by Martin Hargreaves | Jun 17, 2014 | personal, Sailing, wooden boats
Although he lives on the the isle of Skye, Iain Oughtred is in fact Australian and was born in the outskirts of Sidney. During the many years he has lived in Britain, Iain has become one of our most highly regarded designers of small wooden boats with well over 100...
by Martin Hargreaves | Sep 10, 2013 | refit and repair, Sailing, wooden boats
The Thames sailing barge Lady Gwynfred was a 68 ton sprit rigged, wooden barge built by Glover at Gravesend in 1904. Like many barges she had a varied career and came to a sad end. She operated as general trading barge under sail up to 1933 when she sank at Blackwall...
by Martin Hargreaves | Sep 6, 2013 | refit and repair, Sailing
Aquila Maris started life with Barklays Bank ( Aquila Maris = Sea Eagle which is Barklays’ emblem). She is an early fin keeled Westerly Fulmar. Well used by Barklays she then spent two or three years ashore before a number of years of hard use as a family...
by Martin Hargreaves | Aug 16, 2013 | personal, Sailing, wooden boats
Ray had spent the early years of his career in Uganda, so when he came back home he called his boat “Mirembe” which is “peace” in Luanda. This turned out to be a serious misnomer; in my experience she was followed by trouble of one kind and...
by Martin Hargreaves | Aug 12, 2013 | personal, Sailing
Growing up 5 miles from the sea, boats seem to have always been part of life. My brother and I made countless model boats, powered by sails, model engines, electric motors and even a rocket motor. Most of these boats had a short and eventful life on the large pond...
