Tag: canoe

Photographer Matt Atkin visits the stilt village of Kota Kinabalu, Borneo

  

  

Globe-trotting brother and photographer Matt Atkin has been on his holiday travels again, this time to Borneo, where he came across the extraordinary stilt-village community of  Kota Kinabalu.

Matt likes to use a miniature or small camera that he can carry easily, but insists that it should produce very high quality images. His current camera is a Fuji Finepix X100.

The photos themselves raise some interesting questions. If the sea around Borneo is sufficiently calm that this kind of near the water stilt living is practical (I wouldn’t want to try it off the coast of Kent!) why are the boats also on stilts? Could it be a precaution to prevent them being stolen?

And how do they get their boats up on those stakes? Presumably it’s all down to the tides, but if so, what’s the benefit of raising them on stilts for part of the time? And how big are the tides here anyway?

It’s interesting to see the use of outriggers made from bits of drainpipe. Home boat builders, please note.

Thanks for some amazing shots Matt! There will be more to come, of the local timber-built boats and of a fish market.

Dylan sails his Duck Punt for the first time – and loves it

Keep Turning Left sailor and film-maker Dylan Winter has launched and successfully sailed his new Duck Punt for the first time.

He’s absolutely delighted with the little sailing canoe, which slips along as nicely as those made by earlier Duck Punters on the Essex coast. And there is the added bonus that he seems to be able to sail and film at the same time without falling in – which I’m pretty sure is what would happen to me if I tried the same trick.

Here on the upper floors of Intheboatshed.net Towers, we’re cheering for several reasons.

It’s always great when someone successfully builds a little boat and enjoys it on the water, and the news seems even better when the builder is in the UK. Round here, amateur boatbuilding projects are nothing like so frequent as they should be, given how much water we have to play with.

I’m pleased, too, that the little Duck Punt shows clearly how effective narrow, flat-bottomed boats can be. The British tend to believe all boats must be round bottomed to be any good, and that therefore building a boat is just too complicated to be worth considering. Dylan’s little punt gives the lie to that myth, just as did all the other duck punts that came before it.

Still more than all this, the project is a tremendous example of cheap and simple sailing.

Here’s Dylan’s page linking to his Duck Punt film; links to John Milgate’s original plans are also available on his website.

PS – Fans of Dylan’s adventures should bag a copy of the latest issue of PBO magazine, which includes an excellent feature-length article by the man himself.

Chris Perkins Macgregor canoe on BBC TV

Scotch Mist in Argyll

Remember Chris Perkin’s award-winning Macgregor canoe built to Iain Oughtred’s design? Well, it has turned up on a BBC series following largely forgotten steamer routes taken by Victorian holiday-makers, and pioneer canoeist Macgregor himself. (I’m sure they’re not forgotten among boating enthusiasts!)

It’s a wonderfully scenic part of the world and it’s great to see Chris’s immaculate little boat being paddled by the presenter, and I think the series will be well worth watching. Broadcast transmissions have been restricted, but it is available to many of us via the BBC iPlayer.

More photos of the boat can be found on Chris’s Flickr photostream.