National Small Boat Collection

The National 18 was born in 1938 following a design competition organised by the then YRA (now the Royal Yachting Association – RYA) and Yachting World magazine. The original idea was for an 18 ­foot sailing dinghy, suitable for day sailing, yet fast enough to be of interest to racing sailors and at a reasonable…

  Wizard was designed and built in 1932 by Uffa Fox for Wing Commander E. J. P. Burling, who was the officer commanding  RAF Mount Batten, near Plymouth, Devon. Burling wanted a boat he could take across to his house on the Isles of Scilly, so Uffa Fox designed Wizard to be carried under the…

These boats were based on the Thames working skiffs but were more heavily built, and were used by watermen for various uses including ferrying, fishing and taking people out for pleasure trips at Margate, Kent in the summer months. Haughty Belle was reported to be the last Kentish Wherry to be used at Margate in…

A collapsible cartop dinghy/tender by designer and television DIY series presenter Barry Bucknell. The boat has folding fabric sides on a pram dinghy-shaped glass reinforced plastic (GRP) hull. It has a single sail bermudan rig – a una rig – and can also be rowed or fitted with a small outboard motor. With a maximum…

Closely related to the Thames pleasure skiff, the gig was a lightweight upriver version of the Naval pulling gigs. Gigs and skiffs became popular during the 19th century as a comfortable way to go afloat, especially at the various regattas such as that at Henley. While similar to the skiff in shape of hull, the…

Shush was built to a very high standard by F C Morgan-Giles of Teignmouth in 1925. At only 2.6m long it must be one of the smallest boats with an inboard engine (a rare single cylinder Watermota petrol engine) ever built. Shush was used as a yacht tender but vessels of similar design would have…

At Devonport, on the borders of Devon and Cornwall, two Royal Navy dockyards extended for almost three miles along the east bank of the River Tamar. Serving the naval and merchant ships using the river were watermen, using boats like Isis, up to 18ft long, clinker built, with a wide roomy stern, for carrying passengers and…

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 and trunks, using the wood in the round, secured together with a…

This is a typical example of a traditional outrigger canoe from Sri Lanka primarily used for fishing, both off the beach and further out to sea. The shallow dugout hull, carved from a single log, is raised with side strakes (planks) fixed on shaped inserted frames and sewn to the hull with coir. The two…