Langstone Cutters at the Great River Race

This shot is the one that says 'Great River Race' for me. Mabel hammering upriver past the Houses of Parliament.

There was a good deal of hanging around before the start, with the boats sitting on the foreshore at the Isle of Dogs. This is part of the crew of Gladys waiting.

Here is the Solent galley Bembridge drifting down to the holding area before moving up to the start line.

The Teifi skiff Millie looks very small in a big river as she heads downriver for the holding area. That's the old naval victualling yard in Deptford in the background.

15 Seconds, a Salter skiff, was already out of the water and ready to go home by the time Mabel arrived at Ham.
UPDATE
Langstone Cutters super-vets (over 60s) in Gladys won their class for the fifth successive year. 15 Seconds won the women's trophy, and Millie won the veteran women's class. Bembridge put up a great fight but didn't win silverware - but next year they will be truly acquainted with their boat and the opposition had better watch out. Mabel finished.
Huge congratulations to all.
There were, of course, one or two other clubs at the event and I'll be posting more later. Meanwhile, there is a great selection of pictures and all the results at the Great River Race website.

Great River Race

Too late to post anything rational about the Great River Race, beyond saying that Mabel recorded a time of about four hours; nobody died; I did not, to my surprise, actually need CPR or oxygen; and Langstone Cutters won some silverware. But not Mabel.

Great River Race

I'm on the coach heading for the start on the Isle of Dogs. You can track the progress of Mabel and the other Langstone Cutters boats at www.greatriverrace.co.uk.
Mabel's number is 65.

Great River Race

JP has just commented that Bruff would be 'just the thing' for the Great River Race tomorrow. Well, I will be rowing the race in Mabel, one of the boats from Langstone Cutters. We are fielding two Clayton skiffs, a Solent galley, a Tiefi skiff and a Salter skiff.
If you are also competing, give us a wave as you pass. If you are watching, keep an eye out for me - I will be the one being given CPR and oxygen by whatever the riverine arm of St John's Ambulance is.

Thames double-ended skiff on eBay

An absolutely lovely and very unusual Thames rowing boat has come up for auction on eBay.
Bruff was built in 1910 by A.E. Saunders of Streatley as a double-ender, something I have never seen on the Thames. She looks a bit like an Adirondack guide boat, with the rower at one end and a passenger at the other, though in Edwardian Streatley the passenger would have been more likely to be a girl with a parasol rather than a 'sport' with rod and gun. At a mere 9ft long she is much shorter than the average guide boat, and with a beam of 3ft 8in a little tubbier too, but she should row easily and 'put the water back where she found it'.
According to the vendor Bruff is in remarkably unrestored condition, and comes with two sets of spoon oars, brass rowlocks and the original cover.
The A.E. Saunders yard was next to the Swan Hotel. The most famous member of the family firm was Sam Saunders who developed double-diagonal construction for fast steam boats, notably the boat race umpires boat Consuta. He outgrew the Streatley site, moving to Cowes in 1901 and founding the Saunders-Roe company that made everything from airborne lifeboats to hovercraft.

More on the Shipyard School Raid 2009

Andy Zimmerman has written a great account of his adventures in the Shipyard School Raid in British Columbia, which I posted about a little time ago. Andy entered in his lovely 18ft Whitehall Hornpipe, which he built himself to the Alaska design of Don Kurylko.

Andy tellingly describes the way everyone had to change from rowing to sailing and vice versa, depending on conditions.
Raiders have uploaded a bunch of pictures of the event to Flickr, including the one above showing Andy at the oars. Below is the skin-on-frame Tuvaak and Bus Bailey, a traditional handliner. Andy describes Bus Bailey's owner Colin Masson sailing and rowing downwind, by simply raising the sail, turning his back to it, and rowing. This is a technique I hope to try with my new boat.

And finally, the longboat Bear seems to be making speed under sail but mainly under the oars of the Port Townsend Sea Scouts.

My new boat arrives (in bits)

Unbirthday time at Chateau Partridge - the kit for my Bee arrived this morning!
Alec Jordan has been busy transforming Lillian Woods' plans into computer form, and cutting sheets of ply so I don't have to. Apparently this was not a trivial process as the plans assume a lot of 'fitting to shape' which makes calculating the actual shape of several of the inside panels impossible. But as long as the hull comes out correctly I am confident I can get the rest of the bits together.
Construction starts as soon as the Great River Race is over (Saturday) and Snarleyow is repainted and re-gunwaled and it stops raining. Could be some time...
Eventually, it should look like this: