National Small Boat Collection

Commander John Watkinson, an experienced and accomplished Naval Officer, left the Royal Navy in 1958 and bought a boatyard, Kelly and Hall, to try his hand at a new venture. In 1964 he sold the yard and moved to Drascombe Barton in Devon, where he set about designing a family-friendly sailing boat. In his own…

In 1961, at a time when dinghy sailing was hugely popular, the Sunday Times decided to sponsor a dinghy class of its own. The prime object was, as usual, that the boat should be cheap and easy to build from a kit. It was intended to be a boat for the first time owner/sailor. In…

Foyboats and boatmen have been traditionally associated with the rivers of Britain’s north east coast for at least three hundred years. Throughout the age of sail their main task, undertaken for an agreed fee (foy), was to tow sailing vessels in and out of the river estuaries during periods of calm or contrary winds. In…

Curraghs are traditional Irish boats, unique to that part of the world. Built around strong wooden frames, their hulls are formed with waterproof canvas or leather. The curragh men, their communities and culture are celebrated in poetry, literature and song. Tradition has it that St. Brendan crossed a vast ocean in a hide-skinned curragh in…

White Owl, a boat typical of the thousands of small craft built in Falmouth yards over the last few centuries, was built by Thomas Jackett in 1908. cost of the build was 10 shillings (50 pence) per foot (0.3m). Known locally as a punt, this open rowing boat is built of pitch pine on oak.…

In 1954 a group of dinghy sailors from clubs in the Solent area collaborated with Fairey Marine’s Charles Currey, an Olympic silver medallist in Finns, in an attempt to come up with a boat that would be modern, light and able to cope with the often rough Solent conditions, but suitable for family sailing as…

Witch is a working boat used for catching lobsters and crabs. In his book Working Boats of Britain, Eric McKee lists the boat as an example of a typical small working boat from the Isle of Purbeck, similar to, although smaller than, the harbour-based boats that once worked out of Weymouth where it was built…

  The Dghaisa has been the chief work boat of Malta for centuries and its origins can be traced back thousands of years. High ended boats such as these have been found in palace wall carvings from ancient Iraq. Older paintings of dghaisas show they have changed little over the last 400 years, although it…

On 4-5 June 1976, Derek Hutchinson (leader), Tom Caskey and Dave Hellawell paddled their kayaks from Felixstowe Ferry, Suffolk to Ostend, Belgium, over 100 miles of open sea in 31 hours. This was to be the first recorded unsupported West-East crossing of the North Sea by kayak. In August 1975, Hutchinson, a school teacher by…