Craft a Coracle
Born of necessity, coracles have been made by people of many cultures for thousands of years.
April/May 2003
By Stanley Joseph
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You can build this shallow watercraft with basic tools.
LYNN KARLIN
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In 1978 I ran into a friend, Hugh Curran, at the coin-operated laundry in Ellsworth, Maine. He saw one of my handmade laundry baskets, and he remarked that it reminded him of a miniature version of the boats, or coracles, his uncle once had built in Ireland. They were used for salmon fishing on the rivers. The possibility of making such a boat, based on a basket form covered with hide or cloth, really appealed to me. Hugh wasn't sure if anyone was still building coracles, but he wrote to his uncle to inquire.
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About the same time, National Geographic ran an article about the Irish curragh, a cousin of the smaller coracle, entitled "The Voyage of the Brendan: Did Irish Monks Discover America?" by Tim Severin (December 1977). My curiosity engaged, I began a search and was fortunate enough to locate the only extensive book on the history and design of coracles, British Coracles and the Curraghs of Ireland, written in 1936 by the noted small craft historian James Hornell.
Born of necessity, coracles have been made by people in many places for thousands of years. It is thought only the dugout canoe predates the coracle as a means of water travel.
In June of 1986, I read an article in The New Yorker entitled "A Good Little Vessel" by Anthony Bailey. Eustace Rogers, the subject of Bailey's article, was reputed to be the last coracle maker in England. I was inspired by the description of his craft and decided to build my own coracle.
I visited Ironbridge on the River Severn to see firsthand what a coracle looked like and to talk with Eustace. I also wanted to see if I could locate any other builders in Wales, the main area where the craft was once in use. After some searching I found another coracle maker, Ronnie Davies, on the River Teifi in South Wales. Ronnie and Eustace spent many hours talking with me about coracles, their construction, history and use in fishing. Thanks to their considerable knowledge, help and enthusiasm, I have been able to carry on the tradition of coracle construction.
The British coracle is derived from the bitumen-coated guffa of Iraq and the skin-covered coracles of India and Tibet. Julius Caesar provided the first written reference to a skin-covered craft. Recounting his military campaign in Spain in 49 B.C., at a time when his communications had been cut by floods and destruction of bridges, Caesar said he had ordered his men to make wickerwork boats covered with hides — boats of the kind he had seen on raids into southwestern England. He refers to the presence of a keel and ribs made of light timbers, which indicates he was referring to curraghs. Various Welsh writings in the Middle Ages mentioned coracles, usually covered by black bullock hides.
The coracle is an extremely shallow-draft boat, which floats on the water like a cork. As a result, it is particularly well suited for catching salmon in the shallow, rock-strewn rivers of Ireland and the border country between Wales and England. Two men would go out, one man in each boat, with a net between them. When a fish hit the net, one of the men would pull the net in along with the ensnared fish.
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