In a Nutshell 2

Day 9 and the Nutshell is ready, primed and awaiting her owner. Funny how you get to bond with a boat. I found myself looking at it (her) from all angles and quite liking what I saw.

Inevitably I couldn't let it go without adding some capping to the transoms, to hide the end grain. There's something about plywood end grain that makes me cringe. Better to hide it, although I couldn't do the same with the lodging knees.

I did, however, add a touch of proper boat building by riveting them through, and it makes sense too. Those rivets will makes sure the shape stays in for as long as the boat lasts.

All in all then, I have to say that I am pleased with the result. Joel White designed a fine tender, and the plans (I have a few quibbles) were accurate.

Have I Arrived?

Can't say yet if it will make any difference to the level of enquiries received for wooden boats, but membership of the Wooden Boatbuilders Trade Association is at least recognition after 10 years that I am a boat builder.

I reckon to have the basics of a certain type of boat building, in my case plywood... NO! What am I saying? Traditional clinker is what I meant to say. Just that if you were to drop by my air-conditioned, purpose built workshop you would see a couple of plywood boats on the go. And the sooner they've gone the better,  as I have a 14ft clinker boat next up, thank goodness.

The Nutshell pram has been satisfying, and mercifully quick. If nothing else you can build a boat in no time with plywood. And yet, and yet...

But I have set my sights higher, and I do believe solid timber is higher, for which reason I am very proud to be a member now of the WBTA, whose membership includes some of my boat building heroes. So, thanks those who felt I had earned my stripes. Trouble is my mentor Tom Whitfield in Australia knows full well that I haven't even scratched the surface of knowledge, and time is running out.

In a Nutshell

I cannot deny it, but there are now two plywood boats on the go at Viking Boats International (Leckmelm) plc. The gun punt is resting, while I had less than 10 working days to put together this Nutshell dinghy by Joel White. I don't have to finish her, just prime and off she goes for final painting.

Nice little boat, but it's not my idea of boat building, and the dust... Despite trying to wear a mask as much as possible, it's just not possible all the time. The worst is cutting bits of Super Elite on the bandsaw. My snot at the end of the day looks like Plastic Wood (maybe try it one day).

The schedule was tight:. Day 1, make the moulds and set up the jig (which extended into day two). Day 2, make the bow knee and main frame, and cut out the bottom from 9mm ply. Cut out transoms from 18mm Super Elite. Day 3, set up bow and transom, main frame and bow knee. Day 4, set the bottom board onto the main frame, and transoms. Bevel edges for garboards. Day 5, cut out and fit garboards. Bevel garboards ready for next plank. Day 6, cut out and fit next plank, and bevel. Day 7, cut out and fit sheerstrake, wood seal transoms, frame and knee. Day 8, lift off jig, make thwarts, fit rubbing strips. General clean up. Plane to sheerline. Day 9 (half day), fit knees, clean up gunwale.

Which leaves a day and half in hand to prime the inside, rivet up the knees and generally tidy her up for delivery.

The glue I used was Robbins' replacement for Balcotan, called Collano. It is nothing like Balcotan, which can be chipped off, but sets hard like a one-part epoxy, and sticks like epoxy too. In fact in future, unless there's a good reason for mixing up mayonnaise, I will be using the new stuff as it's a joy to spread, quick and clean.

By the end of the month there'll be a Tammie Norie on the go, in solid timber, Scots pine in fact from the Queen's estate at Balmoral.

Loki at Large

Here, by popular demand, is a typical shot of Loki at the recent Coigach Regatta, lifted from Ulla's website (www.ullcoastrow.wordpress.com) showing the brave Royal Loch Broom Sailing Club stroking, if not to victory, then to third place lead by bow man Robert, No 3 Andy, No 2 Sandy and stroked by John, with Commodore Copestake in steerage.

The strength of the wind, and temperature can be judged by the fact that Loki's figurehead was protected throughout the day with a wooly hat (celebrating her Irish bow man's birth place). Cut down on windage too.

