Tag: restoration

Good news on the banks of Faversham and Oare Creeks

 

There were two great pieces of news at Hollowshore this weekend: Ham Marshes have been saved from the gravel-diggers, and the sailing barge repair business previously at Standard Quay in Faversham has arrived at Oare Creek.

Swale Borough Council’s planners are to be congratulated for making the right decision on the Marshes – it never did make any sense to destroy an internationally important habitat for wildlife, or to expand one business in a way that would destroy others.

Faversham’s loss of the sailing barge repairers is sad and unnecessary, but their arrival just yards from the wonderful The Shipwright’s Arms on the banks of Oare Creek is good news for the area’s boating community, and for the pub – and at least the repair business remains in the area.

It’ll be fascinating to see which vessels come in for repairs and restoration, and we can watch it all happening from our own mooring over a cup of tea and a slice of malt loaf…

Restored Victorian gentleman’s racing cutter Leila emerges into the light!

 

The Victorian gentleman’s racing cutter Leila currently undergoing restoration at Southwold Harbour is out of the shed after three hard years of repair work – and is within weeks of being launched.

Congratulations fellas!

Read an earlier post Leila here, and the restoration weblog here.

Leila needs more financial help to get her rig sorted out, so if you can help them out with a few quid, I’m sure Rob Bull and his pals will be very grateful.

5.5 metre class racing yacht restoration at the Apprenticeshop

This 1965-built 5.5 metre Olympic-class racing yacht constructed in Norway by Bjarne Aas is being restored by a small team of apprentices at the Apprenticeshop at Rockland in Maine.

Lyric was donated to the Apprenticeshop in 2007, and apprentices and instructors have raced her at WoodenBoat magazine’s classic Eggemoggin Reach Regatta each summer since 2009; she came second out of 20 in her class in both 2009 and 2011, so she’s clearly a quick and well-sailed boat.

Apprentice Skyler Shepard has been in touch to say that she is now being fitted with a laminated backbone in mahogany, and she is having new steam-bent ash frames, some new mahogany planking, and a new spruce and plywood deck structure. The plan is to return her to her original styling as much as possible – click here and then on the link ‘What is this?’ at the bottom of the screen to see some older photos of Lyric.

There’s a still webcam on a 10-minute time delay here – Skyler warns that it can be a bit dull during the weekend and overnight, but is likely to be more interesting from Monday to Friday between the hours of 8am and 5pm USA Eastern time. In the UK, I think that means the excitement starts at about the same time most of us sit down for lunch…

There are other projects currently underway as well, including one to build a Perkin’s Island lighthouse tender and another to construct a 10ft Columbia dinghy designed by Nat Herreshoff. See them here.