July/August Water Craft magazine preview includes free boat plans – subscribe now!

JulyAugust Water Craft cover

Water Craft’s July/August edition is a cracker

The latest issue of Water Craft sounds like a real gem – probably the best I can recall.

For the first time, editor Peter Greenfield has included free plans for a 16ft pocket gaffer from boat designer Paul Gartside. I’m intrigued!

There’s also a piece about Honnor Marine’s Devon Scaffie, the final preparation and launching of the story of a newly built gaff-rigged pocket cruiser drawn by John Leather, and Water Craft staffer Jo Moran visits the UKs sailing schools.

Beyond that… In Newport, Rhode Island, Ian Scott finds students at the International Yacht Restoration School can start their two-year course on catboats and end it on the schooner Coronet, Kathy Mansfied meets the restored Sunbeams in The Med, and in a garden in Cornwall the editor has erected moulds originally made by Connie Mense as the first step towards building Phil Bolger’s lovely 20ft Chebacco Boat. Other good things to read are a review of the latest generation of epoxies, a feature on cooking in small boats, a review of Iain Oughtred’s new book, a preview of the Thames Trad Boat Rally, a feature on Francois Vivier’s ‘Folkboat of the future’, and of course an obituary of the great North American small boat designer Phil Bolger.

See the advert in the right-hand column of this weblog to subscribe to this splendid magazine. You won’t be disappointed!

Hudson folding dinghy for sale

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Hudson folding dinghy

Dave Eastwood has a Hudson folding dinghy for sale and says he is looking for offers in excess of £250 – which seems modest for such a nice collector’s piece. I’d like to think someone – or some museum – will be keen to preserve this boat.

For a previous post showing the Hudson folding dinghy in use, click here.

Contact Dave at jendave.one20@ntlworld.com.

Have you got an interesting boat for sale, or that you would like to tell us about? Contact intheboatshed.net at gmatkin@gmail.com.

Newly built Fowey River Dinghy number 53 launched

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Fowey River Class Dinghy number 53 was launched this weekend

This Saturday saw the launch of another local racing class classic at Fowey – a new Fowey River Class Dinghy made by Marcus Lewis for the local vicar and his family.

Built with a distinctive combination of spruce planking with thwarts and top planks of mahogany, the boat was launched at the Fowey Gallants Sailing Club and is number 53 in the class.

Marcus tells me that the Fowey River Dinghy is based on the Yachting World 15ft dinghy designed by Reg Freeman in the late 1940s with the aim encouraging people to build their own boats. Hunkins’ Boatyard at Polruan built one for a local dentist and they caught on, for by 1957 there were 15 boats in the fleet. Numbers continued to grow with other local boat builders betting involved, and the fleet reached 36 boats in 1965.

Interest in racing the wooden boats then dwindled, but over the last 15 years or so interest has returned with 15 new boats, several of which Marcus has built, and a number of restorations of the older craft. Five or six are seen sailing in regular Wednesday and Saturday racing, and the fleet swells to 15 or 18 in regatta week.

There are photos at http://jonbarkerpics.co.uk – the Fowey River Dinghies can be identified by their multi-coloured mainsails and jibs.

Marcus Lewis is based at Fowey and can be contacted on 07973 420 568.

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