Photo copyright Chris Perkins

18.16 9,999

At 16 minutes past six the visitor tally stood at 9,999. As I type it has just passed the 10,000 mark. Whoever you are, welcome. Now get back to doing something useful...

10,000th

I can't offer a free case of baked beans, or even a bottle of champagne, but the 10,000th visitor to this site (how on earth do you know who you are?) who can prove that he or she was indeed the 10,000th will get... my sympathies. Don't waste any more time, that's my advice...

Shipwrights Ahoy?

I just had this email from a fellow in Forres (incidentally the name of my old prep school, where small boys were kept in line with a sharp tap on the back of the knees with a boxwood ruler  - "never did me any harm..." etc etc - but that's another story).

Maybe someone out there can help him, as for sure my shed is way too small to accommodate his boat. I can put you in touch.

Dear Mr Morgan

I follow your articles in Classic Boats [sic] with interest and note your plaintiff [sic] tone as regards obtaining sufficient paying jobs. I own a 1936 50sq.m. windfall yacht, Seawraith, previously Seegeist, purchased as a retirement project. 

However, in my "retirement" I am busier than ever (in gainful self-employment as a forester) and despairing of ever finding time to complete the boat. I am not interested in the complete replacement of every vestige of the original, intending to keep her very much intact, repairing rather than replacing. 

The meticulous rebuild of beautiful classics retaining the odd bit of original boat as a token appals me.
 
Seawraith is presently lying in Forres, Moray, under a light protective roof (which itself may require rebuilding if I don't get my finger out). If we did come to an arrangement I'd expect to deliver the boat to you but wonder if you have a big enough shed. She is 41ft long and about 13ft deep from the base of the keel but would need a wheeled cradle to draw into a shed. 

If you are interested perhaps you'd care to visit if you were this way and we can discuss possibilities. I am attaching a few photographs taken when the boat was lying in Canvey Island where I acquired her.

Yours sincerely, Richard Ogilvy

More Skiff Thoughts

Strikes me that the Scandinavians, drawing on the Viking genius for boat building, had it right. The faering pictured above is just about as stripped out as you could wish for in a small rowing boat (bearing in mind this was long before the age of composite and epoxy).

Note the absence of gunwales forward. Just adds weight in the ends. And the minimal framing, the curved sections of which used to be formed from crooks. Very few fastenings and no steamed timbers either. Thwarts loose, and simply resting on the frames, and able to "rock" slightly to accommodate the rower's action. And just three planks or strakes a side, which made the absolute most of a squarish length of pine.

And yet achieved a shape which is glorious to look at and behaves beautifully in a seaway, allowing it to be rowed almost effortlessly for miles.

And the rowing gear: a spoon bladed oar, with a right angle section working in a kabe, held by a thong (or length of blue polyprop...). Looking at some of the cleverest skiffs at Coigach this weekend it struck me how those same criteria hold as good today: keep it light, simple and strong. The recipe for every winning yacht, skiff, boat, canoe ever built. I simply love faerings. My all-time favourite, designed 800 years or more ago and never bettered.

Correction...

I have been informed that a certain Chris P**kins, photographer, boat builder, naturalist and self-confessed Varnol-addict (a Super injunction prevents me from naming him) has made it clear that, contrary to what I wrote a few posts ago, he is not and never has been a royalist and nothing would tempt him from his lair in the Strathkanaird hills to cover a royal honeymoon. In short, as he told me forcibly at this weekend's Coigach Skiff Regatta, he is a republican to the core.

As to the regatta, I will let others tell the story how Ullapool's skiffs fared. Their website has more details, but this probably sums it up best: "Ulla and her crews were proud to have taken part, winning was never really our strategy." Mr P's photos are well worth the visit alone. Ulla and Cul Mor were certainly up there with the prettiest, along with Newhaven's Wee Michael, but Portobello's two light, stripped to the bone minimalist skiffs had "fast" written all over them, and in racing it is not looks that count. Pretty good rowers though...

