St Ayles Skiff World Championships – July 8th to 14th, 2013

Doryman hopes to take a trip to Scotland in 2013 to enjoy the festivities at the first St. Ayles Skiff World Championships. Hope you can come along!

Here's the invite that came in the mail today:

"The Ullapool Coastal Rowing Club is delighted to announce that Ullapool has been selected by the Scottish Coastal Rowing Association as the venue for the first World Championship for Coastal Rowing using the St Ayles Skiff. With the astonishing growth of St Ayles Skiff building and rowing by communities internationally the time is right to run a Skiffie Worlds to give an opportunity for Rowers from across the Globe to meet in friendly competition."

"Ullapool, on the banks of Loch Broom, a large sheltered sea Loch in the Northwest of Scotland, is an ideal location to host such an event. With an existing infrastructure developed to cater for the needs of visitors and great community experience in running large cultural events SkiifieWorlds will be well within the capacity of the village."

"Ullapool Coastal Rowing Club together with their partner organisations, the Loch Broom Sailing Club, Coigach Community Rowing and the Ullapool Harbour Trustees look forward to welcoming visiting crews to our magnificent waters. A full programme of maritime and landbased activities and entertainment is planned culminating with the Prizegiving followed by a boisterous Ceilidh Dance on Saturday 13th, 2013."



It's hard to pass up an invitation like that. I've been promised that there will be "loaner" boats available for international guests who can't bring their own Skiffs.

Let the races begin!

Photo courtesy of Chris Perkins.

The St Ayles Project in Portland, Oregon

What a great weekend!

Mary and I visited the design incubator ADX in Portland, Oregon last Saturday. The Wind and Oar Boat School is building a St. Ayles Skiff there and on Saturday they laid-up the two garboard planks.







We found about half the ten women team suiting up for epoxy work.









The first plank to go on was the first one ever for this team of builders, but you wouldn't know it. By the second plank they were seasoned professionals.

Talk about quick study!















Laura, Liz, Jann and Beca are pretty happy and proud - rightfully so.


The week before our visit, OPB Radio (Oregon Public Broadcasting) interviewed Laura, one of the team members and Kelly, one of the owners of ADX, about this project.
Mary has put together a video of the first garboard plank going on, with a portion of the interview as a sound track. You can get a good sense of the atmosphere and excitement. At one point, there were as many photographers as boatbuilders!

The two men in the video are Travis, who is an instructor and Peter who is the founder of the Wind & Oar Boat School.

St Alyes Skiff at the Wind & Oar Boat Building School from doryman on Vimeo.

I feel a real sense of privilege to be witness to this process. It's very difficult for me to keep my hands off the boat. Hopefully the class doesn't mind my prying and pestering.






They plan to name the boat Rosie. Portland is called the City of Roses and the women feel an affinity for Rosie the Riveter, from war time days when women carried the economy of the country at home and in the factories.











I will be gone on an adventure for most of the month of July (more on this later) and at the rate they are going, the Wind and Oar Boat School might be done with this boat by the time I get back.





Hopefully I'll make it to the launch. And if I do, so will you!


More photos here.

New Working Boathouse in Toledo

Toledo, Oregon is the home port for Doryman's Mistral and an epicenter of wooden boat activity every August. This little coastal mill town has a lot of civic pride and many community efforts are driven by cadres of volunteers.









Such is the nascent community boat building project recently launched by the Port of Toledo. Not long ago, within living memory, Toledo had a thriving waterfront business community. Not so today. With the decline of the fishing and timber industries, small towns up and down the Oregon coast find themselves reinventing their business model, often spawning efforts that mirror entrepreneurial exploits of the past.





The new boat house will be a working commercial shop under lease to local shipwright, Rick Johnson. It will also be the epicenter of a community outreach program involving boat building and maritime arts, currently spearheaded by Andrew Linn. Here's one of Andrew's charges coming back from exploring the neighboring slough...



...Volunteers are the catalyst.

Below; Andrew Linn is giving Josh some boating tips and local Port of Toledo management is in the background assessing progress.







