Bill Fisher of Drummoyne then Putney, from the famous Sydney boatbuilding family, built the original of this boat in his retirement for his own use in 1947. He built it like the Watermen’s skiffs that were common before the turn of the 20th Century when he began to learn his trade. Ian Smith took the lines off Eva Seabird in 1992, and quite a few boats have been built to this design since. It can be built traditionally clinker planked, or with glued plywood clinker construction or strip-planked. This boat pictured was built by Brendan McMurdo.

There is a separate construction plan for traditional clinker construction, and another sheet shows details for ply clinker and strip planking. Beam is 1.35m (4’5″). Eight-foot oars are about right.

This is the original boat, known as the Eva Seabird. The family story goes that Bill Fisher wanted to call it Seabird but his sister Eva wanted it named after her, so it became Eva Seabird. In the 1950’s Bill , at the time in his 80’s, raced another veteran Tom Hall from Palm Beach to Manly (about 18 nautical miles, offshore) and won in a strong offshore Westerly.  The builder’s great-grandson was working for me in 1992 at River Quays Marina opposite the Fisher shed in Putney, and Stuart rowed the boat to work. I asked his grandfather, the oldest family member still alive at that point if I could take off the lines, which he was happy to agree to.

The first one we built was built at various shows in 1993. When our shed moved to Glebe Point we kept the boat in davits and often rowed it all around Sydney Harbour. This style of clinker boat is built upright when planked traditionally. The ply clinker and strip-planked versions are easier built upside-down.

A ply clinker version was next, built in a Summer School class, and proved to be an excellent rowing boat like the traditional one, being lighter it was marginally faster, except against a headwind. The plans come with full-size patterns for the moulds as well as the stem and stern knees and transom.

The first strip-planked version was next, also built in a class. This one also had a pair of custom 9’oars on fold-out rowlocks as requested by the customer who eventually bought it.

Several others have been built, including this beautiful traditional version by Allan Cumner in Bundaberg Queensland.