The horizons of Ben Crawshaw

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It’s been an entertaining and cheering couple of days here at Intheboatshed.net Towers. Following yesterday’s jolly boat-nut’s outing to Turk’s boatyard at Chatham, today brought two nice pieces of news relating to the Light Trow: first that another Light Trow is about to be built in Australia, and, second, that a TV documentary about Ben Crawshaw’s boat building and sailing adventures made by a Catalan television company is now available for all of us to see over the Internet.

Click here to go to Ben’s own weblog post about the documentary including a link to the programme itself. It’s an entertaining and nicely shot piece of work, even if like me you can make out only a few words.

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POST-SCRIPT The drawings for the full-sized Light Trow Mk2 are now close to complete. If you’re interested in building this boat email me at gmatkin@gmail.com, and I’ll send you them – but only if you promise not to share them without my permission!

Light Trow Mk 2 – drawings for making a model


Light Trow model package plywood boat Gavin Atkin boat plan

Here’s a jolly little project for Easter – making a model of the Light Trow Mk 2. The drawings are here: Light Trow Mk 2 model, and they’re in the form of a zip file containing no less than 18 pdfs.

Almost all you need to do is print out each pdf in the zip package on the same-sized paper, stick it to card, model-maker’s plastic sheet or balsa, and cut it out and assemble as shown in the drawings… However, you’ll need some extra bits of balsa and nice white paper or cloth to make a sail and – Hey Presto! – you’ll have your own table-top Light Trow to play with. Have fun everyone! (Drawings now corrected to include the hole on the aft deck for the mizzen mast!)

For more on the Light Trow and trows generally, click here.

POST-SCRIPT The drawings for the full-sized Light Trow Mk2 are now close to complete. If you’reinterested in building this boat email me at gmatkin@gmail.com, and I’ll send you them – but only if you promise not to share them without my permission!

The new Light Trow

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The Mark 2 Light Trow

ben crawshaw, gavin atkin, light trow, plywood boat, rowing, sailing, boat plans, free boat plansThe big news here is that Water Craft magazine is publishing an exciting series of articles about the Light Trow – two by the remarkable Light Trow pioneer builder and adventurer Ben Crawshaw, and one by me about the boat itself.

This has prompted me to produce a Mark 2 version designed for plywood and epoxy stitch and glue construction and with a few modifications based on Ben’s experiences. I’ll publish the plans in a few weeks, probably to coincide or shortly precede the upcoming articles.

As always with these things, it’s been fascinating and hugely time consuming, so I hope the home boatbuilding community takes the new boat to their hearts!

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