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
‘Masters and crews of stranded vessels should bear in mind that success in landing them in great measure depends upon their coolness, and attention to the rules here laid down, and that by attending to them many lives are annually saved by the Rocket Apparatus on the coasts of the United Kingdom.’
Here’s another instalment of the seamanship manual published around a century ago by James Tait, Extra Master and teacher of navigation. For earlier instalments, click here.
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It’s always nice to hear of people’s interest in building one of my designs, and very pleasing too when they go so far as to make a model. So I’m delighted Paul McGuire has made two of the Julie skiff rowing skiff – the first is the standard A4/letter paper size you’d get from a normal domestic printer, and the second he made by blowing the original download up so he could use a bigger piece of card.
Thanks Paul! Has anyone else made either a model or the real thing? We’d very much like to hear from you at gmatkin@gmail.com.
For more on the Julie skiff:
Sketches for a sailing 15ft Julie skiff
Complete free plans package for the intheboatshed.net flat-bottomed 15ft 6in skiff
Not forgetting the smaller versions:
Free plans for the intheboatshed.net Ella skiff now online and available to download
Sunny skiff 14ft plywood flattie plans
These boats are designed to be built using the stitch and glue technique – if you haven’t done this before you might be interested in my book Ultrasimple Boat Building: 17 Plywood Boats Anyone Can Build or one of the other books on this topic available from Amazon.
Water Craft’s July/August edition is a cracker
The latest issue of Water Craft sounds like a real gem – probably the best I can recall.
For the first time, editor Peter Greenfield has included free plans for a 16ft pocket gaffer from boat designer Paul Gartside. I’m intrigued!
There’s also a piece about Honnor Marine’s Devon Scaffie, the final preparation and launching of the story of a newly built gaff-rigged pocket cruiser drawn by John Leather, and Water Craft staffer Jo Moran visits the UKs sailing schools.
Beyond that… In Newport, Rhode Island, Ian Scott finds students at the International Yacht Restoration School can start their two-year course on catboats and end it on the schooner Coronet, Kathy Mansfied meets the restored Sunbeams in The Med, and in a garden in Cornwall the editor has erected moulds originally made by Connie Mense as the first step towards building Phil Bolger’s lovely 20ft Chebacco Boat. Other good things to read are a review of the latest generation of epoxies, a feature on cooking in small boats, a review of Iain Oughtred’s new book, a preview of the Thames Trad Boat Rally, a feature on Francois Vivier’s ‘Folkboat of the future’, and of course an obituary of the great North American small boat designer Phil Bolger.
See the advert in the right-hand column of this weblog to subscribe to this splendid magazine. You won’t be disappointed!