Tag: traditional

Restored 1943 type K Montagu whaler, good condition, for sale in London

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vancouver

Montagu whaler Vancouver is now sold

Dick Wynne is selling his 27ft 6in type K Montagu whaler. I’m sure it has been a painful decision and it’s a damn shame for all those who have enjoyed crewing her, but no doubt two traditional boats like this is too much for one man!

This could be the offer of a lifetime for someone. Here’s what he says about the boat:

‘Vancouver is an ex-Royal Navy ship’s boat built in 1943 and lovingly restored and maintained over many years regardless of expense.

Construction is mahogany and larch on oak, with gunwales, thwarts etc in solid teak. She is probably the finest example of the type in existence. Her equipment includes:

– five matching 15ft spruce Admiralty oars plus many spares

– full sailing rig – lug main, jib and mizzen

– 6hp Mariner outboard on a lifting quarter bracket, with lock, and separate fuel tank mounted in sternsheets

– two bilge pumps

– ample buoyancy

– 12 x 150N automatic XM lifejackets with recharging kits

– two paddles for tight spots

– Admiralty pattern anchor

– mooring lines, fenders, full-length tent/cover

– nearly new four-wheel braked trailer with sealed hubs and brake flushing system

All her external paintwork was renewed in 2008, and all her exposed timber stripped of varnish and oiled (with Deks Olje #1 and #2) for ease of maintenance. Although of traditional timber construction, she is in superb condition and is easily maintained so. A faultless recent professional survey report is available to serious enquirers.

She is a robust, stable and versatile workhorse fully equipped for pulling, sailing and motoring in a variety of applications including raids, races, expeditions, pleasure trips under power, race/committee boat use, etc. She would make an excellent school or club boat.

Vancouver has plied the tidal Thames in London under oar and sail for the past few years, and is a regular in the annual Great River Race. She has been trailed farther afield to locations including the East Coast, Western Highlands, and Milford Haven, and attracts much attention wherever she goes. She is only reluctantly for sale as, rather improbably, she is my second boat and I can no longer find the time to do justice to two traditional wooden boats. She is currently lying afloat in London.’

For a pdf including more photos from last year click here, and for more on the boat and what he’s been doing with it, click here.

Also, if you’re curious about what his other boat might be, this photo and the knowledge that he’s a leading member of the Albert Strange Association will probably tell you all you need to know.

Complete with a full inventory including trailer, Dick is asking for £9,500 or offers. Call him on 07990 573160.

We don’t often see whalers, but for some photos of one I spotted in the Fal Estuary some time ago, click here.


The Valiant Sailor, a powerful song of naval warfare in the 18th century

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The singing Jack Crawford

Regular readers will remember a recent post about a press-ganged keelman who became a war hero, Jack Crawford, who climbed to the top of his ship’s damaged mast under heavy fire, and nailed the Union Jack to it. This important and astonishingly brave act won him an audience with King George III and a pension.

If you followed the link in the earlier post, you will know that there’s another Jack Crawford, a singer who has recently made a CD of largely traditional songs.

By an amazing coincidence, it turns out that one of them describes being press-ganged and then forced to fight at sea, and I’m glad to say that Jack’s considered performance is timed to make every word count.

My perspective of The Valiant Sailor is that it’s an important, eye-opening song with an understandably bitter point of view, and really should be heard by anyone with a romantic view of the Royal Navy of the time, warfare in the era of the wooden walls, or of press-ganging.

However, Jack has a different view of it, and as he sings this song (and I don’t) he’s obviously given it much more thought than I have. Here’s what he had to say in an email to me earlier:

‘You write of a “song with an understandably bitter point of view” and yet, when I sing it I feel no bitterness. Consider the closing sentiment “and here I lie a-bleeding all on the deck and it’s all for her sweet safety I must die.”

‘In my view, the sailor has become reconciled to his fate and he understands the necessity to defend his country at sea – and die in the process if that’s what the Fates decree. It’s not the life he chose and thread of the song is a linear narrative of how he came to be in that situation. As such, it’s far from romantic, but I don’t think it’s bitter. Granted, we have “thousands of times I’ve wished myself home” to make it quite clear (as if we were in any doubt) that he’s not enjoying himself, and who can blame him, but there’s no bitterness there. The dominant emotion is the sadness of his longing to return to his “Polly on the shore” and the stark realization that he never will.

