With 20,000 monthly wooden boat Aficionados reading these pages, quite a few requests for promotion come across our desk (chart table) here at SWS. Some of them are blatantly inappropriate, others don’t quite fit with out values and some like the two below seem to deserve an airing in the wider maritime community.
Sessions and Sail
We were contacted by Barry Nisbet from Session and Sail a couple of months ago, and immediately I loved the idea of what the organisation is doing.
Sessions and Sail combines two of the best things in life, music and sailing, aboard a tall ship. The company began in the Shetlands in Scotland describes it as a floating festival, in which the guests join a voyage to play, learn and listen to music while sailing, rather than just being passengers on a cruise.
The offer is a mix of music tuition, social time and travel. A team of tutors, musical sailors and regular voyagers leads the trips, and the objective is to improve or sharpen your musical skills, learn new tunes, make friends, and explore the culture and coastline of each region. The vibe seems informal and community-driven, something we admire here at SWS!
Voyages run in three broad regions: Scotland, the Mediterranean and Australia where they are currently promoting a Tasmania voyage aboard the Søren Larsen in February 2027 which is linked in to the Australian Wooden Boat Festival.
Built in Denmark in 1949, the oak-hulled Søren Larsen offers an atmospheric setting for the trip. Music sessions may take place on deck or in the ship’s saloon, while evenings at sheltered anchorages offer time to share songs and music as the light fades over the coast.
Musicians of all abilities are welcome, and no previous sailing experience is required. Accommodation is in shared two- or four-berth cabins, with shared shower and toilet facilities. The price includes a berth, three meals a day plus snacks, tea and coffee, musical tuition, workshops and sessions, and dinghy transport between ship and shore where required.
Boat Build Log
I’ve never built a boat but I would be interested to hear from those who have as to whether this appeals. What I like is the simplicity of making the entries and the databaase of infomation that’s accumulating to encourage more amateur builderw to take on projects.
Boat Build Log is a logbook site for people building wooden boats. Builders post photos, short notes and hours worked from their phone after each session, so the whole project is documented step by step. It’s free to start a log, and the tagline is “Log your build. Help the next builder.”
Each entry takes about a minute: a photo, a paragraph, the hours, and which build step it covers. The date comes from the photo rather than the posting time, so posting a day late still files the entry under the right day. Entries run oldest first, so a finished log reads from start to finish like a record of the build rather than a blog, and you can print the whole thing when the boat launches.
Logs are also filed under the boat’s design, which lets you compare how different builders handled the same hull, such as fairing, and how many hours it took them. A stats page gives median build times by boat type and by step.
Beyond the logs, the site has sections for plans and designs, boats, restorations, modifications, boats for sale, and a blog, plus pages for designers, suppliers, a store and pricing. Example builds include the Northeaster Dory, Polliwog 8, Ultralight Dinghy and Welsford Navigator, with most logs marked “under way.”
If you have an program, a business or just an idea that you feel fits in well with the SWS mantra, then drop us a line! Let’s see if we can help.