News and Curiosities Archives - Page 2 of 2

The British Library’s Copyright Free Images

Posted on August 7, 2017April 21, 2020 by Anne Bryant

You may already know about the Library of Congress’s nearly 30,000 copyright free images available on Flickr, and if you’ve enjoyed those then you’ll definitely enjoy the British Library’s collection of Ships & Boats. Among the fully rigged ships you’ll find great examples of vernacular small boats in use, with snippets of text around them that give clues about the action in the scenes.

Click through to an image, and you’ll find that the library posted all of the bibliography data for each, including the publication date. The real treasure might be that there are links to download full PDFs of the books in which they appear. It’s a fantastic database to mine; well organized and open to all.

Here are a few favorites:

North Pole and South Pole: Two men in a small sailing boat.

Harbor scene: Small rowing boat, slightly larger boat very round and with leeboards.

Harbor scened: large ships and small boats rowing, working pier at left.

Sailing canoe and uniformed man at the edge of the water.

Reed boat, a paddler with a double paddle and a passenger in European clothes with luggage.

A New Balmain Bug

Posted on August 2, 2017April 21, 2020 by Anne Bryant

We here at Small Boats Monthly love small, but here’s another level of wee. The Balmain Bug is a traditional Australian workboat type that was eventually used as a one-design racer, then inspired modern one-design racing skiffs.

To read the whole article, click here.

2017 Small Reach Regatta a Success

Posted on July 25, 2017April 21, 2020 by Anne Bryant

What a turnout and what a variety of boats this year at the Traditional Small Craft Association‘s Small Reach Regatta, held in Brooklin, Maine. The gathering is a labor of love for WoodenBoat Senior Editor Tom Jackson, who returned from a small boat raid in Sweden wanting to have a similar event here in Maine. They’ve been at it for 11 years now.

Here’s a look at the end of their lunch stop on Babson Island as the boats got underway:

The Downeast TSCA’s website explains, “The idea of the SRR is to gather together small sail-and-oars boats for sailing, with the same kind of camaraderie and appreciation that the ERR has established. The boats typically sail courses of 5 to 15 nautical miles on three successive days (Thursday through Saturday) starting from the waterfront anchorage each morning and returning each afternoon. There is no racing, but participants always show keen interest in how their boats perform against others. Many of the boats were built of wood by their owners themselves, and last year seven of them were even designed by their builders.”

Rocking the Boat, Rocking Manhattan

Posted on July 21, 2017April 21, 2020 by Anne Bryant

Registration is open for rowing teams to support Rocking the Boat at their Rocking Manhattan event. The 30-mile circumnavigation, planned for Saturday, September 23, is a fundraiser, and their goal is to ultimately raise $300,000 for their programs.

Rocking the Boat says they, “Empower young people from the South Bronx to develop the self-confidence to set ambitious goals and gain the skills necessary to achieve them. Students work together to build wooden boats, learn to row and sail, and restore local urban waterways, revitalizing their community while creating better lives for themselves. Kids don’t just build boats, boats build kids.” They’ve amassed a fleet of more than 50 student-built boats. Below is one of their latest, the recently launched Whitehall they named KALEIDOSCOPE.

Nisqually Tribal Canoe Journey 2017

Posted on July 19, 2017April 21, 2020 by Anne Bryant

Photographer and filmmaker Matika Wilbur is documenting the Nisqually tribe’s annual Tribal Canoe Journey that starts at Squaxin Island. The paddlers are making a demonstration of indigenous sovereignty, and it’s a spiritual journey for those involved. A full schedule of the trip is here. They’ll be traveling to about 15 different stops with only a few layovers, hosted by other tribes until they return to Squaxin August 8. Here’s the first video, which was posted yesterday:

Subscribe to the YouTube Channel for more, and follow Matika on Twitter @matikawilbur.

Voices Across the Water

Posted on June 9, 2017April 21, 2020 by [email protected]

The First Nations Culture and Tourism Association just launched a six-week project which includes the construction of four traditional indigenous watercraft including a Spruce Dugout Canoe, a Birchbark Canoe, An Inuit Skin Kayak, and a Moose Skin Boat. If you would like to learn more about this project please visit their website at www.yfnct.ca. Information on their boat project can be found under Canada 150.

Three New Books for Boatbuilding Teachers

Posted on June 1, 2017April 21, 2020 by Matt Murphy

Joe Youcha, the dynamo behind the “training the trainer” program Building to Teach, has just published three new books for boatbuilding educators. In the narrative Afternoons in the Boat Shop, twelve year old Emma helps her friend, Bill, build a skiff, and in the process takes lessons in boatbuilding and its related math. Bevin’s Guide to Boatbuilding Math (Bevin was Youcha’s beloved German shepherd) is a companion to Afternoons in the Boat Shop, and it teaches how to build a card-stock model of the 11′8″ Bevin’s Skiff—and delivers further lessons in applied math. And Framing Square Math is a visual lesson in applied math—ratios, triangles, proportions, and such—related to the humble but powerful framing square

Before founding Building to Teach, and the related Teaching with Small Boats Alliance, Youcha was the executive director of the Alexandria (Virginia) Seaport Foundation, where he developed a renowned boatbuilding program for at-risk youth—and inspired similar efforts worldwide. Order the books from Building to Teach.