Tag: water craft

Nov-Dec Water Craft magazine preview

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Water Craft Nov-Dec 2009 320

Water Craft’s latest issue marks the beginning of the boatbuilding season, which editor Pete Greenfield says begins when the sailing season ends.

It has pretty well ended here in the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere, but I’m not so sure that the boat building starts quite yet. But I do think November and the run up to Christmas is a time when many of us get into some serious boat-dreaming and boat noodling – my name for the delicious process of thinking through what kind of boat we want, what we’re capable of building and what would use it for?

As usual, the latest Water Craft is full of interesting crumbs to feed our obsession.

Designer Paul Gartside presents the first of a series of complete plans, including offsets, for boats you can build; this time it’s a shapely double-ended 12ft  rowing boat for traditional carvel (or clinker) construction.

Fancy strip planking? Read how Nick Paull built the Canadian canoe that won him Water Craft’s special prize for the most professional-loooking home-built boat at the Beale Park Thames Boat Show.

More, Patrick Curry explains how he made hollow wooden spars for his traditional Dutch yacht, Bob Lloyd shows how to make a razee.

Pete  is still working on his Phil Bolger-designed Chebacco boat in the outdoors (brrr! – rather him than me!) and Dick Phillips has been sailing a Chebacco built by Connie Mense that many of us saw on show at Beale. (For an intheboatshed.net post on this boat click here.)

Jo Moran has been sailing another boat we saw at Beale, the electric day-sailer Cirrus and Kathy Mansfield has been to Portsoy’s Traditional Boat Festival.

Subscribe to Water Craft now – the drawings for that Gartside pulling  boat alone will make your investment worthwhile!

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!

Lechlade Raid, the Beale Park Thames Boat Show, and this year’s Watercraft comp for amateur boatbuilders

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Home Built Boat Regatta - the sun can shine at an HBBR meeting

A rare moment of bright sunshine at an HBBR meeting

The Home Built Boat Regatta folks are planning what sounds like a jolly river trip. It starts at Lechlade on the 1st June with the aim of arriving at Beale Park, Pangbourne, on the evening before this year’s Beale Park Thames Boat Show.

In keeping with the HBBR’s traditions, the Lechlad Raid is not an organised event but a cruise of individuals in company who welcome all who wish to join them, but ask that all boats and crews are up to the trip. Each individual is responsible for ensuring their own liabilities are covered and for making their own arrangements for over-nighting during the journey. There will be no formal safety cover.

From what I understand, the start time on the 1st is unclear, but more information will doubtles emerge and will be posted at the HBBR website events page.

Some readers may be interested to hear that by chance the Trailer Section of the Old Gaffer Association is also having a meet at Lechlade on the weekend of the 30-31st May, and that it will be happy to see Lechlade Raiders who decide to arrive early to join them. The OGA folks have organised camping in a field behind the pub, and this is likely to cost about a tenner.

Another piece of news concerns the Water Craft magazine amateur boatbuilding competition, which is judged at the Beale Park Thames Boat Show each year. After some discussions with HBBR members, editor Pete Greenfield has decided to change the format in the light of complaints that the high standard of craftsmanship of some of the entries tends to discourage rather than encourage many amateur boatbuilders.

So this year there will be three equal prizes of £80-worth of Water Craft books for: The Home-Made Boat Which Offers Most Encouragement To Beginners, The Most Innovative Home-Made Boat and, because we don’t want to stop encouraging amateur craftsmen and craftswomen, The Most Professional- Looking Home-Made Boat.

Now it’s time to find some pictures of your home-built wooden boat, write a few words to describe her, add your contact details and send it no later than 17 April, either by email to: ed@watercraft- magazine. com or by post to: Amateur Boatbuilding Awards 2009, Water Craft, Bridge Shop, Gweek, Cornwall TR12 6UD. All entrants who bring their boats to the show will also receive £50-worth of vouchers. You don’t have to pre-register to participate in the Raid, though it would be kind to let the HBBR folks know you’re coming, but you must send entries for the competition to Water Craft by the the 17 April deadline in order to take part in the competition – for insurance reasons, you can’t just turn up on the day, by water or by road.

Be aware, also, that you must be a real amateur, and that boats built from pre-cut kits are not allowed to enter.

For previous intheboatshed.net posts featuring the HBBR, click here.

I won’t be able to join the HBBR folks once again dur to family reasons, but if anyone reading this fancies the trip and would like to build a simple and easily constructed rowing boat for the purpose, may I modestly suggest my Julie skiff plans? I will be pleased to help out with modification to make it more suitable for overnighting afloat.