A bunch of photos of Robert Hoffman sailing his Beth Canoe.

He built it over winter but now is enjoying Spring.

This talk is the first hour of my exposition on boat building and design. There are two more parts to come. This covers some of the background and design issues. The second is more on the building side and the last is a bit more about why the Australian (and New Zealand) wooden boat tradition is different from the Northern Hemisphere.

You can stream the talks over your internet connection or download them as a podcast.

From Clinton Chase’s blog clintchaseboatbuilder.blogspot.com

On November 1st I was pleased and honored to introduce Michael Storer, an Australian Boat Designer reputed for his simple, elegant, and approachable boats, to a group of 21 members from the wooden boat community in Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Some knew of Storer’s work, others have built his boats, and many knew him as an important name and wanted to learn more about the man and his message.

Thorne (aka David Luckhardt) is well known in both wooden boating and historical recreation circles (particularly those involving gunpowder).

He normally lurks around San Francisco, but on this occasion had driven up to Timothy Lake underneath the summit of Mount Hood.

I had the chance to interview him while sailing on Lake Timothy in Oregon.

Well a mind-boggling day today. Set is here http://www.flickr.com/photos/boatmik…7622312609441/ Some of the “Coots” boating group organised a joint trip for four of us to Astoria (named after the Astor Family who made their money in the fur industry a couple of hundred years ago. We got up early and went to meet Long 龍 at [...]

Howdy, The full set is here http://www.flickr.com/photos/boatmik…7622383846430/ Well more interesting things to report. Actually so interesting I have gone out to buy an MP3 voice recorder so I won’t miss these conversations. This was the view out of the window on waking. I couldn’t get the colours right even with fiddling – much lighter and [...]

Walked through Chinatown again to go to the Maritime Museum with Oly an internet boatbuilding Friend from the PDRacer forum. Saw two of my boats there that were built by kids from the less advantaged part of the city. Spoke to Seth (right, Oly is left) one of the teachers/organisers. He was about to go [...]

My friend Peter Hyndman (architect, boat builder, photographer, artist – someone has to get all the short straws) has been putting an amazing set of boat and boating life photos up on flickr. He grew up on Thursday Island in the Torres Strait in the ’50s when the Pearling Industry was still in existence. Torres [...]

This Finn is owned by OZ wooden Boatbuilder and Designer Ross Lillistone. The boat was built for the 1956 Olympics and has been restored by Ross. The photoset of the restored wooden Finn Dinghy are here This is what Ross says They are of my wooden 1956 Oympic Finn which I took out for a [...]

More Taiwan Boats. People may or may not be aware that Taiwan has its own aboriginal people belonging to quite distinct groups. Some lived inland, but others were coastal and some live on the smaller islands around Taiwan. Their culture is distinct from the prevailing Chinese culture. There were rumours that the people were headhunters [...]

My friend Mao travels around her home country of Taiwan and takes wonderful photos. Some are boat oriented! Here is a wonderful series of a religious festival in Taiwan. The details of the boat are exquisitely correct! Originally Posted by MaoPoPo The series you asked is a local religious activity called “Shao(burn) Wang(Wang Ye, God [...]

There has been a fantastic discussion about some of the racing possibilities of balance lug rigs on my forum I have learned a huge amount from sailing my BETH sailing canoe and the Goat Island Skiffs over the years, but recently ran into Brian who uses a lug rig for racing traditional British boats. So [...]

While in Port Vincent for the Wooden Boat Festival (great little show!!!) someone pulled out this 505 class dinghy. It is in REALLY bad condition – but the exciting thing is that it has all the original gear and fittings. So it is a time capsule from around 1959. “State of the Art” down to [...]

The first part was up last week. This week we talk about traditional vs modern sailtypes – everyone knows I am a fan of trad rigs because of their low cost – but here I go into the influences on the other side. I love the efficiency of modern rigs so I use all the [...]

Furled Sails – They call themselves the “World’s First Sailing Podcast” based in North America. Anyway, last week Christy and Noel called me up chatted to me for a couple of hours. So they have an interview with me on their site followed by a part 2 next week. This looks like the permanent linkhttp://www.furledsails.com/article.php3?article=760 [...]

Any reasonable sailor can look at the pics to the right and see that this rig is doing all the right things. The twist is controlled, the sheeting angles are relatively narrow and the boat is moving along nicely in a light wind and a leftover chop. This is what I mean when I say [...]

Here is a video of a Lateen Rig on a large yacht going like a rocket. It was filmed in Dubai, so I suspect that it probably doesn’t qualify as a low cost rig – but it is still traditional including in aspect ratio. It blasts along very seriously for some time until a large [...]

Duckflat have started work on Kirribilli for a consortium of owners. Keel is off – boat is upside down – hull is half stripped and half splined – starboard side. I’m assisting with the technical side. If the end result is as nice as the work Duck Flat and I did on our last keelboat [...]