Tag: canoe

BBA student launch day December 2010

Boat Building Academy class of March 2010 in crab and lobster boat Witch of Weymouth

Boat Building Academy class of March 2010 in crab and lobster boat Witch of Weymouth. They make a heroic load for a 14ft boat

Boat Building Academy crab and lobster boat Witch of Weymouth Boat Building Academy student launch 2010 Boat Building Academy student launch 2010

More photos from the day – explanations will no doubt follow in the next few days

Boat Building Academy principal Yvonne Green has written to tell us about the student launch day at Lyme last Thursday. If you’re outside the UK, you may not know what we’ve had a generally horrible winter up to now – but that’s the reason for Yvonne’s enormous relief that once again the big launch event was blessed with good weather.

Here’s what she has to say:

‘It was a another brilliant launch day with boats and bright sunshine. We’ve had so much luck over the years that the Great Boat Builder in the Sky must be on our side

‘Nine students launched five boats, including Witch of Weymouth, and one student proposed to his girlfriend, on bended knee, in the middle of the harbour and on his boat’s first time out… It was a risky business but all went well and she said yes.

‘The boats were:

  • cold-moulded 13ft 6in electric motor launch
  • glued clinker 14ft Whitehall skiff
  • strip planked 15ft Chestnut canoe
  • 18ft strip planked gaff rigged daysailer
  • traditional clinker 14ft Dorset crab and lobster boat Witch of Weymouth

‘The BBC filmed Witch of Weymouth’s launch because of a piece they’d run about her build earlier in the year, but the other boats deserved just as much attention.

‘The motor launch is now on her way to Australia, the canoe was last seen heading for Norwich on a roof rack and the daysailer is stored in a garage until the summer. Witch of Weymouth will grace the workshop until after Christmas, when she’ll go home to Portland before heading off to the National Maritime Museum Cornwall at Falmouth.

‘Attached are some photographs of the day – our favourite is the class of March 2010 all looking jolly in Witch of Weymouth. More will follow next week.’

Chris Partridge of Rowing for Pleasure has more on the Whitehall skiff and it’s builder’s amazing public proposal here. There’s also a Youtube video including photos from the workshop here.

Thanks Yvonne! We’re looking forward to hearing more shortly. Also if anyone has any further photos, Youtube videos or anything else they’d like to send in, please let me know at gmatkin@gmail.com.

250 year-old birch bark canoe in Cornish barn to be returned to Canada

Enys birch bark canoe sees daylight for the time in decades

The birch bark canoe on location on the Enys Estate A painting by historical artist John Buxton showing similar birch bark canoes as they would have been used over 200 years ago

Enys birch bark canoe sees daylight for the time in decades; the canoe on location on the Enys Estate; painting by historical artist John Buxton depicting similar birch bark canoes as they were 200 years ago

National Maritime Museum Cornwall curators are working to conserve what may be the oldest birch bark canoe in existence, before it is sent back to Canada.

For over 200 years, the canoe has belonged to the Enys family having been brought to Cornwall by Lt John Enys after he fought in the American War of Independence in 1776. It is estimated to be over 250 years old.

‘Lt Enys sailed from Falmouth in a packet ship to join his regiment in Canada to relieve the city of Quebec, which was under siege from the Americans,’ said NMMC boat collections manager Andy Wyke.  ‘He fought many military campaigns and toured the area for his personal interest – discovering this canoe along the way. It’s incredible to think its legacy has been resting in a barn in Cornwall all this time.’

The canoe has been kept near Penryn in an Enys Estate barn for many years but this week it was moved to the NMMC, where it will be conserved, preserved and put on show from late January until it is  repatriated to Canada in September.

The canoe came to light when Enys family descendent Wendy Fowler called the museum to request they look at the canoe lying in the Estate’s barn.

Captain George Hogg NMMC archivist and trustee said ‘When we received the call from the Enys family to identify their canoe in a shed we had no idea of the importance of the find. We knew we had something special, but having worked with the British Museum on the artefacts and the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough, Ontario, we now believe that this is one of the world’s oldest birch bark canoes. This is a unique survival from the 18th century.’

Canadian Canoe Museum researchers hope to identify where the boat may have been built and by which tribe.

PS – Duckworks has an excellent post explaining how birch bark canoes are made.

Water Craft’s whacky Cordless Canoe Challenge races at the Beale Park Boat Show

Water Craft Cordless Canoe Challenge

A potential entry for the Water Craft CCC – very much in the spirit of the event, but the drag of that parasol may not help

Water Craft magazine has fired the starting gun on what promises to be a highly entertaining new competition for the Beale Park Boat Show, which in 2011 takes place from the 10-12th June.

The journal’s annual Amateur Boatbuilding Awards contest is well established and one of the highlights of the Beale Park show each year – but the new competition promises to be completely daft.

Inspired by a suggestion from Beale Park marketing manager Donna Hatchett, Water Craft editor Pete Greenfield has announced the Cordless Canoe Challenge, in which entrants have to use a cordless power tool to power a canoe around a short course on the lake at Beale. He has the support of power tool manufacturers Makita and the Electric Boat Association.

The boats do not have to be home-built, but can be of course, and they may be made of any material and can be modified any way entrants choose.

The only rules are that they mustn’t be longer than 16ft 3in (5m) including steering and stern gear, and have to be propelled solely by one or more cordless electric tools. A drill driving a prop shaft is one possibility, or perhaps a Thai-style long-tail rig sort-of, kind-of arrangement?

Pete suggests a jigsaw could be used to drive waggling flippers, or that an angle grinder might be fitted with a fan.

I’d suggest one of my Cinderella canoes powered by a steerable rack of, say, four cordless drills fitted with shafts attached to model aircraft propellers handing over the stern and controlled via a long tiller. But that might not be in keeping with Water Craft’s rather more sportsmanlike idea, which is that the power tools used should be things entrants already have in their workshops…

The racing will be in the form of a knockout tournament between pairs of boats drawn by lot, and will take place over the course of the Saturday and Sunday of the show. The course will likely be an out-and-back dogleg around two buoys, with some hopefully exciting action around the turning mark right in front of the beer tent (I’ll be watching, at least some of the time).

Entrants will need to slow their boat for this (if they reach any speed at all) and will likely need some kind of proper steering system.

Curiously, editor Pete also suggests the draft of entering craft should be modest, which presumably means judges will disqualify submarines. So, dear readers thinking of entering this malarkey, I’m afraid you can’t go underwater and will be stuck with wave-making resistance.

Boats invited to enter the cordless challenge will be checked for safety (you’ll doubtless need a bouyancy aid) – and crews for sanity – by Electric Boat Association stewards before being allowed to compete.

I should mention the prize to be awarded to the winning boat – a bag of Makita’s cordless power tools including a jigsaw, sander, planer, two drills and a site radio valued at over £1200!

Entrants should take a photo of their entry boat, preferably under way, and send it to Water Craft by the 1st May. More information about the comp will appear in the January/February issue of the magazine, which should appear in shops and fall through letterboxes on the 16th December.

I think it’s all going to be very amusing and, for the winner, rather profitable…

beale park cordless canoe challenge course

The Cordless Canoe Challenge course. If you know Beale Park, you’ll realise how short this is – turning ability will be as important as raw speed