Tag: Fowey River Dinghies

Fowey River Dinghies for sale

Red Kite

Fowey boat builder Marcus Lewis writes to say that two Fowey River Dinghies are currently up for sale – Red Kite (No. 55)  pictured above and No. 51.

No. 55 was built in 2009, and is planked in spruce, and comes with sails and cover. She has no trailer. There is the possibility of a handy mooring in the river. The dinghy needs sanding and re-varnishing all over: the asking price is £8,000 as is, or £9,000 all done.

No. 51 was built in 2004, and is planked in mahogany. She was recently stripped and revarnished throughout, and comes with sails, cover, trailer and the possibility of a convenient mooringat an asking price of £6,500.

Contact Marcus via his website.

Fowey River Dinghies are based on the Yachting World 15ft Knockabout designed by Reg Freeman, and were published by the magazine in the late 1940s.

A Fowey dentist asked a local boatyard to build him one, and then others followed. Some owners go for plain sails, but the majority now get the coloured pencils out and design a unique sail pattern.

The class holds racing on a regular basis. At Fowey Regatta last year, Marcus tells me, there were 23 dinghies entered. There have been 67 Fowey River Dinghies built to date, with around probably half that number surviving.

PS – When he wrote, Marcus included these photos of a 14ft rowing boat that he’s recently completed for a client. Thanks Marcus!

Marcus Lewis makes the Fowey River dinghy and Troy class keelboat racers ready for the season

Fowey boatbuilder Marcus Lewis has been in touch to tell us about the work he’s been doing – and here’s been a lot of maintenance, repair and painting work to do on the local Fowey River dinghy and Troy class keelboat racers, as you might expect during the run-up to the new sailing season.

Here’s what he says:

‘It’s fairly busy in my boat shed! We have finished all the woodwork on a new Fowey River sailing dinghy, and the owner has taken it away to do his own varnishing and painting.

‘We’ve also been getting on with the sanding and painting of several of the Troy Class keelboats – we currently look after or maintain about ten of these, and they all need to be back afloat ready to race by the first Saturday in May.

The photos (above) show Ruby (no. 6) and Aquamarine (no. 16) in my workshop, and then there is the yard at the Fowey Gallants Sailing Club, where we have the masts out for varnishing, and Troys nos 1,3,7,18,19 and 23 almost done.

Ruby is now afloat, (pictured on the water above) and we have 10 days of launching and rigging of these boats ahead right now, as well as some varnishing and antifouling on a few Fowey River dinghies.

‘Also, a couple weekends ago, I organised a lifejacket clinic at the sailing club, with service engineers from Ocean Safety in Plymouth. Folks could bring their lifejackets along for a once over, and hopefully learn a bit about them. The checks were free, but any spare parts fitted had to be paid for.

‘We had a huge attendance , with 248 lifejackets looked at over six hours.

‘Attached is a pic of a typical poorly treated jacket, left in the locker all winter to decay. the rusty cylinder can chafe through the bladder, and is not recommended. The RNLI sea safety team were also there to answer questions on EPIRBs, kill switches, mob devices, and any other safety queries.’

I must say running a lifejacket check sounds like a great way to get folks minds focused on safety at a time when they’re getting their boats ready, and setting out on their annual shakedown trips.

Thanks Marcus!