National Small Boat Collection

  This wooden clinker pulling boat was built by James Goss, a famous builder of small merchant sailing vessels and boats, and was the last boat he built before his yard closed. It was constructed from the odds and ends left over from previous constructions and is typical of the type of boat that was…

Conceived by the then well-known dinghy designer Percy Blandford the Gremlin was, in the words of themagazine Light craft which marketed the plans, “designed primarily for the man who wants a boat but has very little money, time and space to devote to the project. The boat can be lifted singlehanded and comfortably by two…

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 boats had been produced by the late 1940s. In Europe, however, despite wartime shortages of other materials, it was still to be some years before…

Canoeing with sail and paddle became a popular sport in the last quarter of the 19th century, with the canoes used both for racing and for camping holidays at home and abroad. Kayaks of this particular type were introduced by Dr John ‘Rob Roy’ McGregor, viewed by many as the father of modern leisure canoeing,…

Sailing this Finn dinghy in Weymouth, local hero Ben Ainslie won his fourth successive Olympic Gold Medal at the 2012 London Games. Ben owns several Finns, but has now used the same boat in the Athens 2004, Beijing 2008, and London 2012 games. Following his win in 2008 he commented, “I suppose most people like…

Until the collapse of its cod stocks, the Grand Banks area off Newfoundland was one of the most productive fishing grounds in the world. The region is also renowned for its severe weather conditions. The fishing dory was designed to be used in these treacherous seas, and was used for many years. The origins of…

Boat building is a low profit margin business and as a result the history of boat building is littered with bankruptcies and short production runs. So all the more remarkable is the longevity of the German company, Klepper, which has been producing folding kayaks for over 100 years. In the early years of the twentieth…

Hunting kayaks have been used in the Arctic for thousands of years, making it possible for the Inuit people to survive in these remote and hostile regions. At sea the kayak was used to hunt seals, walruses and whales, relying on stealth for a close approach. The boats were built from materials that were readily…

The firm, G. Prout and Sons, was formed by Mr Geoffrey Prout and his sons, Roland and Francis, in 1935. The Company originally specialised in building canoes and folding dinghies as yacht tenders, but after the war they opened a small factory on Canvey Island, in Essex. The firm grew and hundreds of folding dinghies…