Tag: restoration

Share your boatbuilding and restoration stories

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Some recent boatbuilding posts at intheboatshed.net, including making a moustache, boats built to plans by Iain Oughtred and Tad Roberts, a birch bark canoe and photos from Newlyn. Click on the images above to see them all

Amateurs and professionals If you’ve got a restoration or boatbuilding project you’d like the world to know about, why not send us something about it we can post? We will of course link back to your website or weblog, if you have one, or include contact details if that’s what you’d like. It’s a great way to get a project weblog or new website known to the tens of thousands of visitors who drop in at intheboatshed.net each month* – and it’s entirely free.

All we need from you are photos and some interesting words – the background to the the project, perhaps a little history about the boat type or the boat itself, something about the interest the boat holds for its owner and builder.

Of course there’s more to boating than boats, and more to the sea than water, and intheboatshed.net ranges broadly in its boating-related topics. However, the beating heart of it is its interest in old boats, boat restorations, and boatbuilding projects with just a little of the traditional about them – and so that’s what we’d love to hear about from you.

*As of this morning, Statcounter reports that intheboatshed.net has received 13,596 visitors in the last 30 days. Send us a story at gmatkin@gmail.com and some of them could be coming your way.

Don’t miss something good. Get regular bulletins from intheboatshed.net now!

Saving the SS Columbia

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SS Columbia – as usual, click on the thumbnail for a
larger photo of this amazine craft

The project to restore the SS Columbia, the USA’s oldest surviving passenger steamer, is a seriously big one – but she’s an astonishing vessel. She was designed in 1902 by the naval architect Frank Kirby and artist Louis O Keil to transport people from the city into the countryside, and was adorned with mahogany panelling, murals, glass artworks, gilded mouldings, a grand staircase and an innovative open-air ballroom.

She was powered by a massive 1200 horsepower steam engine that could be viewed by the public.

Once restored, the restorers plan to put her to work as an education resource, as a cultural venue and museum, and to provide regular excursions visiting the Hudson River and New York’s harbour.

It’s an awesome project, and I’m sure we all hope they’re successful. The photo below of the Columbia’s bridge and project president Richard Anderson gives some idea of the work that needs to be done.

Read more at the project weblog: http://www.sscolumbia.org

Project president Richard Anderson standing by Columbia’s
bridge. There’s a lot of work to do!

Legendary 12 Metre racing yacht Flica restoration project now online

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Low-speed wind-tunnel testing during the development of
Flica (thanks to the Fairey Collection)

Cockpit view including Fairey and Nicholson (Fairey Collection),
Flica sailing in 1932 (Beken)

Flica with Hugh Goodson at the helm (Goodson collection)

Richard Smith, owner of Flica rang the other day to say that a web page devoted to the legendary 12 Metre is now on line.

Her story began in 1928, when aviation pioneer Sir Richard Fairey and yacht designer Charles Nicholson came together to develop a new 12 Metre, based on an extensive programme of research including tank and wind low-speed wind tunnel testing.

The engineering and scientific element of the project was very advanced for its time, and eventually produced a winning yacht – from 1932, I gather, Flica became the 12 Metre yacht to beat. During 1932 she won 39 flags in 35 races and in 1933 49 flags in 55 races.

The development work continued, Flica’s performance steadily improved and Fairey hoped to challenge for the America’s Cup – but the committee behind the Auld Mug decided the battle that year should be fought between J-Class yachts, not 12 Metres. That decision put paid to Flica’s chances of an America’s Cup win, and Fairey sold the boat to Hugh Goodson, who went on to have a distinguished sailing career racing in both the 12 Metre class and the America’s Cup.

There’s a lot more to know about the stories of Flica, Fairey and Goodson, and I recommend you check out the Flica Project pages at the Americas Cup Masters website. The Flica Project itself aims to re-commission the old boat, and I believe the Flica Project will chart it’s progress, so it should be well worth visiting repeatedly over time.