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Welcome to beautement.com - Site Summary

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Update on 5th November 2024:

• The Viking Boat Project is up-to-date but is now on hold till spring 2025.
• You can still access the archive of research, military and technical papers from the abaci Partnership.

American Presidential Election

     My guess? It will be Trump (why? read more here). And Putin and Xi (and opportunist Modi) will be laughing in their socks (no that's not quite right), they must be please to see the West in turmoil. With American democracy utterly broken, European unity faltering, the Middle East in flames [It's self-defence stupid], support for Ukraine waning, Taiwan a worry, climate migration underway (and no one wants 'them') ... The cyberwar and social-media campaigns of Russia and China have worked very well. And whilst the USA becomes embroiled in legal infighting over the next few months the rest of the world staggers on. Great [NOT]!

Boats and Boat- building

     This section of the website has blogs on boats we have built and on the techniques used to craft and restore traditional boats and ships. To help keep these crafts alive, you can download here plans for the 15-foot, 4.6 metre, Irish gandelow - featured in Wooden Boat Magazine number 249 / 250 in 2016; in Watercraft Magazine number 130 in 2018; and in Chasse-Marée boat magazine issue number 301 in 2019 (in French). In 2024 a new area of work was started - looking at the Nordic Peoples called ‘Vikings’, and particularly their ships and the key part they played in the success of Viking raiding expeditions. 

Beautement Books

     Beautement Books started publishing in 2014 with a guide to building the Irish ‘gandelow’ fishing boat.. You can read about all the books here. An ‘academic’ book “Complexity Demystified - a guide for Practitioners” - was first published in 2011 by Triachy Press - but can now be downloaded as a PDF from this site.

Resources - Library of PDFs and Multimedia

     The resources section has been restructured and extended to include recommended books, articles, video and sound clips - as well as preserving the archive of the ‘abaci library’ from 2015.

About the site and its History

     This section provides information about the events which have inspired the site and its author, and our unusual family name, its origins and our connections with boat-building and crafts.

[05 Nov 2024]