National Small Boat Collection

Shush was built to a very high standard by F C Morgan-Giles of Teignmouth in 1925. At only 8.5 ft long she must be one of the smallest boats with…

Plymouth Waterman’s barges, with a wide roomy stern designed to accommodate both passengers and stores, were used at Devonport serving naval and merchant ships. They were rowed by a single…

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…

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,…

The sport and leisure activity of canoeing became popular in the latter half of the 19th century. And as a result large numbers of traditional North American birch bark and…

This strip-plank wooden canoe was one of many imported into this country in the early 1900s from North America by Rowland Ward & Co. and sold through large London stores,…

This canoe was probably made by Sarazin of the Algonquin Reserve in the Ottawa Valley of Ontario. It is a modern interpretation of the most developed form of birch bark…

In the years following the Second World War, as rising living standards and increased leisure time led to an expansion in leisure boating, Fairey Marine was an important player. Employing…

The use of glass reinforced plastic for boatbuilding began in the USA in the early 1940s, with the first GRP dinghy produced in 1942 and reportedly thousands of small GRP…