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
My brother Matt Atkin outs with his Fuji Finepix x100 camera to photograph the fishing boats of Panang, in Malaysia. I’d guess these boats were for trailing nets – but would they be floating nets, or trawls? And what about the elegant double-ender that looks so much like one of the boats Howard Irving Chappelle recorded?
Matthew Atkin recently took this photos of Causeway Bay typhoon shelter as the sun was going down in Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour recently, no doubt with his current favourite camera, a FujiFinepix X100.
Here’s what he says about the shots:
At one time (at least up to the late 80s) this area was absolutely full of sampans with people living on them.
I think this lifestyle so close to the centre of Hong Kong is about to go, as the inhabitants of these boats are likely to be ‘moved along’, and so I have been keen to photograph them before they go.
The boats are very close to the financial district of Hong Kong, and there is an enormous amount of construction going on around the few hardy souls who remain living next to huge cranes and under flyovers. However, I should point out that living under a flyover is considered much more positively here than in the UK.
I rather liked the sampan next to the yachts, which creates a striking juxtaposition between the haves and have-nots, and the guy eating his dinner.
The expensive boats all belong to the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club next door.
Also among this collection is the noonday gun, which is fired every day at noon – the idea used to be that it would enable sailors to know the time. Â It is still fired by the property and investment group Jardine Mathieson, although it is now rather blocked from the harbour.
The gun was once fired by Noel Coward and is mentioned in his song Mad dogs and Englishmen.
Thanks for the photos brother Matt!
 
 
 
Here are some more of my helpful brother Matthew Atkin’s photos – this time of a few boats he saw recently in Thailand, a country he describes as strangely empty of water craft.
It’s a little strange to see old boats used to form restaurant tables – but burning them would be far more destructive.
And here’s a motor barge, Thailand-style photographed on the Mekong river. I must say I like the potted plants and covered veranda at the  bows!
