It was a cold winter’s morning when Alec Jordan delivered the Western Skiff kit to Jeremy Butler’s house overlooking the River Dart in January 2018. It was, in its way, an historic moment, for this was the first Western Skiff to be built from a kit for 20 years. For two decades, the boat had been unavailable in any form – apart from a few bootleg copies scaled up from a paper model from the 1990s – and repeated requests for “drawings, plans, anything!” were to no avail. Now, not only is the boat available in kit form, but building plans are available to download free of charge for the more intrepid builder. It’s been a long time coming, but the Western Skiff is back.
When Nigel Irens designed the 14ft (4.3m) dinghy 22 years ago, boatbuilding as a hobby was enjoying a modest but significant revival in the UK. Not content with just creating a dinghy for amateur boatbuilders, however, the designer of record-breaking multihulls such as B&Q, ENZA and Cable & Wireless decided that kit boats would be the logical next step forward:
“There’s more than a whiff in the air that kit building is in for a revival,” he wrote in the May 1997 issue of Classic Boat (CB107). “Partly because, as in the post-war years, people are again looking for a way to get afloat without mortgaging their soul, and partly because there’s some new technology about that makes the whole idea more accessible to those who cannot claim to be master builders.”
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 2020-Ausgabe von Classic Boat.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 2020-Ausgabe von Classic Boat.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
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ROW YOUR BOAT
There has been a steady rise in recreational rowing over the past few years, and the choice can be bewildering. What’s the right boat for you?
Traditional Tool
JOINER’S NAME STAMP
Classic misuse of a word
Real classic ownership involves rot, rust and reward
SCUD MISSILE
Herreshoff’s newly-restored Bar Harbor 31 Scud lit up the classic racing scene in the Med in 2020 with a double win at Cannes and Saint-Tropez
BOSUN'S BAG
PRACTICAL TIPS FOR THE TRADITIONAL BOATER
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Vietnam vet, park ranger, dentist, small-craft conservator and tugboat skipper.... meet Ranger Doug!
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A rare, 18th-century schooner replica, restored to the tune of around £1 million, could be abandoned if a buyer is not found soon.