The mysterious attraction of clinker boats

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dom

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The first boat I ever set foot upon was a somewhat grotty 16' clinker boat called "June". My dad used to hire her in Bullock Harbour just south of Dun Laoghaire and she seemed wonderful at the time. Somewhat more upmarket offerings were the norm on the West of Ireland lakes ...clinker of course.

Can I ask how many of you find yourselves subconsciously pausing to examine and touch those beautiful clinker boats that decorate the entrance to boatshows, then momentarily drifting away to a glassy estuary which you are quietly sculling across as the day gives to twilight?

Does anyone actually live this dream, or are these boats now just beautiful things to full our minds as we go round and round in our silly little blow-up tenders? And if you had one, would you really want her to be new?
 
I once lived on the bank of the River Ouse and with a neighbour bought a half share in a clinker row boat, one of those with a double wrought iron stern seat and a string operated rudder, it sank on a metal stake aftera flood retreated leaving it impaled. Then I had a beautiful clinker plywood Merlin rocket ( I still love those and there are some excellent ones at our club ,even though ply clinker is not quite the same. A friend had a proper clinker scow dinghy that I envied and later bought a little launch as a tender with a 1.5hp Stuart turner inboard, perfect for his long commute to his mooring across Poole Harbour.

Me now?, have a RIB tender carried in davits.
 
I learned to sail aboard a fleet of clinker built larch on oak traditional dipping luggers, from 18-33ft in size.
Nothing else makes that quiet chuckling sound through the water quite like a clinker hull.
 
I still remember the grazed and bruised knuckles and aching arms from sanding down our Scout Group's clinker dinghies 50 years ago. GRP is great! Plastic fantastics rule!
 
I learned to sail by a process of serial collision in a lugsail dinghy on the Broads over a few years. I'm not sure that any sailing has given me more pleasure but I'm not sentimental about wooden boats really. On the other hand, just down the road I have the Nottage Institute ( http://www.nottagemaritimeinstitute.org.uk/ ) where very patient people build clinker dinghies, usually taking two or three years. I go there regularly for other reasons, and, yes, I do tend to give the odd dinghy a stroke as I go past.
 
My second boat was a Stella, I was seduced by the lovely clinker lines! Engine was a totally unreliable Stuart Turner, so I mostly did everything under sail and learned a lot about handling under sail. There are times I wish I still had her, except when I think of all the painting and varnishing!
 
I learn't to sail keelboats on a Victory after a dinghy course. A friend had a clinker Folkboat. Both more work than they were worth, but lovely to behold, at least at the start of a season.
 
iain789 said:
I still remember the grazed and bruised knuckles and aching arms from sanding down our Scout Group's clinker dinghies 50 years ago. GRP is great! Plastic fantastics rule!
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At UKSA, each group going through gets a week in the boat maintenance shop. Apart from learning how to repair & paint plastic stuff, they have to scrape/sand down a few wooden clinker dinghies, to bare wood. Then, they varnish them back up to a mirror finish, which the next group sand down to bare wood & so on. Sanding/scraping such perfection, seems like sacriledge & almost painful.
 
For "mysterious" read "irrational"?

I grew up on clinker boats and still have a clinker dinghy, but they don't relly make sense. Too many lands to sand, but a lovely lap lap at night. Terrible if left out of the water for too long as well.
 
dom said:
Does anyone actually live this dream, or are these boats now just beautiful things to full our minds as we go round and round in our silly little blow-up tenders? And if you had one, would you really want her to be new?
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I have a pretty little eight foot clinker built dinghy (with lugsail) that I sometimes tow as a tender. Slows us down, but it's good to have the boat handy alongside and some of the best times I have afloat are when I am pottering around the creeks in that little beauty.

My first "lidded" boat was a twenty two foot clinker built gaffer and I've owned and/or maintained several other little clinker gaffers (dinghies) over the years.

There's no doubt that a well built clinker boat is a thing of craftsmanship and beauty - but scraping and sanding between those strakes and stringers.........:ambivalence:
 
Topcat47 said:
Just how big is your coffee table?
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Vast! Well, just ordinary size, to tell the truth. But a miniature version of my old Stuart Turner, with its green paint and brass plates, would have looked lovely and made a great talking point.

As an engine, it was very sensitive to the mood of the supplicant beseeching it to start and hated being spoken to impolitely. It also had a habit of starting perfectly at the beginning of a trip, but refusing to start when I needed to get back up the estuary with a headwind. Windward sailing was not the strong point of that little boat and the channel to the berth was narrow, winding and muddy.
 
Varnished wooden boats are like supermodels - Lovely to look at and stroke but very high maintenance and I wouldn't want to own one.
 
I watched a programme on the Vikings recently. I was amazed at how the hull on their long ships would flex, even at rest. You could not do that as easily with a carvel hull, I guess?
 
Suttle said:
My second boat was a Stella, I was seduced by the lovely clinker lines! Engine was a totally unreliable Stuart Turner, so I mostly did everything under sail and learned a lot about handling under sail. There are times I wish I still had her, except when I think of all the painting and varnishing!
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I had 2 - The first was No 104, from new. Then 22 years later I bought No 103 as a virtual wreck & re built her form a bare hull.
I was dying to get back to sailing a Stella until I realised how small, bouncy, wet & how bruising they were. I should have just kept No 104 as a memory. Yet somehow I would still like to make it a running flush. The clinker hulls just add to the look of them & they sail beautifully

I actually started out as an 11 year old in a 12 ft clinker Walker Super 12. Great fun at that age. Had her for 6 years then sold her. 10 years later i saw her on the Crouch & some kids were having great fun in her. My heart bled when i saw her wrecked against some piles 2 years later
 
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