Friday, 6 April 2012

Ratty hits the water

Martin Corrick brought the skiff he has built to Langstone for her maiden voyage. The weather was fabulous and we rowed with the Teifi skiffs Millie and Lottie to the Ferryboat Inn at the mouth of Langstone Harbour for lunch.
The boat, now named Ratty, is Lillian Woods's Linnet design. She is very similar to the Bee that I am building, so I was particularly interested in giving Ratty a workout.
The main difference between Linnet and Bee is that Linnet has two chines and a flat bottom, whereas Bee has one chine and a V bottom.
I rowed Ratty down to the Ferryboat and Martin rowed her back.
She certainly slips through the water easily and I found I could easily keep up with the Millie and Lottie. I like the flotation tanks, but the tanks down the side are too close together to allow sleeping on the floor, so I suspect I will leave them out of my Bee. The torsional strength will be beefed up with a few frames that will also support floorboards.
Here is a little video of Martin putting Ratty through her paces:


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi,

Great site! I'm trying to find an email address to contact you on to ask if you would please consider adding a link to my website. I'd really appreciate if you could email me back.

Thanks and have a great day!

Chris Partridge said...

What's your email, Frank? What site?

Chris Waite said...

Christo

Couldn't you slim your side tanks down till your broad, manly shoulders fit between them - for sleeping purposes?

I think it would still make it much stiffer and at least as lighter

Cee Dubbaya

Chris Partridge said...

Hi Chris - I have decided to eliminate the side tanks entirely, and put in a couple of frames to support the thwart. The gunwales are very substantial and I don't think the loss of structure will matter very much.