Walkers Tideway wanted

[owen cambridge]

Hello I have been looking for one of these for ages, Im afraid my budget is in the hundreds rather than thousands so expecting to do some repairs. email: owen_cambridge@hotmail.com

[Ed]

Been a couple turn up recently.....here and on ebay......

Bound to be like busses.....you might wait ages now

hope not - great fun boats.

cheers

eib

[jpa_wfsc]

... and there does seem to be a bit of a tideway premium to pay.

Stuff like YW dayboats (which can do the same job) are a lot cheaper for the same condition. So - what do you actually want the tideway for? I'm sure a posting giving your reasons could result in a host of similar but not the same / have you considered replies....

and also read some of Roger Bannister's articles in the [now defunct] dinghy sailing magazine to see what you can do with Wayfarers, and all sorts of other day boat types.

[JimC]

...budget is in the hundreds rather than thousands so expecting to do some repairs.

Its probably worth noting that dinghy restoration is probably one of the most economically ridiculous exercises one can undertake. Do it because you love doing it: that's fine. But if your only motive is to buy a boat you couldn't otherwise afford then it makes far more economical sense to get an evening job in a pub or supermarket or something or work more overtime or anything paid. Your family will see more of you and you'll get an actual operational boat much more quickly.

You will spend far more money on restoring a boat than you can believe. Its not just the materials, the paint, the sandpaper, the time, its all the extra tools you'll find you want to buy and goodness knows what else. We all do it for the fun of it, although we might tell different stories to wives/girlfriends/partners: hell we probably deceive ourselves about it too. Just read through the forums with all the "war stories" about finding horrible hidden errors and nasty suprises and the triumphal ways they were resolved... Oh, and most of all, we *never* work out exactly how much it costs: there lies madness!

Jim C

[neil]

I did exactly this, got a £500 Tideway looking like this





I was lucky as it only needed the keel replaced, a load of new ribs, refastening and redecking. The boat was sound and no planks needed replacing - most of the cheap one need new planks.

and after a winter it looked like this



some ramblings about it at http://www.pegasus18.com/dinghies/index ... on-part-1/


BUT I estimate the materials, sails, cover etc were about £600, luckily I had a supply of timber/varnish and fixings.

This is only one of a handful of boats that's made a substantial cash return when I sold her - I lost count after 400 hours of labour - every evening and weekend in the winter

cheap one do come up - contact Danny at the Tideway Association as he is the font of Tideway knowledge

[owen cambridge]

Thankyou all for your advice, hmmm why a Tideway? I suppose because on paper they do everythig I want, a small, stable wooden dinghy for my young family, which sails well, rows well and can take an outboard if needed. That of course applies to a lot of dinghys, I saw a tideway pretty much everyday on the river where I grew up and she always seemed to represent the perfect small boat to me, perhaps if I am totally honest I want THAT tideway now that Im older. I think the asthetics of boats is such that some just strike you as perfect for you and if I choose another class, however similar, somewhere in my mind she would always be "not a Tideway". Stupid I know. Even stupider, I have bought boats because I felt sorry for them, you know the ones, great lines fallen on hard times. I am currently restoring a traditional 18 foot Shetland "Model" boat because I have owned her for years and because when I got her she had been negelected for years. But she will not be a great family boat for southern waters. I agree about the costs but I have the workshop set up and a tideway shaped space.The time seems to be comming when I can fulfill an ambition, thats all.

[Rupert]

Sounds like an excellent reason to want a Tideway, and I expect similar reasoning applies to most of us when it comes to boats. I learned to sail in a Firefly, and I'll always regard them as the prettiest of boats. I love C class Cats because of a book I had from the library when I was a kid...not sure I'll ever own one of them, though - the Tideway sounds like a better bet!

Good luck with the search.

[alan williams]

Hi Rupert
I have the C class cat that I wanted as a kid but not the not the Hellcat I lusted over but near eough it's small sister the Shark although a B class with the normal Jib. If I put the very large (but knaked) jib on the increase in sail area means she is then classified as a C class but of course loses out massively in this form as she is only 20 ft and not to the maxium 25ft overall but I can pretend it's a Hellcat.
Cheers Al

[Rupert]

I really enjoyed my ride on the Shark at Roadford years ago - real sense of power there. Closest I've got to owning a Hellcat is the Rod Mac designed Tonic!