RIP Percy Blandford.

JumbleDuck said:
Sounds intriguing. Do you know where I might lay my hands on a set of plans?
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I do.
Clark Craft still have several of Percy Blandford's designs on sale, including Pete.
http://www.clarkcraft.com/cgi-local/shop.pl?cart_id=9b348a43e0bf53a4cbf9a1f7e19185c3&type=item&categ=016&item=1037537671

I actually have an unused set of plans for Pete (bought back in the day when these Blandford Plans were sold from an address in West Yorks. Some day I may even build one, my littlest kids are still at that age...
 
Seajet said:
Another boyhood hero gone; when I was 8 or so I was given a book of his designs, I really fancied a Foamcrest.

Fair winds and following seas Percy, you brought pleasure to thousands of people.
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Did Percy design the Wavecrest or was it Alan Eckford? Similar yacht name so I wondered. A Wavecrest was our first ever 'family yacht'.
 
Lazy Kipper,

the Foamcrest I'm referring to was / is a sailing dinghy, about 14' as I recall; it has a destincitive chine rising from the waterline amidships to deck level at the bow.
 
JumbleDuck said:
Many thanks. I have ordered a set of plans.
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Ah, excellent - I hope very much that you will post your progress here. Maybe that will inspire me to start building mine, after having been sat on the drawings for at least 20 years! :)
My plans are on a huge sheet (or two? I can't remember) of traditional blueprintey stuff; it will be interesting also to hear if yours are the same.

[Rhetorical question]As there is obviously still interest in Percy Blandford's small boats, I wonder if the current owners of these designs have ever thought of converting them to DXF format, or at least publishing the major part shapes as tables of offsets?[/]
 
I built a Percy Blandford canoe from a kit when I was about 13, my father wanted to try it and capsized it while getting into it for the first time, much amusement....................
 
HA! Exactly the experience my own father suffered -- in one side and straight out the other. And this was after expressing some dubiety whether I'd ever be able to build the kayak at all....
 
Sire said:
Ah, excellent - I hope very much that you will post your progress here.
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We'll see. My workshop is completely stuffed with stuff at the moment, and I have a dinghy job in the queue, but perhaps next winter ...

Sire said:
I've just been having a browse, and it seems that the plans for the PBK10 might still be available from Clark Craft. Following the links on their website doesn't appear to lead to any Blandford canoe designs, but via Google I found a link to the PBK10 plans.
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If you are after canoe designs, I strongly recommend "How to Build and Manage a Canoe" which is available from Brown, Son and Ferguson. Volume 1 tells you how to built a canoe and gives wonderful 1949 advice on expeditions and menus. Volume 2 is simply a pack of plans. Best of all, they haven't repriced them since the 1975 printing (a B,S & F habit, I think) so they still cost £4 and £4.95 respectively.

http://www.skipper.co.uk/catalogue/item/how-to-build-and-manage-a-canoe-volume-1

http://www.skipper.co.uk/catalogue/item/how-to-build-and-manage-a-canoe-volume-2
 
JumbleDuck said:
We'll see. My workshop is completely stuffed with stuff at the moment, and I have a dinghy job in the queue, but perhaps next winter ...



If you are after canoe designs, I strongly recommend "How to Build and Manage a Canoe" which is available from Brown, Son and Ferguson. Volume 1 tells you how to built a canoe and gives wonderful 1949 advice on expeditions and menus. Volume 2 is simply a pack of plans. Best of all, they haven't repriced them since the 1975 printing (a B,S & F habit, I think) so they still cost £4 and £4.95 respectively.

http://www.skipper.co.uk/catalogue/item/how-to-build-and-manage-a-canoe-volume-1

http://www.skipper.co.uk/catalogue/item/how-to-build-and-manage-a-canoe-volume-2
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Funnily enough I bought both of those last summer, together with "The Book of Canoeing" and "Canoeing for Beginners", also from B,S & F. Absolute treasure, all of them! I also bought a copy of Percy Blandford's "Boat Building" - probably from Abebooks, I can't remember now - which, now I actually look at it :blush: contains plans for PBK10, PBK20, a couple of small sailing dinghies and a 7', Pete-esque pram...
I wonder - in a purely abstract way - how much trouble I would be in if I were to re-draw them using CAD, and leave them lying around somewhere on the 'net? That really is idle speculation, by the way, I don't have any intention of actually doing that.
 
