Tag: boatbuilding

A busy and interesting summer for Stirling and Son

Stirling and Son 14ft dinghy

Stirling and Son are busy as usual this summer with varied work both in and around Plymouth and further afield.

Stirlings must be counted one of the most interesting boat building and design operations around. Down at their covered slipway at Plymouth, the pilot cutter Cornubia is having her hatches re-varnished and a replica Viking longboat is being repaired.

Further afield, in May a small team went to Germany to work on the 60ft teak built Mylne yacht Mingary. This is a link to a video of work on the yacht. See a video of the work on that job below:

In June Sara and Will visited Glasgow for the Clyde Classic Design Symposium and delivered a talk about the process of designing the new Victorian racing cutter Integrity at the Royal Northern and Clyde Yacht Club.

The plans for the 14ft sailing dinghy that Sara and Will sailed around the Eddystone Lighthouse and then across the Channel are now available. The plans comprise lines, sail plan, construction plan and technical detail with templates of the backbone, knees, rudder and moulds.

The study plans show the level of detail and are accompanied by a materials list and a scantlings list. The plans are not available through the website (which is due to be updated). For information on the plans please email Will at info@stirlingandson.co.uk.

14ft sailing dinghy study plans

In Spain Martin Scannall has built and launched a 9ft dinghy built to Stirling and Son plans. She is to be the tender to the cutter Sauntress.

At the other end of the scale Will is working in conjunction with naval architect Theo Rye on the design of a 140 ton topsail schooner of circa 1830 that is to be built in the far East.

Stirling and Son undertake traditional boat building and wooden boat repair and have an office at Tavistock, tel 01822 614259, and a covered yard at Devonport, tel 07727 233346.

Faversham Creek Trust’s Purifier Building premises is declared open!

Admiral Michael Boyce declares the Purifier Building open

Last night the Purifier Building, which is to be used by the new shipwright apprentice scheme as a training workshop and premises was declared open by the Faversham Creek Trust’s guest of honour Admiral Michael Cecil Boyce, Baron Boyce, KG, GCB, OBE, DL.

I could not hear all that he said, but I did form the impression that Admiral Boyce made an articulate and encouraging speech, and I certainly heard him declare his strong support for the Trust’s aims. Admiral Boyce is chairman of HMS Victory Preservation Company and trustee of the National Maritime Museum, and also as chairman of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution – he’s clearly as busy as he is decorated.

I also got a chance to find out about Mayhi, the unusual skimming-dish of a racing yacht that the first batch of apprentices are to work on, and to talk with Griselda Musset about Creek’s history potential for regeneration, which with the right management and support could be tremendous.

Check out the photos. The Purifier Building itself is a relic of the town’s gas works, but behind it is an area where gunpowder used to be made on a series of islands set between ditches – the reason for the ditches is that it was safer to move the gunpowder by punt rather than using iron-rimmed cartwheels that might cause a spark.

Despite this precaution, however, there was at least one large explosion that brought down one of the two towers of the neighbouring Norman parish church at Davington.

The wharves around the Purifier Building date back two hundred years – the one on which the building stands is known as Ordnance Wharf, and I gather gunpowder from this site was used against the Spanish Armada and at Waterloo.

This area of the Creek is a pool controlled by sluices and a swing bridge that was built at the time of the horse and cart and is now no longer working due to damage caused by the weight of the vehicles that cross it in the modern age.

Griselda explained all this and suggested I consider how the area could be, with the brickwork of the old wharves restored, the pool dredged and full of barges and Creek itself an important centre for traditional boats and boat building and repair. I have to say that for me it certainly made a compelling picture – and more than enough reason to give the Trust my support.

PS – Richard Fleury has put two short videos on Vimeo – one of Griff Rhys Jones visit to the Purifier Building a couple of weeks ago, and one recording the arrival of Mayhi.

Click on the thumbnails below to see larger photographs.

Mayhi
Admiral Boyce talks with boat building instructor Simon Grillet
Colin Frake’s blocks – the block maker is to move into the Purifier Building
The pool at Ordnance Wharf
The Purifier Building
200-year old wharves
The site of the old gunpowder works
Old wharves and the Purifier Building
Old wharves
Mayhi particulars
Mayhi
Mayhi sailplan and general arrangement – note that this is foreshortened due to the angle from which it was shot
Mayhi lines – note that this is foreshortened due to the angle from which it was shot
Mayhi
Mayhi
Mayhi
Mayhi
Mayhi
Mayhi

BBA student launch, December 2012

  

This is photographic evidence that this year’s winter student launch at the Boat Building Academy really did manage to take place in decent bright, if chilly, weather despite the variable autumn we’ve had.

Apart from the students and staff, the shots show the launch of an Iain Oughtred-designed Fulmar named Florence after the builder’s daughter born a week ago and also a Humble Bee pram dinghy also designed by Oughtred.

Eight boats built by the class of March 2012 hit the water, and details of the boats and the students who built them are here, and there are more photos here.

The BBC and ITV were in attendance, and their reports are here (the launch report starts about 21 minutes in) and here.