Ella, a 12ft stitch-and-glue skiff

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

12-ft-skiff-displacement-and-sections

12-ft-skiff-sheerline 12-ft-skiff-waterline

12ft-skiff

Preliminary drawings for the Ella skiff

I’ve decided to develop plans for a little 12ft stitch and glue skiff using Greg Carlson’s excellent Chine Hull Developer plywood hull development tool (scroll to near the bottom of this page).

This small project will take a little while to complete, and follows my 15ft 6in stitch and glue Julie skiff, which has attracted a lot of interest. However, boats like the the Julie can easily be a bit too much of a project for many people: they’re too long to be built easily in the average garage (in the UK at least), and they’re marginal when it comes to car-topping.

So these preliminary drawings show the very beginnings of the 12ft small skiff, which I’ve chosen to name after my daughter Ella. It will bear some similarities and of course quite a few differences compared with the larger boat, not least because the lines of a short boat like this must be rather fuller than those of the larger model and can’t benefit from the same hull form features aimed at reducing drag due to the formation of eddies.

However, like the Julie skiff, it has been conceived with rowing, not outboarding or sailing primarily in mind. For those who take an interest in figures, ratios and the rest, the wetted area here is 31sqft, maximum beam at the gunwales is 4ft, the design displacement is 400lbs, the righting moment is 254ft-lbs at 15 degrees of heel, and the prismatic coefficient is about .57.

Anyway, I’d be delighted to hear from people interested in the project – you can reach me at gmatkin@gmail.com.

PS I made a train journey this pm and took the opportunity to make a bit more progress. I’ve made up a lines drawing, and sketched some internal joinery, including what will be a removable centre thwart to allow the rower to row from a forward position when there’s something or someone heavy in the stern.

ella-skiff-drawing-for-website

Christer Byström offers free plans for cute small round-bottomed boats

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

bridget

Christer Byström’s Bridget

Christer Byström is someone who has taken his boating dream in his own direction and made a success of it.

A big theme has been very small sharp bowed boats: beginning with building Phil Bolger’s tiny Queen Mab design, Christer has gone on to build several small boats using the strip planking technique. My favourite among these is his Bridget, which he designed for his daughter and which takes its rig from an Optimist. I should add that he has also designed andbuilt at least one larger boat.

But what everyone really needs toknow about Christer’s boats is that he makes the plans available for free. Check them out at his free plans website.

The Beale Park Thames Boat Show – and another shed

I was thinking today about the Beale Park Boat Show of 2005, and it occurred to me that some of you might be interested in some of the photos I brought back. Chuck Leinweber posted some of them on his excellent Duckworks e-magazine for small boat enthusiasts.

Here are my shots from 2005:

http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/05/gatherings/beale1/index.cfm

Here are my friend Chris Partridge’s from the same year. His eye was caught as much as mine was by Mike Smylie’s River Severn salmon punt :

http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/05/gatherings/beale2/index.cfm

And here’s Chris’s set from this year:

http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/06/gatherings/beale/index.htm

Back in 2005, why the photo of a shed at a show full of elegant boats? It’s Mike Smylie’s shed for smoking fish in his role as The Kipperman, his alter ego on a mission to convert us all to eating hand-smoked fish. They taste so good he might even win the battle one day.

I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s no ordinary shed. And don’t miss the coracle in the background casually trying to upstage it…

Mike’s website is at:
www.kipperland.org.uk

c2.jpg