BBA launch day
Despite a forecast that left little room for optimism, sta, students and spectators at the Boat Building Academy (BBA) were determined that the three boats built by the Class of May 2021 should at least make some contact with the water on launch day. It was entirely sensible, however, that they should all stay within the relative shelter of the harbour and that the two sailing boats shouldn’t even consider hoisting their sails.
First into the water was the 14ft (4.3m) clinker motor launch whose sponsoring student is Karl Bedlow, a former insurance underwriter.
Built to Paul Gartside’s design number 189, she is of clenched clinker construction with a sapele keel, oak stem and transom, steamed oak timbers, khaya planking, and oak gunwales and fit-out. With a Tohatsu 20hp outboard on the stern, Karl hopes she might do 15 knots.
Next in was former dairy farmer Luke O’Connell’s 18-footer (5.5m), based on a late-19th-century Mersey river boat. Her white hull is strip planked Alaskan yellow cedar, glassed inside and out, and, although she was decked with plywood at the time of her launch, she will later have iroko decking laid over the plywood. Her spars are all in spruce, with the mast, boom and ga of hollow bird’s mouth construction.
Last but not least was the 15ft 6in (4.7m) Westray ski (blue hull) whose sponsoring student is Jonathan Bevan, who previously spent 40 years working in IT. Based on a type of fishing and transport vessel common in the Orkneys in the early part of the 20th century, her lines were developed by course tutor Mike Broome from a collection of sketches provided by Orkney boatbuilder Ian Richardson. She is glued clinker with marine plywood planking, and has iroko laid decking over a plywood sub-deck and iroko fit out.
Both of the sailing boats have sister ships previously built at the BBA, the Westray ski’s being in clenched clinker; and in boat cases the sails – which remained securely stowed away from the blustery conditions on Launch Day – were made by the students at the college. Judging by the length of the spars, the Mersey boat’s sail plan may prove challenging in all but the most benign conditions.