Tag: Rowing boat

Rowing in Venice is under threat – pass the message on!

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Rowing in Venice is under siege

Giacomo De Stefano has made this short but striking piece of Youtube film to boost awareness and to encourage Venetians to preserve the ancient and elegant tradition of rowing in that city. Rowers are fast disappearing, he reports, yet the boats are an important part of his country’s history and culture, and he’d like this video to be passed on virally.

I hope he and his friends succeed. I don’t know Venice, but I must say that this distinctively different style of rowing has an appeal of its own – and seems very effective.

Johnny Tyson builds a 14ft Whitehall at the Boat Building Academy

Johnny's boat leaves the workshop

Johnny’s 14ft Whitehall leaves the workshop on launch day

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And thats all there is to it AK Johnny champagne Johnny Tyson

Boat Building Academy student Johhny Tyson built this John Gardner-designed 14ft Whitehall together with his pal Jerry Reeves, and launched it down at Lyme along with other students’ projects back in June.

The materials Johnny used were West African mahogany on oak with a West African mahogany keel. I gather that following the launch he took it to the Portsoy Scottish Traditional Boat Festival.

There are photos of the build here at Johnny’s website.If you happen to run a boatbuilding business, need staff and like what you see, I gather he’s looking for a suitable job…

I should point out that John Gardner’s books are a tremendous body of work if you’re interested in American boat types, and some of them have been available at very keen prices in recent years it’s well worth checking Amazon – I’d suggest in particular that Building Classic Small Craft including 47 sets of boat building plans is a bargain at less than £15.

My thanks to Academy principal Yvonne Green for the photos.

For more on student launches at the Boat Building Academy, click here.

Drawings for building a model of the 14ft stitch and glue Sunny skiff

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Drawings for making a model of the Sunny skiff

I’m pleased to say that we’ve now got a pdf file of the drawings needed to make a simple model of the Sunny skiff ready to be downloaded and printed out.

If you’re interested in her, I’d strongly suggest making a model. All you need to do to make a model is to take a printout, stick it to a piece of cereal packet, cut out the various panels and make up the model with sticky tape. Here’s one example of how this kind of model can look; here’s a second example made by the excellent Ben Crawshaw; and here’s a third example made by Woody Jones, and complete with little wire figures made to scale.

The two stern panels aren’t a mistake, by the way – there was a bit of space left and because it’s often useful to double up on stern thickness (because it’s good to have it robust) I thought the opportunity to have double-thickness stern too good to miss. In the model, as in the real thing, doubling the stern is optional unless you’re making a sailing boat or using an outboard.

If anyone out there makes a model of this little boat, I’d be very grateful to see them, and to be able to post them here at intheboatshed.net!

Plans for the full-sized boat are to come!

PS Woody made a model overnight, so good for him:

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