In the interior shot we see a group of volunteers (some Coots stopped by) installing wiring to the finished building. (yes, the temporary lighting is a string of Christmas lights!)
That's Rick in the foreground.







Tools are beginning to show up, donated by local well wishers. A number of boats have been donated to the project already, some of them needing restoration or repair.
Tomorrow, Doryman will be visiting the storage sheds to survey and make assessments of potential restorations.




We hope to get local parents and their children involved in the coming months so we will get a chance to build some new boats and teach some old fashioned maritime skills that have all but disappeared from this old waterfront town.

Scottish Coastal Rowing Project II

Launching of the St Ayles Skiff, Coigach Lass, to ceremonial bagpipe:



The competition is building. Two St. Ayles skiffs meet for a face off at the launch of the Coigach Lass. The skiff from Ullapool arrives to welcome the Lass and of course there is a bit of competition. Lots of goood will in these two communities. Good sports, one and all!









Visit Ullapool Coastal Rowing for more photos and videos.

St. Ayles Skiff

Encouraging Boat Building and Rowing in Coastal Communities

Chris Perkins gives us a quick update on the Scottish Coastal Rowing Project and the St Ayles Skiff by Iain Oughtred.
Big progress has been made on small details. I love this stage of a build, when the boat begins to show it's structural integrity. The prototype St. Ayles Skiff is coming along nicely.

Thanks Chris, for the photos!






Doesn't this entice you to build a boat?

If that's not enough, there is a fellow not far from here on the Oregon coast (US) who's building a Valgerda faering by William Atkin.






Good job, Brandon!

Scottish Coastal Rowing Project

Soon after the post on the St Ayles Skiff a few days ago, I recieved a very nice note from Chris Perkins, of Strathkanchris’s Little World. Chris is working with the crew on the St. Ayles Skiff prototype underway in Alec Jordan's shop. He sent me three views of the boat turning, which show how graceful Iain's design is, how precise Alec's work is and how absolutely dainty a hard working, seaworthy twenty two foot boat can be.

Chris is very congratulatory about the design and the product:





"A significant stage was reached this week with the turnover of the hull - Iain's design looks even better the right way up, a really sleek lady. As is normal she looks huge in the build shed but I am sure that once she takes to the water the usual visual shrinkage will take place."

I replied that it looks like two crew could make good time in some rough water, gracefully symbiotic with the element, and Chris agreed:

"I think you are right about two oarsmen being able to make her fly, for a 22 foot boat she is amazingly light, we think that after fitting out she will be about twice her current weight, still very light for a boat of this size."


We are left to make some guesses of our own about that, but it can't be much! I'm hungry for those details, as many will be. I, for one, can see myself slicing through the waves and currents of the mighty Pacific in the St. Ayles Skiff.


Chris has some comments and advice from his recent experience building this vessel:

"I have been privileged to be invited to help, and very good fun it is proving to be. It has been interesting to see just how fast one of Alec's kits can be put together and I have been really amazed at the accuracy of the system Alec has devised. Building a prototype of a design that is still under development might be expected to produce a few areas where a rework might be needed but so far very little has shown up, a few tweaks to the building frame to simplify it for future builders is about all that has been identified so far."
"I would not otherwise have had the chance to work on a build of this size and that alone makes driving the length of Scotland well worthwhile. I have been delighted by the amount that I have been able to learn from Alec, as a professional he has to make time and materials count against my rather relaxed amateur approach to both! If I were to build a boat with a paint finish I would get one of Alec's kits for the significant time and stress saving in the build."



That's a strong recommendation from a craftsman. I'd love to build one of these gems myself! Chris assures me that the boat is so well balanced that it sits upright unassisted on it's keel.


The challenge to build and race these boats is scheduled to culminate in events starting as early as eight months from now.

I see growing interest and promotional variants of the Scottish Coastal Rowing Project sprouting up all over the globe.

For on-going documentation of this project, visit the new Scottish Coastal Rowing Project website.
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