Tag: tuition

The BBA gets a new website

BBA website

The Boat Building Academy folks down at Lyme are proud of their new website, and promises much more regular photos on the build diaries.

I hope they don’t get glue on their precious cameras!

The new website has improved boat pages. See the current student builds and latest boats launched here, and there’s an archive of boats built since September 2006 here.

There’s a useful page about what BBA students go on to do after their courses here
and a collection of their testimonials about the teaching here.

There’s also a press page, and news and events pages.

Now all the BBA folks have to is keep it up to date… Hopefully with a new website with a modern back end it should be easy. Certainly there will be plenty to post with all those boat building projects going on.

Replica 18th century shipwright’s workshop to be built at Buckler’s Hard

Buckler's Hard

This year sees the building of a new replica timber-framed 18th century shipwrights’ workshop at the old shipbuilding village of Buckler’s Hard by the Beaulieu River.

Once built using local timber, the workshop will become a centre for the teaching and study of traditional shipbuilding, working in partnership with the Portsmouth branch of the International Boatbuilding Training College (IBTC).

The school’s aim is to ensure the continuation of shipwright skills for the restoration of historic ships, and to support the traditional boatbuilding industry.

Nearby woodland will allow students to be taught about timber felling, conversion and storage.

The building project will also be used as a learning exercise, with students taught to use traditional tools and methods, and the building is planned to be raised in in early August 2014 using the traditional gin pole and block and tackle, and then pegged together with cleft oak trunnels.

Read more here and here.

BBA student launches Iain Oughtred glued clinker rowing boat

Photos by Jenny Steer and Becky Joseph

This 9ft 6in Iain Oughtred-designed glued clinker dinghy built by Boat Building Academy student Alex Kennedy hit the water for the first time at the BBA’s student launch day back in December.

Built to Oughtred’s Sea Hen plans, she is named Gracious Lady, and is planked in Robbins elite ply.

During the build Iain Oughtred himself regularly showed his support to Alex via the Academy’s facebook page, giving the thumbs-up to photographs of the dinghy throughout its build, and also to Alex’s birthday cake, which took the shape of a chocolate ship.

Before attending his BBA course, Alex worked in various roles including as a mechanic and chauffeur. He has travelled in Australia and enjoys sailing, swimming and cycling.

Like most most students, he started with little or no woodworking skills, and openly admits that he ‘didn’t even know how to hold a chisel on day one’, but I gather he is now delighted with what he has achieved.

James Goulding worked closely with Alex on Sea Hen. James went to school in Dubai and then completed a BTEC National Diploma in Design at Chichester College before joining the Academy. His previous jobs have ranged from carpenting in Bournemouth to sales in Dubai.

James plans to use his new skills to find work in the marine industry and would like to travel the world; Since the course ended Alex has visited America and is to do a two-week internship at the Mystic Seaport Museum.