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
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Mike Connelly spotted this excellent sequence of photos showing how Joe Dobler’s famous car-topping lift of 1946 works in practice. Thanks Mike – it’s scary to think that its already three and a half years since I first posted about Joe D’s cunning invention!
See the photo sequence by clicking on the image above, or alternatively click here.
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Another boat launched at Lyme Regis Harbour by Boat Building Academy students this summer was an Andrew Wolstenholme-designed 12ft 5in glued clinker Mallard dinghy.
Named Born Slippy, she was built by Dominic Frankis and Steve Bramley, along with other students.
Dominic took a sabbatical from work in London as a management consultant in the health sector. He’s never sailed before but now has no excuse. Now back behind his desk, he also says it’s only a matter of time before he’ll be boatbuilding again.
Steve worked as a tree surgeon and builder before joining the course, and is now using the skills he gained on the course to renovate a house.
The Mallard should prove to be a lot of fun; the rigging is more modern than is usually employed on these Mallard dinghies, which the Boat Building Academy folks say makes it quite a racy little sail boat.
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Penguin is number 58 in the Fowey River Dinghy Class, and was built by Marcus Lewis for a local customer.
There’s much more about the class at Marcus’s website, but the class developed from 15ft knockabout dinghy designed in the late 1940s by Reg Freeman, and the plans were published in Yachting Monthly to encourage readers to go out and build a boat.
Marcus points out that Fowey River Dinghy number 1 was built in 1950, so in 60 years there have been nearly 60 boats.
Penguin is built of FSC mahogany, copper riveted, with steam bent oak ribs, finished with Hempel Woodseal and International Varnish. Her sails and cover were made by Mitchell Sails of Fowey.
