Joe Dobler's Marietta rowing yawl

One of the big drawbacks of Cornish pilot gig racing is the cost of the boats, which are traditionally-built of elm on oak. The bill is likely to be well north of £15,000 plus the oars, trailer, cover and so on.
Which makes the late Joe Dobler's design for a 23ft 6in pulling boat, the Marietta Yawl, particularly attractive for coastal rowing clubs on tight budgets.
Dobler designed it for a club in Marietta, Ohio, that wanted to give schoolkids that could not afford access to racing shells the chance to row. Apparently, the term yawl was used to describe the workboats carried by Mississippi steamboats.
Dobler redesigned the yawl for stitch and glue plywood construction, creating a very light but strong structure. The flat bottom makes it very easy to build, the idea being that schoolkids could build their own boats as projects, then race them.
The standard crew is four rowers and a cox, but it could have up to four scullers or even, I suppose, the Cornish ran-dan of two oarsmen and two scullers.
The design shows thole pins and oars with round looms, but if square rowlocks were fitted a club could get a set of wooden oars cheap from a rowing club that had converted to kevlar. This would have the added advantage that the children could be taught to feather their oar, making it easier for them to transfer to shells if they wanted to take up rowing seriously.
It is a great looking boat. With offshore rowing getting very popular here in the UK, we could do with a boat that is fun to row and race but simple and cheap to build, and safe and stable in waters such as the Solent.
The plans are available on Duckworks, which has lots of photos of the boat in action as well.

Rowing boats on eBay

The pretty antique rowing shell on eBay sold for an outstanding £720 after intense last-minute bidding. Does the buyer want to row it or hang it from the ceiling of a riverside restaurant? If anybody knows, do drop me a line.
The sale is a big contrast with this new 12ft skiff, still awaiting its first bid with less than a day to go. It looks very nicely made but not special. It is significant that the opening bid is a whopping £500. The seller of the old sliding seat boat had the courage to set the starting bid at £1 with no reserve, and it clearly sparked interest that led to a good result.
Brian Pearson was one of the interested parties (though not to the extent of 720 smackers). He notes:

"Hi Chris - yes, I always thought it was very special and am pleased it was valued by the bidders - good old eBay. I had a bike for sale on a cycling website, no takers and some enquiries saying my price was wrong. Began to believe them and would have taken a low offer after a month unsold on the site. So I put her on eBay, at my minimum with no reserve, and no bids for 6 days. Last few hours the bidding started and I sold her for more than I had her advertised on the bike website. I have had another chap get in touch about a Sprite [rowing skiff]. Again 10 years old, little used and wants a £1000. A new kit is about £770 so I do not understand.
Brian"

That's the power of eBay - the free market establishes the real price without distortion by seller greed or buyer tightfistedness. The best strategy when selling on eBay is clearly to put it to buyers with the lowest starting price you can live with - and wait for the market to speak. If the selling price is less than you hoped, then you were deluding yourself and it is time you came out of denial.
The seller of the Cornish pulling boat Henry has a realistic starting bid, which has already been matched. The boat looks lovely but there is a catch: it is in desparate need of restoration.
Built sometime between the wars, Henry is 14ft long, carvel built, and was apparently used as the harbourmaster's boat at Fowey in the 1990s.
The owner is frank about some rot and a hole, but this is the sort of boat that needs detailed examination before committing actual folding money. Bidding stands at sixty quid - it will be very interesting to see how far it goes. It would be nice to see it restored. It would suit Chichester Harbour very well, but I personally would rather build a new one rather than spend a lot more money and effort restoring a time-expired hull. Old boats are like old cars, lovely to look at but hell to own.
UPDATE Sunday: The rowing boat Kingfisher sold with a last minute bid at the starting price of £500. Impossible to tell if setting a lower starting price would have set of a bidding war that would have sent the selling price higher, or if the high initial price meant the sole bidder didn't get a rock-bottom bargain. Anyway, a good result.

Watery holidays

James writes to say he and a two friends are planning to do the Three Men in a Boat thing, courtesy of Thames Skiff Hire that I mentioned in an article I wrote for The Times a while back. He says:

"I'd be interested to read the rest of your published article if it's posted? Myself and two friends are paying homage to JKJ thanks to Thames Skiff Hire... keep an eye on http://www.threemeninaboat2008.blogspot.com/ and in just over a month I'll let you know how it goes!
Nice blog.
J"

The rest of the article was about non-rowing but fun activities such as narrowboating and coasteering so I didn't include that in the original post, but as you ask, here is the full text:

