In this Post: Presentation in Geelong Yacht Club on Sunday 10th March; The Aegre voyage story published on Amazon Audible; Notes on Chapter 6- Fitting out The Aegre; Progress on building boat inspired by The Aegre; Wanted, the pirate ship Flower of Caithness; and finally a piece in memory of Scottish small craft designer Iain Oughtred.
The Geelong [Australia] Wooden Boat Festival is on 9-11 March and I will be giving a presentation on The Aegre Voyage, and signing books at the Geelong Yacht Club on Sunday 10th March at 11:30 am in the Yacht Club. All welcome.
The Voyage of The Aegre is now available as an audiobook on Amazon Audible, Spotify, Audiobooks.com and other audiobook online sites. I read the story myself (with a few asides here and there). A PDF file accompanies the audiobook containing all the maps, diagrams and photos that are in the paperback book.
Notes on Chapter Six-Fitting out The Aegre, are now on the website. Pictures from our snowbound cabin, travel to Orkney to collect the storm sails, more about Jamie Young, adventurer extraordinaire; photos of the newly decked Aegre and her launching.
Progress on building boat inspired by The Aegre: see the latest update from Peter Matheson of Clydeside Traditional Boatbuilders
What did Captain Matheson, the ‘Pirate Queen’ Stacey Matheson and ‘Shaggar Duffy’ have in common? See latest addition to the page on the Clydeside Traditonal Boatbuilders.
In memory of Iain Oughtred: Since my last Post, Iain Oughtred, a designer of beautiful and much loved small craft, has passed away. Iain had the ability to design, draw up, guide, and most critically, inspire, ordinary men and women to build beautiful sailing and rowing boats, that performed as well as they looked. The pleasure he gave to people who took on the challenge to build one of his craft and then to sail it, is inestimable.
His was a life devoted to giving pleasure to others through the hand-crafting of timber, building fine boats, and then sailing them in summer breezes in sheltered waters. So many of us have a debt of gratitude to Iain Oughtred, for giving us all those little pleasures.
My first Oughtred boat was a plywood 18ft John Dory, with a simple gunter rig and jib. No, I didn’t build her, but the person who did did so with care and love. We named her Marica G, (which kept both daughters Mariko and Erica happy). She rowed easily and flew under sail.
We adventured out on Port Phillip, Lake Eildon and the icy Lake Jindabyne up in the New South Wales High Country, never quite knowing how the day would end. We raced her in the Paynesville Wooden Boat Messabout and the classic boat regatta on Lake Wendouree. But in the strong gusty winds we often get down here in Victoria, Australia, the depressions sweeping up from the Southern Ocean, she could quickly become a handful with my 5 and 7-year-old daughters aboard. Sometimes the day ended with us all wetter than planned.
A few years later I sold her and bought her big sister, a 19’6″ Caledonia Yawl, another Oughtred design, named Crazybird, which we sailed all around Victoria and South Australia with our young daughters, staying dry this time. A wonderful boat.
As well as sailing her, I built a website all about Crazybird which, over a few years inspired the building of more Caledonia Yawls around the world. The website fostered a community of Caledonia Yawl builders and sailors.
These Oughtred boats were part of our lives, as I’m sure similar Oughtred designs have been and are for thousands of others. What a contribution Oughtred made in terms of the simple pleasure that can come from building and sailing a boat. What a legacy.
But time moves on as it has for Iain, and indeed for the Crazybird website, but Crazybird herself sails on, now on the Swan River in Perth, in the loving care of her owner there, still giving pleasure. But she’s only 30 this year and has many years of great sailing still in her. Iain’s memory will live on in her, and in his many other boats.
