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
Don’t be too put off by the photo! The Afloat website has a nice piece about boat builders in Ireland that includes veteran Jimmy Furey, who builts beautiful Water Wags and Shannon One Designs, new generation traditional boatbuilder Dougal MacMahon, the current wave of interest in building Bray Droleens, and a project at Clontarf Yacht & Boat Club building a clinker IDRA 14.
Rescue Wooden Boats has now put up some 70 short films, many of them of old time fishermen talking about their work and lives – here are some examples.
The organisation also has a substantial online photo archive.
Thames rowing skiff by Stirling & Son
This very handsome little boat is a Thames rowing skiff built recently by Devon-based Stirling & Son. As usual, click on the images for much larger photos, including the lower-middle shot showing the boat’s gold leaf detail.
Will Stirling is a great historian, so I don’t doubt it’s an accurate example of the type, and I gather the new boat’s owners are keeping her on the Thames at Henley. I’ve a half-cooked plan to get over that way this week, so will look out for her from the water if I get the opportunity.
Also new from Stirling & Son is the 12ft pulling boat named Impulse – see the photos below.
Stirlings will be at the Southampton Boat Show, and plan to display a pulling boat and a 14ft sailing dinghy.
The 14ft dinghy is currently on the drawing board, but will be of mahogany on oak with copper and bronze fastenings, bronze fittings, spruce spars and clipper canvas sails with traditional ash blocks. However, boatbuilding will have to wait – as Will himself is in North West Passage skippering a BBC camera boat for an attempt by explorer Jock Wishart to row to the Magnetic North Pole to highlight the extent of ice depletion in the Arctic.
Stirling & Son offer traditional yacht building and wooden boat repair and are based in Tavistock. Contact Will via the website or call 01822 614259.
12 ft pulling boat by Stirling & Son