Tag: boat

The boatbuilding bug bites another victim

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Ed’s 10ft Maine Skiff, built from plans and instructions
supplied by Duck Trap Woodworking

Ed Engarto in New York State is one of the many people who build a boat, only to discover that it can be a life-changing experience.

This seems to happen a lot. I know there’s a lot of satisfaction to be gained from building even the smallest boat and then using your creation on the water, but I think there’s more to this phenomenon: perhaps it’s the fact of slowly over time creating a tangible object, the quality of which the maker can judge and come to terms with as they proceed, perhaps it’s the discovery that, after all, one can learn new skills and complete a new category of projects, or maybe it’s the result of all those quiet hours the boatbuilder spends working alone in quiet contemplation.

Ed seems to me to be a typical convert to amatuer boatbuilding. I hope he enjoys his second project as much as he did his first.

He writes:

‘I built this little ten foot, lapstrake row boat over a period of three plus years, ending in July of 2008. The design comes from Duck Trap Woodworking and is known to those fine folks as their Maine Skiff. I started out journaling every working session and before the molds were even finished, the entries began to touch on life experiences, the trials of a large project, the virtue of commitment, and some thoughts about events that took place during the skiff’s construction. It actually became a mechanism through which I shared the most influential events in my life and therefore is much more than a sequence of construction steps explained. I learned so many boatbuilding skills and enjoyed the project so much, that I have become a lover of wood and water and am already looking towards my next boat.’

See the Duck Trap Woodworking website.

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John Welsford’s new Pilgrim 16ft open cruising boat design

It’s entirely a matter of coincidence, but John Welsford has also been weblogging the design of boat  – though his could hardly be different from my little skiff.

Pilgrim is a small seaworthy open cruising boat light enough to be managed by one person on the beach, but fitted with removable ballast. It has a rounded and balanced hull form that allows it to heel without wanting to turn – in that way, it’s more like a yacht than modern dinghy, even if it is dinghy-sized.

(For those who don’t immediately understand this last point, I should explain that the now conventional sailing dinghy form that encourages planing when sailing usually also makes a boat that pulls round into the wind when heeled. Yachts however are generally designed to remain easy to steer as they heel, because there’s usually no way of ensuring they can be sailed flat – some obvious exceptions are high-tech boats with moveable ballast and heavy keels that swing sideways such as Mini-Transats and Open 60s.)

John’s project is interesting not least because I can’t recall anything recent that’s quite like it, but also, I think, because its rounded hull bears at least a little resemblance to the beach fishing boats that have been used on the South Coast of England for generations, and I’d guess that at least some of John’s design criteria have something in common with the needs of the crews of those little boats – which one might say was a matter of convergent evolution.  Notice the cute bowsprit designed to maximise the rig area to match the powerful hull, and the long shallow keel that becomes deeper the further aft you go. The rather misleading name for this feature is ‘drag’, by the way, but don’t let that confuse you.

I do hope John himself doesn’t think I’m talking complete nonsense!

I wonder what the members of the Uk’s dinghy cruising movement will think about it? My only concern is that I think rowing it will be hard work – but with a big rig, perhaps that won’t be necessary very often in John’s sailing area.

Click here to follow the Pilgrim project’s progress.

News from the Boat Building Academy, Lyme Regis, and from Charlie Hussey

(Above) Boat Building Academy alumnus Charlie Hussey’s latest project. She was
launched in 1892. (Below) Another Clyde 17/19 lugger, Harlequin, in flight

Principal Yvonne Green writes from the Boat Building Academy at Lyme Regis:

‘Hi Gavin,

‘Thought you might be interested that Charlie Hussey (the student who built Seapod the Peapod during the last academic year) has just started a job restoring a Fife-built and designed Clyde 17/19 lugger, and has started a terrific blog that will chart the commission at http://www.marinecarpentry.com/katydid/ .

‘We will also be launching seven (crossed fingers) student boats on  the 10th December at noon in Lyme Regis harbour.

‘They’re an interesting lot, both students and boats. Student profiles and photographic diaries of the boats are at http://www.boatbuildingacademy.com/students/ClassofMarch2008.htm The students started the builds in mid-June this year, and are also required to attend lessons and complete assessment pieces, so they’ve been quite busy.

‘I’ll send further details, and photographs of each boat nearer launch time, but thought you might like an idea of what’s happening on the workshop floor at the moment.

‘Very best wishes,

‘Yvonne’

I certainly do – and thanks for the update!

Websits: Boat Building Academy

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