Tag: launch

Nick Smith makes progress on new 17ft clinker-built launch Lisa

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Nick Smith is making progress on a 17ft launch Lisa
built to a set of lines from an Admiralty lifeboat of
100 years ago. Moeity was built to the same lines but
is a few inches shorter. Click on the images for much
bigger photos

It’s always good to hear about new projects and to receive photos. On Friday, Nick Smith sent me this message:

Hi Gavin,

As promised a nice photo of Lisa, a 17ft, clnker-built khaya mahogany hull to be framed with green New Forest oak.

The design is as per Moiety (lines taken off an Admiralty lifeboat of about 100 years old), but while Moietyis 16ft 4in, Lisa has been stretched a further 8in. The second photo shows Moiety on her launch day in  1996 on the river Medina, Cowes – see the landmark of J S White’s crane in the background.

Lisa will have a 15hp Yanmar twin fitted, and the owner who lives in Noss Mayo wants to explore the estuary and on good day go around the coast to Cawsand and maybe Plymouth too.

I have an another order to follow – a 16ft motor launch for customer who also lives on the river Yealm.

Will send you some more photos during Lisa’ s fit out.

Regards Nick

Thanks Nick! As usual, clicking on the photos will bring up a bigger and better image in each case.

For more photos click here: intheboatshed posts showing Nick Smith’s work.

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The Boat Building Academy builds a gig for the new Lyme Regis Gig Club

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Photos of the new pilot gig Rebel, built at the Boat Building Academy –
in the first Gail McGarva sits under the boat she project-managed.
As usual, click on the thumbnails for much larger photos

Lyme Regis’s well known Boat Building Academy agreed to build a pilot gig for the newly formed Lyme Regis Gig Club just over a year ago. It doesn’t normally undertake commercial work but this was a commission the Academy couldn’t refuse, according to principal Yvonne Green.

Former student and British Marine Federation Trainee of the Year 2005 turned instructor Gail McGarva project-managed the build and involved as many students and members of the local community as possible, including evening classes for members of the gig club to make their own oars – all of the school contributed even down to knocking in a rivet.

The students were not involved on a day to day basis as they were busy with their own boats but because the gig was in the main workshops it seems to have made a useful teaching aid, and Yvonne reports that the gig was launched on the 29th June with due ceremony. The mayor, the vicar, the town crier, students and the town all came, blessings were read, salt was strewn and the gig was rowed successfully across Lyme Regis’s sizeable bay.

‘The pilot gig measurers said it was one of the best gigs they had seen,’ she adds with pride.

Lyme Regis Gig Club named the new boat Rebel after the Duke of Monmouth, who started his 17th-century rebellion against the Crown on Monmouth beach, where the Boat Building Academy now stands.

Follow the link for more on the Boat Building Academy.

The Telegraph newspaper recently published a long feature on the Academy. I’m envious by the way – I wish people would commission me to write pieces like that!

For more intheboatshed.net posts including material about pilot gigs, click here.

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Folding boats at the Isle of Wight Classic Boat Museum, Newport

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Berthon collapsible rescue boat

Folding ship's lifeboat built by Salter

(Top) The Reverend Berthon’s collapsible rescue boat.
(Immediately above) Salter’s folding ship’s lifeboat

My partner Julie has just returned from the Isle of Wight with a nice collection of photos, from the island’s Classic Boat Museum at Newport.

Folding boats have been a popular theme on this weblog and I’ve had small folding boats very much in mind in the last few days after an unpleasant late-night incident in an inflatable, so I thought I should start with a couple of new examples I haven’t seen before.

The first is a Berthon collapsible lifeboat designed by the Reverend Edward Lyon Berthon, and built at Romsey, close to Southampton across the water. Apparently Berthon began designing his folding lifeboats after one of his clergymen survived a shipwreck in 1849. This particular boat was probably built fairly early on – that is, close to 150 years ago.

The second was constructed by Salters of Oxford, in what is believed to have been the year 1898. I gather the museum is exploring its options with a view to getting the boat back to a launchable condition. I do hope they manage it.

Thanks for the photos Julie!

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