Wednesday, May 23, 2012

This blog is going to be a record of how to build a traditional Irish boat called a currach. There are several different forms of this boat depending on which part of Ireland you want to venture to  and the differences between them are fairly well documented online so we will concentrate mostly on the one we have selected to build.
The Naomhóg, this is probably the best looking currach and of course we want a beautiful boat so that's the one we're going to build. They come in various lengths depending on how many rowers you want. We're going to go for a 3 rower boat which will come out at just over 20 feet in length. Personally I would prefer working in mm but I live in Vancouver, Canada and all the drawings I have from books are in inches so I will act like a local and use imperial.
This might sound a little vague in terms of measurements but I will be be putting up a SketchUp model for download with exact measurements on it and also a 3d image once we have completed the boat.

So, why bother writing about it? Surely there must be a ton of information on how to build a currach out there??
Well. no , not really. There is some information, there is a book written about 80 years ago and there are some pictures, but you have to go to a lot of different sources to get a complete picture and you still don't have a 'how-to' guide to building a currach.

There are of course still people in Ireland who build them and there are a couple of places that teach you how to do it but their online presence is pretty weak and plans are not freely available.

So the aim of this blog is to document, in a wholly open way, the good and the bad of attempting to build a naomhóg. To give the exact measurements, any templates needed and the types of wood suitable for building.
Leanaigí....


7 comments:

  1. G'wan ye good things hupyaboya! :)

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  2. You'll turn into a bond villain yet. Hilti's for bread mixers. Now this!

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  3. I may need a boat to get home yet...

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  4. Class baaii all we need now is to whip up at set of car/home speakers we always said we'd make

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  5. Feck ... add it to the list man!! You coming over with Darrell?

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  6. Very late in the day but are these plans still available

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  7. Any more information ever come from this?

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