My Guilty Secret

Now you do know how I go on about plywood and epoxy, to the despair of those who point out its many virtues, of which I am certainly not unaware having built a few such boats in my time.

They are, in order, a Mirror, Gull dinghy, Waarschip 570 mini-tonner, three 8ft John Westell-designed tenders and a 22ft Atkin motor cruiser. I once had a lovely plywood National 12, which would have been hopelessly uncompetitive planked in mahogany with copper nails and steamed timbers. And I often use epoxy to patch things up, most recently the splits in the planks of a superb 100-year-old Honduras mahogany Salters-built Thames skiff.

I can heartily recommend the stuff for so many uses, but I did not enjoy ladling it on to glass cloth, and squeezing out the excess while finishing the hull of the Atkin launch. The result was a strong, good-looking and durable boat that looks the part. Using Bruynzeel plywood, at vast expense I might add, was a good move as it is guaranteed for 20 years or so. It was lovely stuff to work, too; no splintering, no voids, more like a high-quality engineering material. But I was coughing up blood by the end of the build... The result was worth it, just.