Tag: photos

Southwold’s Sailor’s Reading Room

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Southwold’s famous Sailor’s Reading Room was built in 1864 in memory of a Captain Rayley, who had been an officer at the Battle of Trafalgar, and had died the previous year.

I knew the building as a boy and remember thinking it was as fabulous then as I think it is now. It really hasn’t changed in close to 50 years, and the only sadness is that photography is forbidden and I can’t show you how splendid it really is.

What I can say without fear of contradiction is that the old reading room is packed with a huge variety of treasures, including photos, models and other memorabilia of the local fishermen, sailors and coastguards of years gone by.

Often generations of brothers, fathers, sons and cousins worked at these trades at the same time, and because they so often bore the same name they were often given colourful nicknames – I particularly like the name of one bearded old salt whose photo appears on the Reading Room’s walls.  He must have gloried in his handle of ‘Crikey’ Rogers!

Of course, many of them were also lifeboatmen, and since we’ve been to the old town recently in a day or two thanks to some great local friends I’ll add some photos of the restored local lifeboat now on show in a new home near the beach, and some shots from the harbour – including the wonderful Leila. Make sure you come back!

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Stand by for the May/June issue of Water Craft magazine due in a few days

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The May/June issue of Water Craft magazine is about to come out, and editor Peter Greenfield has sent us his customary preview. Here’s what he says:

‘April, moaned Mr Eliot, is the cruellest month. Obviously, he also had suffered the seemingly interminable wait for the weather to warm up enough for varnishing the gunwale. What to do while you’re waiting? Well, the new Water Craft is out on the 22nd, with…

Two French connections: last year, Tim O’Connor loaded his elegant Oughtred Acorn on the car roofrack, hitched up the caravan and went sailing the lakes of Limousin. And much more recently, in March in fact, Kathy Mansfield caught the Eurostar for a long-planned visit to the amateur boatbuilders of Nautique Sevres, near Paris.

Back in Dorset, professional wooden boatbuilder Gail McGarva builds Cornish pilot gigs and in the first of a two-part series, she explains not only how but why. However, If a 32ft (9.8m) clinker rowing skiff is a tad too ambitious for you, see Paul Gartside’s complete plans for a 12’ (3.7m) outboard skiff. Clinker too challenging? Build the hard-chine flat-bottom pocket cruiser called the Stevenson Weekender, like Jeremy White. Or you could go to boatbuilding college, like Lars Herfeldt from Berlin who learned to build a Petersson Runabout at Lyme Regis.

Still too wintry? Time to read designer Andrew Wolstenholme’s report from Dusseldorf on the latest in electric propulsion… And designer Paul Fisher’s description of his new Felix electric launch… And designer Matt Newland’s introduction to the Bayraider 17, which he hopes to exhibit at the Beale Park Boat Show, 4-6 June. Where you’ll also find Water Craft, together with a St Ayles Skiff – see W79 – and one of Gail’s gigs.

Finally, it must be warm enough now! Time for a varnishing workshop with master boatbuilder Colin Henwood…

It’s particularly good to see the Home Built Boat Rally group’s Tim O’Connor getting a mention, and also Lars Herfeldt – see photos of the the launch of his handsome gentleman’s runabout here.

You will be able to find the May/June 2010 issue in good UK newsagents from the 22nd April – this website will find you a newsagent stocking the magazine. Alternatively, buy a subscription here and support both Water Craft and intheboatshed.net at the same time.

Toby Churchill’s photos of flat-bottomed boats on the Dordogne

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Toby’s photos of flat-bottomed boats on the Dordogne river

Toby Churchill has sent in these shots of fishermen’s boats from the Dordogne, in France, which he found and photographed while holidaying with his family near Souillac. Here’s his story:

‘One day the lad and I took a Canadian canoe down the river. On the way we saw the old wooden boats, and later on, on a walk, we saw the others. The river, on the stretch we were on, consists of short sharp shallow rapids, and longer deep slow lagoons. Some stretches of the river are overlooked by quite steep cliffs – one enterprising fellow had a boathouse cut into the cliff, about 20 feet up, with davits to lower his barque into the river.’

For an intheboatshed.net post about the flat-bottomed boats of the Loire, click here; for a still earlier post about flat-bottomed boats in France, click here.