Tag: will stirling

The sails are made for Stirling and Son 1880s-style racing cutter Integrity

  

The sails have been made up for the new 1880s-style 20-ton racing gaff cutter being built by Stirling & Son of Tavistock in Devon.

The sailmaker for the project is Steve Hall of North Sea Sails, who works from the Ibex Sail Loft in Tollesbury. The photos above were taken by Annikka Hall.

The sails are made from Clipper canvas with brass eyes, hand-stitched bolt ropes and leather work.

There are 2,000 square feet of sail between the jib, staysail, jib topsail, square sail, mainsail and yard topsail.

Earlier intheboatshed.net posts about Integrity can be found here; other posts about the Will Stirling and Stirling and Sons boat building and design work are available by clicking  here and following the ‘older posts’ link.

 

Sara and Will Stirling sail to the Eddystone and back in a 14ft Stirling and Sons traditional dinghy

Sara and Will Stirling 14' dinghy at the Eddystone Wateraid

They made it! On Tuesday 6th March Sara and Will Stirling launched one of Will’s 14ft traditional clinker-built dinghies at Plymouth 0530am. It was dark and there was frost on the deck – there was also a light wind so light that it meant a lot of rowing, so I guess at least one person kept warm.

At the Eddystone, Sara deposited Will on a rock to take some photos of the her and the boat in front of the lighthouse.

The pair sailed away on light SW breeze which dropped away for a period, and it was time to out with the oars for a while until the wind picked up and Sara and Wilk had an exciting sail back to Plymouth.

This expedition was entirely self-funded in order to raise awareness and money for WaterAid, a charity which increases access to clean water in third world countries. If you’d like to read more, click here. If you’d like to donate, click here.

For more posts about Will Stirling and Stirling and Sons, click here.

Sara and Will Stirling to sail 14ft dinghy to Eddystone Light to raise Wateraid cash

Stirling and Son 14ft dinghy ashore in the mud

Intheboatshed.net regular correspondent Will Stirling and his wife Sara  are to sail from Plymouth to the Eddystone Lighthouse and back in an open 14ft clinker dinghy. (See more of the boat here.)

But it’s not for a bet as you might think – it’s to raise money for the charity Wateraid, and to demonstrate the dinghy’s seaworthiness.

Will is an sailing adventurer as well as a historian and boatbuilder – he runs the boatbuilding firm Stirling and Son – and has spent the last five summers sailing in the Arctic, most recently as skipper of the support boat for the Old Pulteney Row to the Pole expedition last year.

In March Sara and Will plan to sail their 14ft dinghy from the Mount Batten Centre
in Plymouth to the Eddystone Light and back, a trip of 24 miles. In fact, it’s to be the first of a series of increasingly adventurous trips that Will intends to make, including one across the English Channel in the dinghy this summer. The third outing is to be a trip through the Magellan Straight, at the southern-most tip of South America.

To sponsor Sara and Will, click here. I’m told a gift of £12 can buy two taps for a village waterpoint, £20 can buy 25 metres of pipe, £46 can buy a family toilet, £50 can buy a hand-pump and £60 can buy a rainwater collection jar.