When I was 15 I built a Goblin Praam dinghy - was that a PB design? All the drawings and construction details were published in the magazine Light Craft.

I didn't fit her out for sailing as I just wanted a boat to row around Watchet harbour. 4 years later my next project was converting a 32' ex RN sailing cutter - look what you started Percy.

Paul
 
Sire said:
I've just been having a browse, and it seems that the plans for the PBK10 might still be available from Clark Craft. Following the links on their website doesn't appear to lead to any Blandford canoe designs, but via Google I found a link to the PBK10 plans.

http://www.clarkcraft.com/cgi-local/shop_new.pl?cart_id=04b39e493c3041f3196d0c48a8157a13&type=item&categ=014&item=934897693
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There are many Blandford designs on that page at the link. But I see that the page has been changed in the not-too-distant past. Blandford plans posted there used to be identifiable by Clark Craft's "BK" prefix to the number. Then Clark Craft changed the Blandford number as such to the length of the vessel in feet -- so my old 'PBK27' became, on that page, 'BK13'. I'm glad to see they're now quoting the original numbers in brackets at the end of each entry. (The name 'Sea Scout' attached to that particular kayak is Blandford's name for it by the way, which they've also retained.)

I note though that PBK27 is described as having plywood side decks. I don't know how that came about, as the original design certainly had an all-canvas deck.

kareela2-s.jpg
Mike
 
Wooden Boat Fittings said:
There are many Blandford designs on that page at the link.
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Yes, I know, sorry I wasn't very clear on my post. I meant that if one followed the links from Clark Craft's main page, there wasn't any way to access these designs. If you follow the link "Canvas canoes" there is only one canoe there which is clearly not a PB design.

The link I posted to these PB designs was found from doing a Google search, is not accessible from CC's main page and might be a deliberately orphaned / obselete part of the CC website, or then maybe just cut off by accident.
 
By coincidence I just came across a magazine cutting of the Foamcrest dinghy, it was 12' and quite like a Heron.

In the attached reply from Small Boat magazine to my request for info dated 1976 ( they seem to have been involved in some way, I forget the details now ) Editor P.J.Pond mentions sail numbers around 1,000 at that point.

I would put a copy of the cutting up but either the system or my ineptitude is preventing it...
 
Seajet said:
By coincidence I just came across a magazine cutting of the Foamcrest dinghy, it was 12' and quite like a Heron.

In the attached reply from Small Boat magazine to my request for info dated 1976 ( they seem to have been involved in some way, I forget the details now ) Editor P.J.Pond mentions sail numbers around 1,000 at that point.

I would put a copy of the cutting up but either the system or my ineptitude is preventing it...
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Maybe you could post it to the Percy Blandford Facebook page too? I'm sure it would be appreciated.
www.facebook.com/groups/42265674352/
 
Sire,

I just tried uploading the cutting and Small Boat letter from my photobucket account but no joy that way either, this is so frustrating !

Have put plenty of pics up here before, and checked my settings all seem OK; I'd be happy to send them to someone by e-mail for them to put up, if that's any good...
 
Seajet said:
Sire,

I just tried uploading the cutting and Small Boat letter from my photobucket account but no joy that way either, this is so frustrating !

Have put plenty of pics up here before, and checked my settings all seem OK; I'd be happy to send them to someone by e-mail for them to put up, if that's any good...
Click to expand...
PM sent!
 
Seajet said:
By coincidence I just came across a magazine cutting of the Foamcrest dinghy, it was 12' and quite like a Heron.

In the attached reply from Small Boat magazine to my request for info dated 1976 ( they seem to have been involved in some way, I forget the details now ) Editor P.J.Pond mentions sail numbers around 1,000 at that point.

I would put a copy of the cutting up but either the system or my ineptitude is preventing it...
Click to expand...

OK then, let me try...

Foamcrest.jpgFoamcrest letter_resized.jpg
 
RIP Percy you gave great pleasure and pride to hundreds of ortdinary folk that built one of your designs.

I built a Percy Blandford Lysander bilge keel 17 foot yacht many years ago.

I could have bought one for less money but that wasnt the point.

We moored her at Cardiff and sailed her on the Bristol Channel as far East as Sharpness and as far West as Ilfracombe and Milford Haven. Also trailed her to the Solent a couple of times.

Magpie.jpg


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