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
Pilot cutter being built by Cem Gür in Turkey
Cem Gür and colleagues at Classic Boat Turkiye continue to be busy – now they’re concentrating their efforts on this 29ft pilot cutter designed by Paul Gartside.
Cem has also promised us some sailing photos of the Thomas Gillmer-designed Blue Moons we have posted about recently – so look out all you Blue Moon fans!
Have you got a project or a story to tell that you’d like to see on intheboatshed.net? Please email us now at gmatkin@gmail.com .
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Tom Naismith’s Laurent Giles-designed Sandppiper Surprise
won the Water Craft Awards at the Beale Park Thames Boat
Show this year. As usual, click on the photo for a
much larger image
Finally, we have the boat that won the Water Craft Boatbuilding Awards for this year – Tom Naismith’s striking Laurent Giles-designed Sandpiper, which he has named Surprise.
Although only 20ft on deck, she’s clearly a big boat for her length, and Tom reports that she took seven years and £20,000 to build.
Sandpiper is the big sister to the smaller Sanderling – and the even smaller but much better known Jolly Boat. I think Tom deserves a prize just for completing her, but I hope she now gets some serious use, as I’m sure she makes a comfortable little ship.
By the way, I notice that there’s an 18ft version for sale at Boats & Outboards, and there’s also a picture of one of these boats on the Classic Marine site.
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A 19th century engraving of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, by William Miller, after a
typically drama-packed painting by Turner. Image from the Wikimedia
For the last few days I’ve been listening to the melodeon playing of Tony Hall, a musician I’ve admired since the 70s. Tony plays the melodeon, a kind of push-pull accordion that came to dominate the music of much of England, when cheap models arrived in large numbers from Germany in the 19th Century.
Of course, it’s commonly been a seaman’s instrument – just think of old Bob Roberts, skipper of the last working sailing sailing barge, the Cambria. I’m glad to say I was lucky enough to hear him perform not so very long before he passed away.
Now, since one of Tony’s recently recorded songs, Down on the Hard, has some dreamy boatbuilding references, I thought I should share it – with the CD label’s permission, of course. Click on the link for a little song that I think will make many of you smile.
And for a bonus, here’s Tony again, this time playing his version of The Abbot’s Bromley Horn Dance.
For more of this stuff, order a copy of Tony’s new album, One Man Hand on the Wild Goose label.
Follow the link for more references to songs and singing at intheboatshed.net.