Tag: Lyme

Lottery funds lerret oral history project

Gail McGarva Lerret Littlesea

Locals celebrate the launching of the newly built lerret Littlsea

Lyme-based traditional boatbuilder Gail Mc Garva and Lyme Regis Museum have won Heritage Lottery funding for a new project designed to enable people to learn and participate in the maritime heritage of the Dorset coast by exploring and sharing the story of the ancient local clinker-built lerret.

Titled Maritime Lyme and the Lerret, the project includes an oral history project that will collect, preserve and share stories connected with the traditional boats, and the material will be made accessible to the public online via a new website and in the form of a physical archive.

Also, 2011 will see a touring exhibition of the living history of the lerret with related community events. At the heart of this exhibition will be two lerrets, Vera, built in 1923 and the new boat Littlesea built by Gail in 2010 with funding from the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust.

PS – I gather that Gail will be starting a project to build an impressive third rowing gig for Lyme in the autumn of next year.

BBA invites readers to student launch

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Boat Building Academy student launch day invitation

Student launch invitation, showing a Pettersson motor launch made by student Lars Herfeldt and launched last December

The Boat Building Academy down at Lyme is inviting intheboatshed.net readers to attend its big student launch on the 9th December. The event starts from around 8am, with the boats going in the water at around 9.30am.

It will be possible for visitors to see the Academy premises, so long as they don’t get in the students’ way.

Some 18 students are launching boats, and the photos below show the current state of some of them. It looks like very nice work, but there’s still some way to go. Will they make it? I’m sure they will. I won’t be able to make it myself, so if any readers take their cameras, I would be grateful for photos I can publish please!

Click here for the BBA’s short course prospectus for 2011 – in addition to the established offerings, it is offering Colin Henwood of Henwood and Dean instructing a five-day course on renovation and finishing, a two-dayer on rope work and wire splicing, and a three- or five-day half-model making course, the length of which depends on whether you want to make a standard model or one of your own choice.

Last year’s course on building a West Greenland kayak is back, and there’s a new introduction to woodworking skills course, which might reasonably be described woodworking for the petrified.

Wooden boat building in progress at the Boat Building Academy Wooden boat building in progress at the Boat Building Academy Wooden boat building in progress at the Boat Building Academy

Wooden boat building in progress at the Boat Building Academy Wooden boat building in progress at the Boat Building Academy Wooden boat building in progress at the Boat Building Academy

Video: hot-nailing a traditional crab and lobster boat’s timbers into place

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Over at the Boat Building Academy at Lyme, Ian Baird has been making progress on his replica of the Dorset crab and lobster boat Witch of Worbarrow. The timbers of the new boat named Witch of Weymouth have gone in, the gunwales are now in place and the spars almost completely made.

He also gave me the link to this splendid Youtube film clip of the process of hot-nailing her steamed timbers into place. It looks wonderfully frantic to me!

On the boat herself, what’s left to complete are the knees, thwarts and finishing, which must all be in place by the time of the grand student launch on the morning of the 9th December. If you’re in the area and are interested in boats and craftsmanship, do get along!

For more posts in this interesting boat and its origins, click here. Also, look out for a series of three articles describing the build, the first of which is scheduled to appear in the magazine Water Craft in January.