July/August Water Craft magazine preview includes free boat plans – subscribe now!

JulyAugust Water Craft cover

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Kathy Mansfied meets the restored Sunbeams in The Med, and in a garden in Cornwall the editor has erected moulds originally made by Connie Mense as the first step towards building Phil Bolger’s lovely 20ft Chebacco Boat.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!

A traditional Hebridean lugger built by Harris boatbuilder John Macaulay

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One of the treats of the Beale Park Thames Boat Show was seeing one of John Macaulay’s traditional Hebridean skiffs full of old-fashioned boatbuilding features.

Note the short floors and ribs, for example – they’re very much what one sees in a Viking ship or Viking canoe. What’s more, the oarlocks and oars obviously belong to a time before the fashion for adopting rowing racing practice brought in round oars in round oarlocks capable of being rotated.

For an earlier post on Macaulay, click here.

This interesting article sheds light on the man himself: John Mcaulay Boatbuilder. Of the virtues of wooden boats he says: ‘There is only one boat worth having and that is a wooden boat. They are unique; one off and beautiful. How anyone with any sensitivity could choose a plastic hull over a wooden one made by hand, I will never know.’

Here’s another newspaper piece in the Stornaway Gazette describing the restoration of a Western Isles boat.

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Thames double skiff for sale

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I fouled up badly at the Beale Park Thames Boat Show: my mistake was to believe the weather forecast and went to the show on the day it rained most.

On the following day it was supposed to rain from dawn to dusk – but instead the sun shone – I’ve seen photos to prove it. Every sailor, gardener, farmer, camper and boat show organiser has had the same kind of experience, and all one can do is smile and make the best of it, which in my case meant taking a lot of photos of gently rain-spattered boats and people.

I’ll be putting a lot more shots from the show up over time, but I thought I’d surprise the folks who came to the show to sell this splendid 1902 Thames skiff by putting up some shots of their boat – and perhaps helping them to find a buyer.

I told them I’d do it, but like so many others they were sceptical. I think they imagined I needed to be paid – but I don’t and it’s not in my plan. Give me a good story or some pics or both and I’ll put them up, though if they’re not, I won’t. Even if this site someday becomes truly commercial, I doubt I’ll ever want to charge contributors money for providing information for a good post.

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