Coracle book
This book has 16 pages with 37 full colour photographs detailing each step involved in making your first coracle
This book tells you everything you need to know about how to make a coracle and how to paddle your coracle. Each step is illustrated with a photograph, with text to explain each of the photographs. Please note that this book descrbes how to make a coracle from ash laths
Until further notice this book is only available as a PDF file, or a Kindle file.
Price £4.35 We will email the file to you. If you would like to buy it then email me for payment details. Paypal is prefered
The PDF is full colour
Buy now for the Kindle from Amazon for £4.30.
You can easily read kindle books on your home computer by downloading easy to use software from Kindle
Edwardian Farm
Sean was filmed in 2010 for Edwardian Farm the BBC 2 series. Here Sean is teaching Alex how to build a coracle from willow, next to the river Tamar.
Sean being filmed by Two Four productions for the 'Woodworks' program on Sky TV.
Sean has also appeared on Westcountry Television showing the entire process of making and paddling a coracle on the river Dart.
We run courses in coracle making on a one to one or two to one basis at our workshops. The minimum lenght of time to make a coracle is two days. Please contact us for prices.
We can also run coracle making workshops for your group or organisation.
Coracles are different from most other river craft due to their weight, construction and how they are paddled.
Traditionally made from willow, ash or hazel and covered in a large animal hide, they are now often made from ash lath and calico which has been waterproofed with bitumen paint. They can weigh between 25 and 40 pounds and are easily carried with the aid of a strap around the front of the shoulders, and are paddled by a single paddle which is held in both hands over the front of the coracle, and then moved in a figure of 8 action. The coracle is thus pulled through the water. When fishing with nets, one hand will be holding the net and the other hand, the paddle. Paddling single handed will take time to master properly.
The coracle is a very shallow, drafted boat with no keel, and therefore is perfect for rivers that other boats would be grounded in. They are often carried up the river and floated down, as it can be impossible or at least hard work to paddle up stream for any distance. Crossing the current is easy and this was often the main use of the coracle: to ferry people and goods, across stream. Even when toll bridges were built, people often resented paying the toll and carried on using their coracles.
Apart from transportation, the other main use was fishing, either by line or by nets. With net fishing, a net is held between 2 coracles which drift down river taking salmon or sea trout. To do this you have to have a license which is issued yearly, by the appropriate river authority
Each river in Wales has its own design of coracle. For example; Teifi in Cardigan; Tywi in Carmarthen; Taf in Cardiff; Cleddau in Haverfordwest; Wye in Chepstow and apparently 3 designs on the river Servern.
The coracle is not just a Welsh boat but can be found across the world from Britain and Ireland to France, India, Veitnam, Iraq and many other places. Because of the way it is constructed and the materials used, I would assume that most cultures who wanted to use a boat would have made something like a coracle at one time or another.
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