photographs – Page 21 – intheboatshed.net

Stirling & Son take a clinker-built 14ft sailing dinghy to the Southampton Boat Show

This 14ft clinker-built sailing dinghy close to the main exit (and entrance) at the Southampton Boat Show will have been quite a relief for eyes suffering from shiny-white GRP-fatigue.

She was built by Stirling & Son, and is of mahogany on oak with copper and bronze fastenings. All fittings are bronze and yellow metal, including the centre-plate. The rigging is three strand buff polyester, and the sail is in Hayward’s Clipper canvas with tanned stitching and hand-sewn leather work. She is also varnished inside and out with Blakes products and has a gold-leaf inlaid cove line.

We were away during the show, but I gather Will Stirling and his small team also took a 12ft rowing dinghy built to the same specification, and were selling sets of plans and five postcards of boat building work that no doubt were taken by the same hands that took the shots above.

Stirling & Son is based in Tavistock, Devon and can be contacted via the website at www.stirlingandson.co.uk or by ‘phone on 01822 614259.

Boat builder Will Stirling’s hopes for Row to the Pole

Following our previous post about the Row to the Pole expedition to draw attention to the rapid loss of polar ice, boat builder and historian Will Stirling who has been skippering the BBC camera team boat has written in with the following heart-felt message.

Will’s an excellent photographer, and attached the shots above. Thanks Will!

‘I do hope that the rowers are able to highlight the extent of ice melt through their extreme endurance test.

‘Whilst there are geographical and climatic cycles that cause ice advance and retreat, the issue of our time is the speed of the melt. The melt is faster than a natural cycle, much faster. The Inuits have a good deal to say about it. The visual landscape has changed significantly within the last five years. There is no multi-year snow or ice on land. Previously permanent ice caves disappear in the summer. This year they have even noticed a few mosquitos up there.’

PS – See photos of one of a couple of Will’s latest small boat building projects here.

Strange and beautiful landscapes from the Row to the Pole expedition to Magnetic North

These fascinating landscapes come from members of the Row to the Pole expedition led by veteran Arctic explorer Jock Wishart.

Click on the shots for a much bigger and better view: all but the last image are taken by Antony Woodford by the way – so thanks Antony!

The expedition sponsored by Old Pulteney Whisky aims to row to the Magnetic North Pole to demonstrate how much ice has gone from the area through global warming, and it certainly seems strange to note that until recent years the rocks and land at these high latitudes probably haven’t seen the sky for hundreds of thousands of years. That’s my guess, but no doubt the expeditions scientific advisers can provide the real figure.

The seriously scary information these rowers want to get across is that at its current rate of melting, the polar ice cap could disappear completely in three decades.

Doubtless this would have a profound effect on our weather systems.

Regular readers may recall reading that boatbuilder and historian Will Stirling is skippering a BBC camera boat following the expedition.