Gavin Atkin's weblog for the sort of people who like looking inside boat sheds. It's about old boats, traditional boats, boat building, restoration, the sea and the North Kent Coast
I won’t be able to make the Thames Traditional Boat Rally this weekend but I’d like to make it one day – and no doubt Julie would love what looks like a rather genteel event.
In the meantime, I’ve been enjoying this fabulous gallery of photos. I recommend you just hit the ‘play’ button at the top right of the page and watch the boats go by for a few minutes.
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16ft traditional West Country motor launch Lisa receives her engine
Hampshire-based boatbuilder Nick Smith has just sent me these photos of his current motor launch building project Louise as she has her engine put in place.
Here’s what he says:
‘Louise now has her engine fitted, her decks laid and her middle thwart in place. The next jobs are fitting coamings, gun’l cappings, bulkheads, side seats, rudder and tiller, engine controls, exhaust, fuel lines, sole boards and a list of smaller finishing off bits. Luckily for me, the customer is going to do the majority of the varnishing.
‘She may look like identical to the last build Lisa, but at 16 foot Louise is a foot shorter and less beamy at six foot, and her sheer is much flatter – you can see from the photos of Lisa on the water at Noss Mayo that she has quite a high bow for coastal tripping and fishing. [See the link below – ed]
‘So Louise is less ‘cocky’. I have built her smaller, lighter and finer, because the owners will dry sail her and need to be able to launch and recover easily.
‘The engine is a Vetus twin cylinder diesel rated at 11 hp , plenty of power for a boat of this size.
‘Thats it for now! Regards,
‘Nick’
Thanks Nick! For more photos of Louise during her build click here.
For photos of the previous build Lisa click here.
Nick comes from Devon, learned boatbuilding the traditional way and specialises in new builds in clinker and carvel for sail, motor and rowing power from 8ft to 28ft with a special emphasis on West Country style and design, and also takes on repairs and refits from 25ft to 50ft. These days he’s based in Hampshire, and can be contacted by email at nick_smith_boatbuilder@yahoo.com and by phone on phone on 07786 693370.
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The 10ft double-ended skiff model
Paul Connor has kindly sent a photo of his model of the 10ft double-ended skiff from Practical Boatbuilding for Amateurs, together with his extensive set of computer-generated construction drawings.
There’s a good amount of background to this project. The original drawings and information from Practical Boatbuilding are here, an earlier intheboatshed.net post on the model project is here and two threads discussing the Practical Boatbuilding skiff and Paul’s project are here and here.
For Paul, the model is a proof of concept that shows the boat can be made at full size using the clinker ply technique, but I think many people will enjoy making a model of this little boat. I hope they do.
I think the model shows two things. The point that a boat built the these old plans is practical and will be beautiful is clearly the first, but the second is that in my opinion the boat itself would be even more elegant and better in the water if made 12-18 inches longer on the same beam and draught.
Download Paul’s pdfs of the drawings here: sheet-1; sheet-2; sheet-3; sheet-4; sheet-5; sheet-6; sheet-7; sheet-8; sheet-9; sheet-10; sheet-11; sheet-12; sheet-13; sheet-14; sheet-15.
Many thanks Paul!
PS Readers interested in making a model of something simpler, might check out the free plans page!
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