Britain is blessed with an abundance of water for playing on, in and around. Nowhere is far from a coast, river or lake offering every kind of boating from laid-back cruising on the canals to the exhilaration of white water rafting.
But nothing is more ingrained in the British psyche than rowing on the Thames, implanted as small children by reading Wind in the Willows and later by Three Men in a Boat. Not to mention the Eton Boating Song.
Tom Balm of Thames Skiff Hire in Walton on Thames takes old rowing skiffs and restores them into symphonies of varnished mahogany, bronze and canvas. Then he rather generously allows us to play at being Ratty or Jerome K Jerome in them.
You can start and finish anywhere along the river - he will deliver the boat to one of 30 and collect from another one so you can row downstream only if you feel lazy. Four people can fit in a boat, but only three can sleep so one will have to put a tent up on the bank. Cooking equipment is provided, including that essential tin opener.
If boating on the Thames evokes the gentler pace of a bygone age, then white water rafting on the Tay in Perthshire offers a total adrenaline rush. Basically, the sport involves strapping yourself into what is effectively a large inflated truck tire and throwing yourself down streams that go terrifyingly downhill. It’s great.
The river has some of the finest stretches of white water anywhere, including the terrifying Orchy and Braan. Dunolly Adventure Outdoors runs rafting trips throughout the year, supplying everything from wet suit to helmet. Every trip starts with a safety session including instruction on paddle strokes. For those who want more, families can stay and the centre and indulge in canoeing, mountain biking and other activities.
On the face of it, the latest extreme sport, ‘coasteering’, is just as alarming - a sort of combination of rock climbing, diving, surfing – but children have always explored the rocks and pools around the beaches where their parents lie like beached whales in the sun. Picture shows coasteering in Cornwall with breathingspace.uk.com.
Coasteering was developed on Britain’s only coastal National Park in Pembrokeshire, pioneered by local activity holiday firm TYF Adventure. The concept could not be simpler – don a wetsuit, helmet and an old pair of trainers (don’t expect to use them again), and scramble up the rocks. Trained instructors will show you places where you can throw yourself into the sea without too much risk of killing yourself, and every chance of thoroughly enjoying the experience. There are caves to be explored, seals to watch and waves to bodysurf in.
Trips are graded for ages from eight upwards, and you don’t even have to be able to swim though confidence around water is desirable. TYF also offers sea kayaking and surfing, as well as operating the only fully organic hotel in Wales in a converted windmill near St Davids.
Coasteering may be the latest thing, but the popularity of sailing has soared since Britain’s recent Olympic successes.
One of the best places to learn how is on the protected water of Chichester Harbour on the South Coast. It’s one of the prettiest too, and Cobnor Activities Centre is at its heart.
A charitable foundation, Cobnor is an RYA training centre, operating a fleet of boats from Toppers to Visions. Pictures show the Home-Built Boat Regatta at Cobnor last year.
Children can attend sailing camps which concentrate on improving RYA skill levels, or activity camps with a variety of other activities such as canoeing, climbing, archery and walks in the South Downs. Accommodation is either under canvas or in log cabins.
Suggest to the kids that they might enjoy a holiday in Birmingham and they may be sceptical. Tell them you will be cruising round some of the loveliest canals in Britain and they could be converted. A huge regeneration scheme has transformed the centre of the canal system round Gas Street Basin into a thriving area with pubs, clubs, an arena and lots for kids to do. But it is its position at the centre of numerous ‘ring’ routes that make it an ideal jumping off point for a canal holiday. Brightly painted narrowboats throng the old wharves and new marinas, and many can be hired as luxury floating holiday homes. Getting from the glitz of Gas Street to the rural peace of Staffordshire or Worcestershire does involve motoring through some very drab suburbs, but it is worth it. There is nothing more relaxing than steering a narrowboat along a winding canal, having sent the kids running ahead to prepare the lock for your arrival. You relax and they tire themselves out – a recipe for a happy holiday.

Thames Skiff Hire 01932 232433 www.skiffhire.com
Dunolly Adventure Outdoors 01887 820298 www.dunollyadventures.co.uk
TYF Adventure 01437 721611 www.tyf.com
Cobnor Activities Centre 01243 572791 www.cobnor.com
Canal Holidays UK 0845 226 2485 www.canalholidays.com

Antique sculling shell on eBay

This lovely sculling shell is on eBay, bidding currently over £100 and the auction still has five days to go.
The boat is 21ft long, clinker built (I think) and apparently still rowable. Its age is unknown, though I would say she looks pre-war or even older. It is exactly the sort of boat Mr Toad would have had, until he abandoned rowing for the gypsy caravan.

