by Martin Hargreaves | Jun 5, 2014 | refit and repair, wooden boats
Estralita, a 20 foot clinker motorboat spent much of her life carrying tourists in Salcombe harbour. She is now around a hundred years old and in need of a fair amount of repair. One of the most troublesome leaks was around the the stem where an old repair in the stem...
by Martin Hargreaves | Nov 19, 2013 | refit and repair, wooden boats
Eleanora was built at the famous Gosport yard of Camper and Nicholson in 1927. She was designed in house, built largely in teak and her power came from a pair of 8 hp Stuart Turner petrol engines mounted under the floor of the aft cockpit. Much of her history is lost...
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 | personal, wooden boats
Malcolm Goodwin made his name mostly by building plywood racing dinghies to impressively high standards. He designed the Nutshell for his children to learn to sail in and judging by their later achievements it did its job pretty well. Subsequently Malcolm sold kits of...
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...