12ft rowing dinghy built by Stirling & Son of Tavistock

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

Rowing Will Stirling 12ft Dinghy

Rowing Will Stirling 12ft Dinghy boat Bow and Fairlead Rowing Will Stirling 12ft Dinghy  boat Stirling and Son - transom Rowing Will Stirling 12ft Dinghy  boat Thwarts Aft sternsheets and transom

Stern of 12ft Dinghy Rowing Will Stirling 12ft Dinghy  boat

A recent 12ft rowing dinghy by Stirling & Son

These delicious photos come from regular contributor, boat builder, historian and designer Will Stirling of Stirling & Son. The plans for this boat are available to buy, as his letter below explains:

‘Dear Gavin,

‘Attached photos of the most recent dinghy, a 12ft pulling boat. She is built of mahogany and oak with copper and bronze fastenings.

‘The clocks have gone back now so it is time to string up some lights otherwise the working day is too short.

‘I now have plans available in the following format:

  • two sheets of A2 tracing paper
  • two sheets of A1 tracing paper, a scantlings list
  • a list of materials
  • a CD with photographs of various stages and details of dinghy building

‘The A2 sheets contain the lines draught and consrtuctional detail, the A1 sheets have templates of the moulds and transom with the planking marked out and templates of the backbone members (stem, sternpost, stern knee etc).

‘Plans in this format are now available for a 9ft general purposes dinghy and an 11ft pilot’s punt of circa 1900 and a 17ft salmon boat. These plans cost £50 plus postage and packaging of £2.50 in the UK.

‘Plans without templates are available for a 21ft frigate’s longboat of 1757, a 37ft smuggling lugger of 1835 and a 43ft gentleman’s cutter of 1880.

‘I hope you are well. The Intheboatshed website is going from strength to strength; it is very popular with Google.

‘Best wishes,

‘Will’

Many thanks Will! I do hope your plans go as well as they deserve – it’s only a shame that there aren’t more professional and home builders of these kinds of boats in the world.

Stirling & Son is based near Tavistock, Devon. See the company’s website  www.stirlingandson.co.uk
tel 01822 614259.

Alan Stancombe makes a nice job of his Cinderella open canoe Marie Rose

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

12ft canoe,  alan stancombe,  boat plans,  boatbuilding plans,  canoe,  canoe plans,  epoxy,  Gavin Atkin,  plywood canoe

12ft canoe,  alan stancombe,  boat plans,  boatbuilding plans,  canoe,  canoe plans,  epoxy,  Gavin Atkin,  plywood canoe 12ft canoe,  alan stancombe,  boat plans,  boatbuilding plans,  canoe,  canoe plans,  epoxy,  Gavin Atkin,  plywood canoe 12ft canoe,  alan stancombe,  boat plans,  boatbuilding plans,  canoe,  canoe plans,  epoxy,  Gavin Atkin,  plywood canoe

Alan Stancombe’s Cinderella

Congratulations to Alan Stancombe on completing his good looking open canoe Marie Rose, built to my Cinderella design. I particularly like the small bouyancy boxes, and the carrying handle/beam strap/whatever it’s called.

Here’s what he has to say about it:

‘Hi Gavin:

‘I thought you might like to see the end product. You can see that I fitted the buoyancy tanks, which look quite nice. My only real problem was with the fillets. I taped them while the epoxy was too soft and consequently they are very lumpy. Also where I dot and dabbed between ties they were too big. Because there was no rebate and the joints were just butt joints I did not want to sand them down too much. Next time I will let them set before adding tape. The problem with this is that you get air bubbles in the joins.

‘Anyway it doesn’t look too bad for a first go built not from a kit. My varnishing skills are improving; I compromised on the paint/varnish and used International Interdeck inside as a non-slip medium.

‘Thanks for your help and great design.

‘Alan’

Plans for building Cinderella are included  in my book Ultrasimple Boatbuilding, and are also available from the free boat plans page.

PS Have you used the little logos below yet? They allow you to share this post via Twitter or Facebook, save the link in Google or your own web browser, and finally you can email the link to a friend. Handy, I’d say…


Marcus Lewis restores a Troy, and plans to make clinker dinghy drawings available

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

marcus lewis, fowey, cornwall, carvel, clinker, rowing boat, troy, yacht, boatbuilding plans,  plans, restoration

marcus lewis, fowey, cornwall, carvel, clinker, rowing boat, troy, yacht, boatbuilding plans,  plans, restoration marcus lewis, fowey, cornwall, carvel, clinker, rowing boat, troy, yacht, boatbuilding plans,  plans, restoration

Troy class yacht Ruby restoration

marcus lewis, fowey, cornwall, carvel, clinker, rowing boat, troy, yacht, boatbuilding plans,  plans, restoration marcus lewis, fowey, cornwall, carvel, clinker, rowing boat, troy, yacht, boatbuilding plans,  plans, restoration

Taking the lines from a 1947 9ft dinghy

Down in Fowey in Cornwall, boatbuilder Marcus Lewis has been as busy as a bee, and a few days ago wrote to tell us what he’s been doing, and about some of his plans. Here’s what he has to say:

‘I have been busy building another Fowey River class dinghy, which is due for launching in a couple of weeks and I’m also part way through a serious restoration of Ruby, a  Troy class yacht built in 1930. She has needed 75 per cent of her planking replaced; lots of new parts including new horn timber, transom, transom knee, stem and stem knee, and gunwales, steamed oak timbers and keelbolts; and new  ply deck. Hopefully they will be enough to see her through the next 80 years!

‘I have attached some photos of a 1947 9ft rowing dinghy that is past repair. I am taking the lines off her in order to make some moulds and to make up plans that I intend to make available.

‘Also, have cleared out the internal bits of the Percy Mitchell-built tosher and will also be taking lines off her in the near future. If there are a couple of interested people who wanted to spend the weekend helping to take off the lines, and then have a copy themselves, I would be glad of the help – and it would galvanise me into getting it done!

‘Marcus’

Thanks Marcus. That dinghy is a nice shape – I will be delighted to help you promote the plans when you have them ready. I’d have thought there would be someone out there to help you take those lines, not least because it would be an opportunity to practice something we normally only read about in books.

If you’d like to help Marcus take the lines from the tosher in his yard, contact him at Fowey, Cornwall on tel 07973 420568, email marcus@fowey9.freeserve.co.uk . His website is at www.woodenboatbuilder.co.uk.

Start receiving the weekly intheboatshed.net newsletter: sign up here