Tag: camping

Lechlade Raid, the Beale Park Thames Boat Show, and this year’s Watercraft comp for amateur boatbuilders

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Home Built Boat Regatta - the sun can shine at an HBBR meeting

A rare moment of bright sunshine at an HBBR meeting

The Home Built Boat Regatta folks are planning what sounds like a jolly river trip. It starts at Lechlade on the 1st June with the aim of arriving at Beale Park, Pangbourne, on the evening before this year’s Beale Park Thames Boat Show.

In keeping with the HBBR’s traditions, the Lechlad Raid is not an organised event but a cruise of individuals in company who welcome all who wish to join them, but ask that all boats and crews are up to the trip. Each individual is responsible for ensuring their own liabilities are covered and for making their own arrangements for over-nighting during the journey. There will be no formal safety cover.

From what I understand, the start time on the 1st is unclear, but more information will doubtles emerge and will be posted at the HBBR website events page.

Some readers may be interested to hear that by chance the Trailer Section of the Old Gaffer Association is also having a meet at Lechlade on the weekend of the 30-31st May, and that it will be happy to see Lechlade Raiders who decide to arrive early to join them. The OGA folks have organised camping in a field behind the pub, and this is likely to cost about a tenner.

Another piece of news concerns the Water Craft magazine amateur boatbuilding competition, which is judged at the Beale Park Thames Boat Show each year. After some discussions with HBBR members, editor Pete Greenfield has decided to change the format in the light of complaints that the high standard of craftsmanship of some of the entries tends to discourage rather than encourage many amateur boatbuilders.

So this year there will be three equal prizes of £80-worth of Water Craft books for: The Home-Made Boat Which Offers Most Encouragement To Beginners, The Most Innovative Home-Made Boat and, because we don’t want to stop encouraging amateur craftsmen and craftswomen, The Most Professional- Looking Home-Made Boat.

Now it’s time to find some pictures of your home-built wooden boat, write a few words to describe her, add your contact details and send it no later than 17 April, either by email to: ed@watercraft- magazine. com or by post to: Amateur Boatbuilding Awards 2009, Water Craft, Bridge Shop, Gweek, Cornwall TR12 6UD. All entrants who bring their boats to the show will also receive £50-worth of vouchers. You don’t have to pre-register to participate in the Raid, though it would be kind to let the HBBR folks know you’re coming, but you must send entries for the competition to Water Craft by the the 17 April deadline in order to take part in the competition – for insurance reasons, you can’t just turn up on the day, by water or by road.

Be aware, also, that you must be a real amateur, and that boats built from pre-cut kits are not allowed to enter.

For previous intheboatshed.net posts featuring the HBBR, click here.

I won’t be able to join the HBBR folks once again dur to family reasons, but if anyone reading this fancies the trip and would like to build a simple and easily constructed rowing boat for the purpose, may I modestly suggest my Julie skiff plans? I will be pleased to help out with modification to make it more suitable for overnighting afloat.

Canoe Cruising and Camping, by Perry D Frazer

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TML Visual Add media: <p>CANOE CRUISING AND CAMPING<br /> by Perry D Frazer<br /> CHAPTER I<br /> I N T R O D U C T O R Y.</p> <p> \\

Canoe Cruising and Camping, by Perry D Frazer

‘The author of this book claims nothing for it as an instructor of men to whom canoe cruising and camping, and all that follow in their wake, are as an open book. It is his aim to give to the uninitiated many little hints and suggestions that are usually only learned and mastered after years of experience.

‘That which first prompted me in this work was as follows: In the cities it is a common thing to hear young men say, “I wish I had some plan of spending my leisure hours in more pleasant manner than by sitting round the house or the parks.” If asked why they do not pass holidays and vacations in fishing or hunting, they will say they cannot afford it; that a month in the woods would cost them twice or thrice as much as they can earn when at work a similar length of time; they may not care for horses or bicycles, and a sailboat or small yacht is entirely out of the question, as far as owning one is concerned.

‘When the reader has thoroughly studied the information I wish to give, I hope he can see how easily he may provide a means of enjoying leisure hours, without great expense.”

This is a great online book with some stonking old photos. Thanks to Craig O’Donnell for taking the time to scan it and put it up at his website. Read the book here.

Canoe Cruising and Camping by Frazer


A successful first adventure for the paddling and sailing expedition boat Expedition Mouse

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A successful first adventure for the paddling and sailing expedition boat Expedition Mouse

http://intheboatshed.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/dsc_0060-1024.jpg http://intheboatshed.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/dsc_0060-1024.jpg A successful first adventure for the paddling and sailing expedition boat Expedition Mouse

The maiden outing for Dan Noble’s Expedition Mouse seems to have been a little more exciting than anyone intended, but even with two grown men aboard she seems to have coped pretty well. Sailing nearby the Statue of Liberty seems rather exotic from my perspective in Kent, England

I’ve said it before, but boat designers love a builder who follows the plans, builds the boat well and makes good use of it. But even those of us who are lucky in our builders have at least a little nervousness before a launch, for there’s always the danger that something about the boat might not work quite as expected.

Well, Dan Noble’s done a nice job of building the Expedition Mouse, and I seem to have got away with it – as once again one of my little boats has proved to work the way it should. Thanks Dan!

The Expedition Mouse is a stretched 14ft variant of my Mouseboat series of easy and cheap to build designs, but instead of being intended for the pond or river at the end of the road, this one is intended for real trips, perhaps involving camping. Many people would say that she’s an unusual looking craft with a surprisingly large sail are, but there is method in my madness. Her scow shape and hard chine makes her stable enough to stand up to quite a lot of sail, but her entry and exit are sufficiently easy that she’s easy to paddle much like a conventional cruising kayak. Her builder has reported that she while she sails well, she paddles ‘like a dream’.

The plans for the Expedition Mouse are available for free and can be downloaded at the Yahoogroup Mouseboats.