Boats

The Challenger Class Association is a charity that represents the interests of sailors with disabilities – people who want an outdoor life coupled with an adventure sport that is demanding and can be played on equal terms with able-bodied competitors. Sailing is one of the few sports to provide that equality: the wind and the…

William Fife (1857-1944) has a reputation for being one of the world’s foremost yacht designers. His father and grandfather had also been boatbuilders and had a construction yard at Fairlie, on the Clyde. Fife’s yachts achieved a reputation for superb craftsmanship and a good turn of speed. His clients included Sir Thomas Lipton, the grocery…

Sunshine is a Sunderland Foy Boat, known locally as a coble. The distinctive hull shape of these clinker built beach boats has been traditional along a stretch of the north east coast of Britain from Spurn Head in Yorkshire to the Farne Islands in Northumberland. Cobles were developed as beach boats for launching into surf,…

The Olympic Monotype, or O-Jolle as it is also known, was designed by Helmut Stauch as the single-handed dinghy for the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, for which the yachting events were held at Kiel. As the host nation, Germany succeeded in persuading the Olympic Committee to adopt their heavier, narrower design of centreboard dinghy, a…

The OK is a classic design that has stood the test of time and remains to this day one of the most widespread international dinghies, with a loyal worldwide following. It is sailed in over 20 countries and has inspired many sailors to become involved in the sport. The OK was the brainchild of Danish…

The Victorian yachting era existed in an age when being part of the “set” required a large bank balance. In return its participants enjoyed a position in society which others only dreamed of. One small boat born into these elegant times was Gweneve, a rich man’s gift to his daughters. Gweneve was designed and built…

This raft is from the Lobito Bay area of Angola and is one of relatively few examples of rafts found in Africa. It is believed to have been built about 1950, is constructed from a series of long and curved balsa wood branches/trunks, using the wood in the round, secured together with a mixture of…

This boat was primarily used in the lower reaches and tidal estuary of the River Parrett in Somerset for fishing or as a sailing day boat in Bridgewater Bay. Known locally as “Flatties” there are a number of different designs of Somerset flatners, the common feature being a longitudinally planked almost flat bottom and the…

This is one of several kayaks in the Museum’s collection from the pen of that prolific designer of small boats Percy Blandford. Blandford’s passion was to design small boats for “everyman” that could be constructed at home with a minimum either of tools or expertise. In the years following the Second World War there was…