Amble up the Hamble

Rowed up the Hamble from Swanwick to the Horse and Jockey at Curbridge with members of the Dinghy Cruising Association today, and, since you ask, it was grey, cold and occasionally damp. I had the best of it really, as rowing keeps you warm and builds up an appetite even for British pub food.
Alistair Law brought his Paradox Little Jim and demonstrated how to use the yuloh, or Chinese oar. Apparently it is easy as long as you practice for a few hours right at the beginning, rather than leave learning the skill until you need to negotiate a crowded harbour in a brisk wind. Al relies on his a lot, as his outboard is stowed forward rather than hung off the transom where it gets in the way.
Liz Baker had outboard trouble so had to row, something that sailors hate, and was very late for lunch as a result. Al and I were coming back downstream when we met her, Liz's crew manfully (womanfully?) wielding the oars. That's Al in the background, having set sail.

A Sculler's Grave

In my post about the tomb of Robert Coombes, the great Thames sculler, I described four 'guardians' round the tomb, dressed in various waterman's costumes. Well, I failed to spot that they are all, in fact, the same man, as a note in my inbox pointed out:

"Dear Chris, I really enjoyed what you wrote about my great great great grandfather, but I would like to put you right about the "four guardians" - they are Robert Coombes himself.
Kindest regards
Alison Gibbens"

Many thanks, Alison. Of course, identification would be much easier if the heads could be replaced - restoration of this great monument is long overdue.
There is a similarly adulatory monument in Woolwich churchyard to Tom Cribb, Champion Pugilist of England (1781-1848). It is a stone lion with his paw resting on an urn, with the great boxer's championship belt draped over it. Cribb's funeral was one of the biggest ever seen in London.
Both these monuments are relics of a time when sportsmen may have been worshipped but were actually proxies for noble patrons who could not compete in person for reasons of status and class. As soon as social attitudes changed and the upper classes could compete as long as they didn't do it for a living, amateur athletics displaced professional sport almost completely.

The picture of Tom Cribb's lion comes from "The Black Diamond", Alan Bartlet's website devoted to the boxer.

A new rowing boat design

It's great to find messages like this in the inbox:

"Chris,
Just a quick note to say thanks for putting in all the effort it takes to keep this blog going, I only discovered it about a month ago and am now a regular.
Enclosed are some pics of my rowing boat. I designed and built her over the winter 2006/7 so she’s not a new launching. The idea is a safe coastal rowing boat, taking inspirations from John Welsford’s Joansa, Bolger’s Light Dory and Paul Garside’s flash boat specifically, plus ideas from a few others in John Gardener’s excellent Building Classic Small Craft.
I live in Bursledon so I wanted to be able to row out into the Solent which can be choppy and has the additional hazards of very heavy motor boat wash. The design process was very enjoyable and pretty straightforward. Starting with rough lines, I built a half model – thanks go to Sam Devlin for his chapter on making chine models (Devlin’s Boatbuilding) it's really easy to go from drawing to half model which gives a much better feel for the design.
With some adjustments I proceeded to a full model in 1mm ply which was built stitch and glue (fuse wire and superglue) to prove the construction and panel shapes. With spreadsheets even Stimpson’s rule calculations are pretty quick and easy, but I have to say I didn’t bother with this one. We did “tank test” the model in the bath, weighted with coins to see how she tracked and how it responded to “waves” – all very unscientific but it did give me some confidence we were on the right track.
Construction is 4mm ply with 9mm for transom and frames, the gunnels are some cheap pine, she went together very easily the 6 panels stitched up, transom fitted and a couple of cross braces to form the shape while the first epoxy tapes were put in. Once the hull was reasonably stable frames were measured and fitted accurately as were stern and stem compartments, breast hooks etc.
Finish is painted in workboat tradition (I have enough varnishing to do on my other two boats). The build came in pretty light as intended (under 100lbs) and she floats pretty much as intended with one person rowing, if a little tender initially. I wheel her down from our house to Swanwick hard on the launching trolley (about 400 yards) so the light weight is important, especially going home after a long row. Two up or with a small load she’s very stable. Rowing long distances is easy and relaxing. All in all I’m pretty pleased with her.
The picture above is launch day of Swanwick Hard. I’ve since moved the seat forward 3” which trims the bows down slightly and increases directional stability. In windy conditions I carry a 5 litre water container forward to keep her tracking (advice from John Welsford – apparently its a dory quirk).
I guess we ought to think about joining the HBBR, the trouble is fitting everything in. If you or any of the members are planning to an outing to Bursledon or the Hamble please drop me an email it would be nice to row in company.
Max Taylor"

And so you shall! The Dinghy Cruising Association is cruising up the Hamble this weekend, and several Home Built Boat Regatta members will be there, including me (weather permitting!). Organization is flexible (some say non-existent) but the group will be foregathering at Swanwick Hard at about 10.00hrs on Saturday, heading upriver to the Horse and Jockey at Curbridge for lunch. The group will meet in the evening in the Jolly Sailor in Bursledon. Sunday will probably be spent out in Southampton Water.