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.

Scottish Coastal Rowing Project grows to 19 St Ayles skiff boatbuilding projects

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Rowers trying out the original St Ayles skiff at Eyemouth last weekend

Alec Jordan of the Scottish Coastal Rowing Project tells me that he received the 19th order for a St Ayles skiff kit this week.

Nineteen St Ayles skiff building projects in less than a year reflects a fantastic explosion of interest in the SCRP project since it began. See my post about legendary small boat designer Iain Oughtred drawing the plans for the St Ayles skiff for the Scottish Coastal Rowers here: Iain Oughtred draws the boat that will bring coastal rowing races back to Scotland. It appeared only in July last year!

Alec, whose business Jordan Boats makes up the kits, says that planning is well underway for the first regatta at Anstruther on 29 May, and that seven or eight completed boats are expected to be ready and on the water for the event.

He’s careful to observe that some of the teams won’t have had much time to practise rowing by that time and  however, and suggests the standard of the rowing should be a little bit higher by the time of the Portsoy Festival four weeks later, when there may be even more of the new boats competing.

Other news this week is that the first official women’s crew from Anstruther will have had its first practice.

A particularly striking development is that I gather there have even been expressions of interest in the SCRP from south of the border with England

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