CHERTSEY

BOATS, BRIDGES, BOILERS ... IF IT'S GOT RIVETS, I'M RIVETTED
... feminist, atheist, autistic academic and historic narrowboater ...
Likes snooker, beer, tea, rivets and solitude, and is strangely fascinated by the cinema organ.
And there might be something about railways.
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Thursday 5 July 2012

Where Eagles dare

When I posted rather plaintively on CWF a while ago on the subject of 'is anyone going to Braunston this year?', the reply that made me smile in anticipation was from robkg, saying: 'I am planning to take ... "Eagle" again this year.  She now has a Bolinder fitted plus the steerer actually steers.'


Eagle is the boat that makes the rest of us feel sane.

Seeing Eagle makes me happy. It is so fabulously good; so gloriously pointless, done, as everything should be but so little is, entirely for its own sake, raised to the highest degree.


Eagle is (the bit that I elided), as most of you probably know, a model. But what a model. A model with an Action Man whose gripping hand on the tiller does indeed appear to steer. Smoke emerges from stove chimney and exhaust, and the miniature Bolinder beats perfect time with the boat's movement. Not mentioned in the preview was that Action Man (I wonder what his name is) now also has a bike, handmade in every perfect detail, casually thrown on top of his cargo (what's in those sacks, I wonder).


I cannot say what joy Eagle brings me.

I have left the picture files big so you can click on them and appreciate the fantastic detail.

I'll edit and enlarge the Blue Line post tomorrow. Or soon, anyway.

2 comments:

  1. Last year at the IWA festival Eagle was going up and down the cut towing a Canoe with Rob and his brother in law sat in it. At the 2008 IWA festival Rob's boat Grace won best at show and best amateur fit out.

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  2. The sound amazed me, absolutely brilliant, I got a picture of Eagle towing her canoe 'butty' this year and was very jealous of the guys riding around in it, what a laugh

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