Splashing about on the Lake

The coracle build has been a success and the five 'coraclers' have had a wonderful time learning how to make a 'floating basket' using traditional techniques. The build began yesterday first with the seat and then the main frame.

With a lot of care, thin Ash laths were then fixed to give the boats their shape.

This might sound easy but was very fiddly and time consuming! By the end of day one the boats had finally taken shape and it was interesting to see that each one had a different shape! By mid morning on day two (today), the floors had been woven.

The calico could then be fastened on to the frames.

The coracles will need to be waterproofed with bitumen before they are watertight and Dave and Chris were keen to teach everyone how to paddle. With this in mind, they had brought along a few coracles that could be used this afternoon.

As you can see, this was great fun and soon everyone had managed to manoeuvre their craft in the required direction! Adam visited the wooden snake in the middle of the shore and then had to paddle against the wind to get back to the head of the lake. This would all be good training for the Berlin marathon on Sunday!  

Pupils from the Dales School showed an interest in the coracles and some helped out this morning with sawing wood and sanding timbers, they also enjoyed watching the boats on the water.

Thank you to Dave and Chris for leading this course, it has been brilliant! If anyone would like to know more about these traditional fishing boats then there is a coracle society.

http://www.coraclesociety.org.uk

The blog post would not be complete without thanking the volunteers who gave up their time today to continue work on the wetland. 'Muddy people' have been plentiful this week and all of the graft will pay off in the spring as this habitat flourishes once again.