Tag: boat

More photos from the Tall Ships start at Falmouth

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The water boiled with motor boats and yachts as the competitors left harbour,
and the local press quoted the police as saying there were 130,000 watching
the send-off. It was quite a sight! As usual, click on the thumbnails for much
bigger images

Astrid

Capitan Miranda

Cuauhtemoc’s lively Mexican crew fires a cannon salute off Pendennis Point

Mir approaches Pendennis Point

Mir catches the late afternoon light

Pogoria

The Russian sail training ship Sedov approached from over the horizon. There’s
something special, I think, about a sailing ship that approaches alone in this way,
without the modern distraction of hundreds of little plastic boats

Shabab Oman

Alexander von Humboldt and Tecla

We’ll return to the usual menu of smaller craft for the rest of the week!

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National Maritime Museum Cornwall small boat register goes online

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St Agnes lighthouse, Scilly Isles – see
the news about Troze below

The National Maritime Museum Cornwall’s small boats register has gone online – and we’re all invited to let its organisers know of any craft that should be included. I should think there are hundreds!

Here’s the NMMC’s release on this important project:

‘Over the past few years, National Maritime Museum Cornwall has been working on a database of boats which deserve heritage protection. With the help of other museums, owners and charitable trusts, the Museum has been assembling a list of over 1200 boats.

‘Now part of this database known as the National Small Boat Register including boats under 40ft in length, is available on the web and everyone is invited to help make it the definitive list for the UK.

‘The list is modelled on the database used for ships – the National Register of Historic Vessels – but uses a new ‘history pod’ to identify key dates in a craft’s history.

‘Jonathan Griffin, director of the Maritime Museum says: “There is still much work to do. We need to obtain owners’ permission to publicise details of some of the boats we already hold on the database. We’d welcome hearing from everyone about other boats which they feel should be included in the Register.”

‘Looking ahead, the Museum is keen to develop a discussion forum to make the whole register inclusive and a place where enthusiasts can exchange information about the boats.

‘Have a look at the research area of the Museum’s website at www.nmmc.co.uk and see if your boat or a boat you know of should be registered.’

Also new from the NMMC has also launched an interesting-looking quarterly online journal called Troze. The first issue concerns wrecking on the Isles of Scilly.

Museum’s staff sayTroze will welcome article submissions from enthusiastic researchers, writers or people who are knowledgeable or passionate about their topics.

If you’re wondering, as I was, the title of the journal is taken from the Cornish word for the sound made by water about the bows of a boat in motion.

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Home Built Boat Regatta Cotswold 2008 meeting report

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From the top left: John Lockwood with his new dinghy,
various canoes, and a maiden voyage for Chris Perkins’
new small canoe


I was hoping one of the Home Built Boat Regatta folks would be kind enough to send me a report of their annual Cotswold Water Park event – and Chris Perkins has kindly done so.

Here’s what he says:

‘Some 14 boats of varying sizes, shapes and propulsion braved the floods and atrocious weather to attend our annual Cotswolds Rally.

‘Although the rally site turned out to be an island of relative calm and dryness in an otherwise soggy country, tranquil it was not however – a free concert raised the roof until the wee small hours at the other end of the lake, wasn’t much fun either for us or the triathletes either who had to take to the water at 8 on Sunday morning.

‘Sunday was a dry day – so your intercession in your post announcing the meeting obviously had some effect!

‘Two maiden launches took place – an intriguing build by John Lockwood of Swindon, who launched what he called a Moby variant based on a set of Motor Boat & Yachting plans from the late 1970s. He scrounged and used Ebay to obtain his materials, so the boat turned out to be a pretty economical way of getting on the water.

‘My Iain Oughtred-designed Stickleback, Stangarra, took to the water for the first time in the capable hands of our friend Chris Partridge. All that rowing has certainly built his arm power – she flew under his ‘oarsmanship’.

‘I think the general feeling was that it was well worth risking the usual HBBR soaking for the pleasure we had playing with each others boats and general chat. As we are not organised, no planned group business was achieved or even attempted during the meet.’

Thanks Chris! It sounds very much like a classic American-style messabout, all except for the ritual of serving and eating hominy grits. And isn’t it a relief that there doesn’t seem to have been any need for a race? For more details and lots more photos, see the report at the HBBR website.

This site will be quiet for a few days now as we’re going to be busy – in the meantime, don’t forget it’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day on Friday, even if like me you never manage to keep it up beyond breakfast time.

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