‘I reprise the first verse to drive home the enormity of the events and serve as a warning to other young men – not from bitterness but as sound practical advice supported by a salutary lesson. I don’t think a song based on bitterness would have endured so well through changing times.’

I think this quality of enduring is significant. This is a song that remained in oral transmission right into the 20th century: more than a century after the events it describes, ordinary people still felt it had something of value that was worth remembering, even though the author was long forgotten to them. That, of course, is the real meaning of the term ‘folk song’.

Click here to hear an MP3 of Jack’s version of The Valiant Sailor (it’s a biggish file, but well worth the short wait) from the CD Pride of the Season, and click here to buy a copy.

Why use wood to build boats?

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Rowing boat built from wood in the traditional way – and isn’t
it so much more attractive than plastic? Photo from Flickr
Creative Commons, taken by Rick Rowland

Several times now I’ve been promised short articles that answer this question, but as yet no-one has sent me any clear answers – not even those who really should have the information at the top of their heads and have an obvious interest in making the case.

So I was intrigued to find some answers to this question about wooden boatbuilding laid out in a recent post at Tiernan Roe’s weblog Roeboats.  Here are his key points (some are slightly paraphrased):

•Where light weight and strength are needed wood is the best material to use.

•Pound for pound, wood is stronger than than steel, most fiberglass and aluminium.

•On the same basis, wood is stiffer than fiberglass, kevlar or steel.

•Wood absorbs vibrations and this includes sound, so wooden boats are quieter.

•Wood does not fatigue with repeated loading.

•Wood is a renewable resource and the growing of wood removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

•Wood is eco friendly in that it can be recycled, fiberglass cannot.

•Wood looks good.

•Wood allows economical, in both materials and cost, custom production of boats.

•Wooden boats require similar maintenance to fiberglass boats. Gel coat is not the wonder material it was thought to be.

Tiernan adds that the reason most boats for sale today are made of fiberglass is that they can be made by semiskilled and unskilled workers who are cheaper to hire than the skilled craftspeople needed to build a wooden boat.

I’d add a couple of points to Tiernan’s list. One is that traditional wooden boats bring so much to the landscape – there are many precious places in the UK that would be utterly changed without their characteristic wooden boats – including The Broads, the River Thames, the creeks of the East Coast, and the beaches at Cromer and Hastings.

Another is that when we build in wood or commission others to do so, we are helping to maintain an important tradition. Boatbuilders teach each other, and the skills have long been conveyed by oral transmission. To my mind, this makes boatbuilding a culturally important tradition.

But although I’m obviously an enthusiast for wooden boats and boatbuilding, I’m sure the cause of the wooden boat is best served by a realistic view of the issues, and that many readers of this weblog will have different perspectives based on their own exeriences.

For example, I’m not sure the maintenance argument is entirely justified. I’ve learned that anything in the open air that is covered with gelcoat or a epoxy and a two-part paint requires far less maintenance than anything wooden that’s covered with alkyd paints, varnish or even teak oils. With our busy working and family lives I have no hesitation in saying that we own and use at least one boat that we wouldn’t be able to keep up it on a DIY basis if it was made from wood.

I wonder also whether the argument that building from wood is environmentally friendly has really been made. I’m inclined to believe in global warming and the trouble it is bringing, but I feel also that the arithmetic we presume when we’re making judgements about environmental issues is often overly simplistic. For example, when wood eventually rots its breakdown must release carbon dioxide and the much worse global warming gas methane. So what is the lifetime cost of a wooden boat to the environment compared with a plastic one? I haven’t a clue, but I don’t think the answer should be taken as obvious until someone clever works it through and provides us with the result of their calculations. Just to add a factor that seems relevant, what is the contribution to global warming made by the drying of spirit-based paints and varnish?

These are just a few thoughts of mine.What do you think? Are there any points here you’d argue with? Are there any arguments to add? Comments via the comment link below and at Tiernan’s weblog please!

PS Fans of the US designer John Atkin will be interested to know that Tiernan is currently weblogging the build of a clinker-built Atkin Ninigret.

PPS I’d draw your attention to some of the comments below, particularly those of West Country boat designer, occasional building and general sailing man John Hesp.