Credit Chris Perkins

Not all was gloom: the Royal Loch Broom Sailing Club's recently launched  Loki (she with the fetching black bird at its prow) performed creditably, coming third in one race and missing two more third places by a short beak. Fourth, pushing third place, out of ten boats appeared to be her natural position, which was encouraging on a first outing. My role was to hand out queen cakes to the exhausted crew, provide vocal encouragement and commiseration in equal measure to the team consisting of Paul, Robert, Sandy, John, Andy, Karen, Shona and Kate (I hope I didn't leave anyone out?) Winning was definitely a strategic aim.

There was no certainly no mistaking her proud figurehead (protected from the cold wind with an Irish cap donated by bow man Robert White) as the fleet splashed and thrashed around the gruelling course. Moves are afoot to replicate the beast (bird not bow man) in glassfibre (or polystyrene) for, in racing trim, every ounce counts, and Loki's figurehead counts for quite a lot, right up there in the aptly named eyes of the boat. Subtle, incremental improvements are planned in the coming months after more lengthy debates in the RLBSC's mahogany-panelled board room overlooking the lovely Loch Broom.

To Drown Like a Gentleman...

This was the ethos behind the old OSTAR, coined by Blondie Hasler who believed that anyone daft enough to attempt a single-handed voyage should not rely on outside help if it all turned to worms (or the nautical equivalent).

Nowadays a red button will summon a helicopter in minutes, and thank goodness too. We are not all born Cockleshell Heroes. Nevertheless the total self reliance that Hasler epitomised has an almost romantic appeal, as one yachtsman recently proved. From the Yachting Monthly website comes this inspiring story. Some might say it was sheer foolhardiness, but not me.

A Cornish sailor has returned to the UK after a 17-month circumnavigation in which he used only an atlas for navigation.

Paddy Macklin, 52, arrived back in Falmouth after a 'traditional' circumnavigation via the three capes on his 27ft wooden Buchanan sloop with no EPIRB or proper charts.

His friend, Steve Ransley, said: 'He didn't want anybody to call help for him, he wanted to do it in the true tradition of going to sea and being prepared to drown like a a gentleman.'

It's That Perkins again...

Will and Kate can thank their lucky stars our Mr "Snatch" Perkins, photographer extraordnaire, is safely ensconced up here in Strathkanaird, rather than hiding behind a palm tree on their honeymoon isle. Once again he popped out of the woodwork to catch the Hon Sec of the Royal Loch Broom Sailing Club unawares beside the club St Ayles skiff Loki's figurehead. This time I managed a cheery gesture before Chris disappeared again... (to catch a plane to the Seychelles, perhaps?)

Copyright Chris P***ins

Three Things...

.... that caught my attention recently. First, the plywood that arrived yesterday had the name Burmarine stamped on it. Does that mean it came from Burma? And is not the Burmese military regime one of the most repressive in the world, and are we sure the money is going into the right pockets? Should I send it back (actually, it's a bit late as two sheets now form the bottom of the gun punt, see posts passim). And shouldn't it be called Myanmarmarine, in any case? Perhaps it didn't come from Burma/Myanmar at all, in which case ignore the above, and read on.

Secondly, I had a friend staying who used to work in a superyacht yard. He recalls an owner demanding the teak deck be stripped off his 140ft racing yacht because it was looking a bit tired after three years (couldn't scrub the suntan lotion off it...) They couldn't even re-use the old stuff, as it was well Sikaflexed down, and full of holes in any case, so into the skip it went. And that is common practice among owners of large yachts, I believe. When I worked at Ullapool Boat Builders Gill would have us collect the bent and offcut copper nails.

And thirdly? Why would you want to steam oak timbers into a glued plywood pram? That's like putting up Tudor beams on the ceiling of a 1950s semi, no? Must be me...