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
This is the classic film of Frank Dye’s small open-boat cruise with his friend Russell Brockbank from Scotland to Norway via the Faroes in his 15ft 10in Wayfarer dinghy, Wanderer.
Don’t try this at home folks…
The boat is now in the National Maritime Museum Cornwall.
Frank passed away in 2010 – read more about him here, here and here.
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Faroese rowers working hard
The past few weeks have been an amazing time for interesting boats on BBC Television – and the latest sighting, racing Faroese rowing boats on an episode in the Coast series, is available on the BBC iPlayer.
I can hardly believe I’ve beaten the usually alert Chris Partridge of Rowing for Pleasure to posting about this, but the programme shows the interesting and elegant boats in action and includes an interview with a group of attractive if powerfully developed Faroese women rowers. It’s noticeable that their English is excellent – and we’re told that they learn the language using the Internet.
Way up north of Scotland, Orkney and even Shetland, the Faroes are remote but these days far from isolated, as the presenter points out.
Like their tall, blonde rowers, the Faroese craft are clearly the result of the Viking era, and even the modern fishing boats in the harbour show a close kinship to Viking ships.
Click here for a photo of a Faroese women’s rowing team taking part in a race.
Click here for a Flickr gallery of Faroese boats.
Click here for still more photos of Faroese boats on the Wikimedia Commons.
Modern motorised Faroes boats still show their evolution from Viking ships: taken from the Wikimedia
