Gavin Atkin's weblog for the sort of people who like looking inside boat sheds. It's about old boats, traditional boats, boat building, restoration, the sea and the North Kent Coast
Great good luck you lot! The row St Kilda crew practising
They’ve set off – the 100-mile fund-raising row from Village bay St Kilda to Portree on the Isle of Skye in an open rowing boat built around 1890 began earlier today.
The rowers are raising funds for the RNLI and Skye & Lochalsh Young Carers. The link for donations is here; their website is here, the BBC has a story here, and track their progress .
I wonder whether they’ll do it all again next year?
The lovely 1894 Kingston-built steam launch Belle, which plied the Thames for many years, is in urgent need of a new owner.
SL Belle’s present owner can’t afford to keep the National Historic Ships-registered vessel any longer and is reluctantly considering an offer of £6,500 from someone who wishes to strip her fittings and scrap the rest of her.
Read the story at River Thames News.
PS – Another, rather more cheerful if entertainingly loop story from the River Thames News folks reveals that Olympian John Pritchard is to lead a group of rowers in 2,500-mile trip down the Mississippi from Minnesota to New Orleans in two 26ft fixed-seat traditional Thames skiffs. The boats are now under construction at the Stanley and Thomas boatyard at Windsor, and the plan is to raise a million dollars for the charity Right To Play, which educates children in developing countries through play.
Read the nice feature about Scottish Coastal Rowing’s Skiffie Worlds event by Kathy Mansfield recently published by Watercraft magazine here.