Classic Boat – September 2019

WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY NIGEL SHARP

Sixteen students graduated at the Boat Building Academy in Lyme Regis on

12 June and, in doing so, they launched six of the seven boats they had been

building. As ever, although all the students worked on all of the boats, each

boat was sponsored by an individual student.

First to hit the water was Sam Manners’ slightly stretched – 9ft 4in from

7ft 11in – Iain Oughtred-designed Auk, built of glued clinker ply with a sapele

centreline structure, varnished khaya trim and a standing lug rig. She was

closely followed by the only other sailing boat, Andy Musgrove’s Vivier-

designed Ilur, another glued clinker boat but with steamed oak ribs for effect

and varnished oak gunwales. She also had a standing lug mainsail but with

a jib set on the end of a bowsprit. For most of the time they were on the

water these two boats had to rely on oar power while their sails – which had

also been made by the students – hung limply in the windless conditions that

were better suited the other four boats.

Heike Lowenstein demonstrated that she is an accomplished rower in her

Chesapeake Expedition wherry, a serious rowing boat with a sliding seat and

outriggers. The hull is of stitch-and-glue construction while the sapele-faced

ply deck has a number of veneers – ash, burr maple, ebony and wenge – in

concentric circles with the visual effect of raindrops hitting the water.

By contrast, Lukas Schwimann’s rowing boat was built from lines taken

off a boat thought to be 100 years old from the Wolfgangsee lake near his

home in Austria. She is of traditional clinker construction with khaya planking

on oak ribs and a sapele centreline.

Next came Nigel Morris’s 21ft Abaco, a sports fishing/water-skiing boat built

with plywood bottom panels, foam sandwich topsides and an iroko laid deck.

Nigel will be primarily using her for water-skiing and he didn’t waste any time

in trying her out with the 150hp Honda outboard providing plenty of power.

The last boat to launch was James Armour’s 20ft Mangusta speed boat.

She is another stitch-and-glue boat and has a laid chestnut deck with a

4.3-litre MerCruiser stern drive.

The only boat not to launch was Lee Taylor’s Taran kayak. The hull had been

completed but was in the workshop waiting to have a mould taken off it, from

which GRP production versions will be built.

LYME REGIS, DORSET

Six boats launched by

BBA's graduate builders

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From top: Iain Oughtred-designed Auk;

20ft Mangusta speed boat; Chesapeake

Expedition wherry; Wolfgangsee rowing boat;

Abaco, a sports fishing/water-skiing boat

Main: Andy Musgrove's
Vivier-designed Ilur