I was honoured to witness the maiden voyage of a home made coracle on the Regent’s Canal yesterday afternoon.
A coracle is a small round boat made of wickerwork covered with a watertight material, propelled with a paddle, and is popular in my home country of Wales and Ireland.
I struck up a conversation with the gallant captain – who was indeed Welsh! – and they explained that the coracle was part of an architectural project for their studies.
Although they’d accomplished a frankly magnificent job of building the coracle, the student admitted that they’d forgotten to build an oar, so had improvised by using a plastic cleaning sign instead.
Despite being advised that a swift passage could be achieved by employing a figure of eight motion with the makeshift paddle, navigation was also proving problematic, so the vessel erratically made its way to safety by the side of the canal.
The disembarking procedure could perhaps have been a tiny bit more elegant.
Personally I was deeply impressed with the work that had gone into this project.
Many years ago, I had a go on a coracle and could only go round in circles until someone hauled me out of the pond.
Coracles and football
Shrewsbury Town Football Club used to employ Fred Davies as a ball boy, tasked with fishing stray balls from the nearby River Severn in his coracle.
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