartside Skylark dinghy

Skylark - Jim Higginson. Photo - Emma Brice Skylark - Jim Higginson at centre. Photo by Becky Joseph

This 14ft Paul Gartside-designed Skylark traditional clinker-built dinghy made by Boat Building Academy student Jim Higginson with help from fellow students Paddy Uniacke and Mark Bestford is planked in slow-grown Douglas fir, which was also used to construct its birdsmouth-style mast.

A similar 12ft Gartside-designed dinghy built by an earlier student caught Jim’s eye on a visit to the academy, and chose to build the boat partly for its looks and partly because of the range of skills it required to build. The boat is named Amethyst – the moniker was chosen by Jim’s grandfather, who kindly paid for the materials and got to take her out with Jim on board on student launch day.

See a photo log of the build of Amethyst here.

Not many students part with their first built boat, but Jim intends to sell the dinghy. (If any reader is interested in the boat, please send me an email at gmatkin@gmail.com and I’ll forward it on.)

Having graduated, Jim is now looking for opportunities to develop his skills, preferably through working with a traditional boat yard. [PS – I learn today – the 22nd – that Jim has now got a trial job at a traditional boat yard in Gloucester. Good luck Jim!]

Paddy successfully graduated as a seckhand on a Tallships Youth Trust voyage in 2007 and has since spent time working in Australia and New Zealand – one of his many and varied jobs included a stint at Freshwater Bay Shipwrights in Perth.

Like a couple of others in the same student cohort, Paddy left the BBA with a job lined up in a yard at Ipswich, working on the restoration of a Dragon. A keen traveller, Paddy eventually aims to take his skills to Canada and find boat building employment there.

Mark returned to England two years ago after serving in the Merchant Navy followed by 22 years in the Royal Navy.

On leaving the Navy, Mark worked in various roles including yacht skipper, sailing instructor and private charter skipper. He’s now setting up a business at Chesterfield, Derbyshire, that will offer offer boat management, and mobile maintenance, repairs, and support services for private owners and marine businesses covering the inland waterways, reservoirs and coastal areas of the UK.

As he says, there are many boat owners who do not have the time or facilities, or are physically unable to maintain their boats through the seasons, and the new company’s aim is effrectively to bring the boatyard to the customer’s boat.

To be called Boatwork, the business is also to have an artistic dimension, creating wall art made from reclaimed wood, including what he calls ‘Boathearts’ – elegant boat cross sections designed for use as wall decorations or sailing trophies, and made from offcuts left over following boat building work.

In addition, Mark is supporting a British Mini 6.50 Transat campaign, and has a website at www.boatwork.co.uk.

3. Boatheart - Photo by Mark Bestford

The Faversham Creek Trust reports excellent progress

 

The Purifier Building - home to the new Maritime Heritage Apprentice Training Centre

The Purifier Building – before all the work began

The Faversham Creek Trust weblog has put up a very positive report following the trust’s annual general meeting held last week – it’s all great news.

Some 100 members attended and total membership now stands at over 500.

The organisation has raised and spent £60,000, mostly on restoring the roof and windows of the Purifier Building and installing power. More than 40 tons of rubbish and scrap have been removed by hand.

An outstanding issue remains the requirement for a new opening bridge to enable he upper part of the creek to be used, and to allow vessels coming up the creek to access the purifier building.

Kent County Council would like to see a fixed bridge put in place but happily are prepared to put their estimated cost of a fixed bridge, £400,000, towards the cost of an opening bridge, and the trust will shortly publish its conclusions following a survey of the different designs available.

The trust believes comparisons with Maldon in Essex shows the potential of opening up the Creek and increasing the amount of boat maintenance and building work: a comparison with another popular barge centre of similar size, Maldon, shows that town’s tourism is about double the current level of tourism to Faversham.

The trust concludes as follows: ‘We are on track to meet our vision to see the whole Creek energised as an active maritime centre using the basin as a home port for barges and traditional craft, and with repair and maintenance facilities for them right here in the town centre; the Purifier will then become a true community resource at the centre.’