Gavin Atkin's weblog for the sort of people who like looking inside boat sheds. It's about old boats, traditional boats, boat building, restoration, the sea and the North Kent Coast
Fancy one of David Moss’s highly regarded canoe yawls?
They don’t come up very often, but there are no less than two of the lovely strip-planked boats for sale right now at canoeyawl.org: the 13ft Ethel, which currently belongs to canoeyawl.org editor Dick Wynne; the other is the 15ft 6in Bunny, now owned by Nigel Field.
Win Cnoops of Star Yachts sent over these photos of the official launch of the Andrew Wolstenholme-designed Bristol 22 strip-built cabin motor launch his company is offering these days.
I think it’s a pretty thing and I hope it catches on – it’s not exactly old fashioned, but has some old fashioned ideas about it that make a handsome craft that serves to show how strange, angular and droopy-nosed motor boat design has become.
Among other things, it would make a very appropriate committee boat for an up-market yacht club looking for a bit of class rather than the usual plastic club-tub.
Combining features of a 1920s gentleman’s launch and a more sturdy harbour launch, the Bristol 22 has a narrow, easily-driven hull that requires needing only a relatively small engine – so much so that on a river or canal an all-electric version is practical. The layout of the boat provides for overnight or short holiday accommodation in the forward cuddy.
If you’re a Facebooker, why not ‘like’ the new Star Yachts Facebook page, where you’ll be able to follow the building of the 27ft version?
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Water Craft editor Pete Greenfield has written to say that the January-February issue of his magazine will be in the newsagents from the 17th December. Here’s what he has to say:
Well, if you’ll permit the conceit that a boating magazine can have a sub-plot, this issue’s can be summed up as: What a difference a wooden boat specialist can make.
Wooden boat specialists like…
Alec Jordan of Jordan Boats who joined forces with the Scottish Fisheries Museum to launch the Scottish Coastal Rowing Project, commissioning Iain Oughtred to design the 20ft (6m) St Ayles Skiff, which local groups can build from a modestly priced pre-cut plywood kit. Amateur wooden boat builder Chris Perkins describes how they built the prototype.
Wooden boat builder and designer Matt Newland of Swallow Boats combines ply-epoxy hull construction with water ballast and carbon spars to produce the 20’ (6m) Baycruiser, the most innovative and exciting small cruising yacht in years.
Wooden boat designer Francois Vivier whose p-ractical pocket gaffer Meaban is now also available as a pre-cut plywood kit for home completion.
Wooden boat builder and designer Paul Gartside of Nova Scotia gives us full plans + offsets for a traditional round-sterned workboat with so much character you’ll want to get a craftsman to build her for you. But who? Perhaps one of the members of the…
Wooden Boatbuilders Trade Association. Wherever you live in the UK and whether you want a wooden boat built or restored, using traditional or modern methods, there’s a WBTA member not too far away with all the skills to do the job.
And one wooden boat builder who will be long remembered around Cornwall and beyond…
Ralph Bird, the great Cornish pilot gig enthusiast who sadly passed away in November, having built no less than 29 gigs and enthused a whole new generation of rowers.
It sounds like another great issue packed with material to me. It’s nice to see the old practice of magazines publishing plans coming back, and good also to see the WBTA getting itself some publicity, by the way.
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