GRP vs WOOD

One last post from the Earls Court Boat Show, where I roamed the floor with the Nokia N95 8GB smartphone I've got on test. The images are spectacular seeing as it's a phone, albeit with a 5megapixel image sensor and top-notch Schneider lens.
Three traditionally-styled rowing boats were on display, which graphically illustrate why wood is better than plastic.
Heyland Marine were showing their Duchess skiff, which is quite a nice shape, robust, not very expensive and neatly finished. But the hull is built for strength rather than elegance, so it is not surprising to find they sell most to hire operators.

Those astonishing craftsmen Henwood & Dean showed a traditional Thames skiff that is a delight - a delicate confection of varnished wood set off with the occasional glint of brass and a gold leaf cove line. Perfect - although for you could buy a fleet of Duchesses for the price of just one H&D skiff.
And Adrian Donovan showed his lovely Whitehall, a type of rowing boat that originates from Whitehall Street, New York, rather than London, although the lines are clearly derived from the wherries that the Thames Watermen used to ply their trade. Again, the use of wood gives an elegance, lightness and truth of line that GRP can never achieve.

Those in peril

Just in case anyone gets the impression that rowing across an ocean is just a matter of slogging away until you get to the other side, and if you get a bit fed up all you have to do is press a button to be rescued, the Ocean Rowing Society showed some examples of what the seas can do to man and boat.
Two bits of Britannia II, a strong fibreglass monocoque designed by Uffa Fox and built by Clare Lalow, were on display. She had an outstanding record, being rowed across the Pacific from San Francisco to Australia by John Fairfax and Sylvia Cox in 1971/2, and across the Atlantic in 1974 by Peter Bird and Derek King. Peter Bird then rowed her across the Pacific but ran on to the rocks of Maui.
Also on display is Sector Two, the boat Peter built himself to a design by Nic Bailey for the first West to East, continent to continent crossing of the Pacific. He made several attempts, the last in 1996 ending in disaster - the boat was found floating upside down and empty by the US Coast Guard.
Nautica is a particularly depressing exhibit. At only 22 years old, Andrew Wilson was the youngest person ever to attempt a trans-oceanic row in Nautica, which he had designed and built himself. He set off from Newfoundland in 1980 and was never heard from again - the boat was washed up on the Scottish coast the following spring.

Cracknell and Fogle's transatlantic rowboat

Olympic oarsman James Cracknell and TV presenter Ben Fogle were first across the line in the 2005 Atlantic rowing race, eventually being placed third. Fogle since wrote a book and has been reminiscing on TV and radio about their sunburn, rashes, capsises, thirst, cold, heat, terror, hallucinations and so on until I swear I will never row out of sight of land no matter what. The fact that both rowed most of the way stark naked gets him a huge welcome on chat shows. Their boat Spirit of EDS Energy is on display at Earls Court - a 25 footer designed by Phil Morrison and built by Woodvale.

Transatlantic kayak

Peter Bray paddled this canoe from Newfoundland to Ireland solo and unsupported, in 2001. It took him 76 days. The boat is 20ft long and just two feet wide, which is not big enough to tempt me onto the ocean. It was designed by Jason Rice and built by Kirton Kayaks.

Britannia at the Earls Court Boat Show

John Fairfax was the first to row the Atlantic solo back in 1969, taking 180 days to get from the Canaries to Florida. The boat, a 25ft GRP cylinder designed by Uffa Fox and built by Clare Lallow in Cowes, was called Britannia. It used techniques developed for lifeboats to create a hull that would right itself from a total capsize, and if swamped would drain automatically within half a minute.
All the boats are from the collection of the Ocean Rowing Society, whose website has lots more pictures of the boats in action.

One of the first transatlantic rows

Sidney Genders rowed Khaggavisana across the Atlantic in three stages (Cornwall-Canaries-Antigua-Miami) in 1969/70.
She is just 20ft long, designed and built by Bradford Boat Yard, but the shape is a classic dory, simple and robust.

Earls Court Boat Show 2007

To the metropolis for the new Earls Court Boat Show, a brave but probably doomed attempt to wrench the boating community back from Docklands.
Amazingly, the show had a special feature devoted to rowing, but it wasn't rowing for pleasure. It was rowing for agony. In short, transoceanic rowing.
I've never been able to understand it. Rowing across an ocean is like a stretch in Devil's Island with worse food. The labour is never ending, the sun relentless, the sores unhealing, the view an unchanging level horizon punctuated by terrifying, trouser-staining tropical storms.
God knows why they do it.
Here's a general view of the exhibit. In the background is the James Caird, famous for Ernest Shackleton's epic voyage to safety when his Antarctic exploration vessel Endurance sank in 1916. More later.