Before and After

I cannot quite believe it myself, but the evidence is there, in the photos. It's a strange thing that when you build or restore a boat you think you'll remember every minute, every inch of planking scraped bare of old varnish, every rove tapped up, every problem solved. And then, a year or so later, you cannot imagine having done all that work. And that is how I felt when I looked up the before and after pictures of the Salter's rowing skiff (actually a double sculling half-rigged gig, to be precise) I restored awhile back.

Found in a sawmill, reverting to sawdust, covered in chicken poo, broken, it was only a remark from my friend Gordon that made me accept the commission. It was restore or burn, and the decision rested on a knife edge, or rather Gordon's confident "Go on, you can do it."

So we had here brought over from Aberdeen to Leckmelm where the long process began. And what a reward: under half a century of grot, despite the split planks and decayed ribs (80 per cent of which had to be replicated), there was a 100+ year-old rowing boat waiting to come alive. Splits repaired, new planks scarphed in (Honduras mahogany to match the original) and after a liberal soaking in Varnol, the depth and colour of the planking was extraordinary.

She's destined for a museum on the estate, but we did launch her just the once. With a set of oars made by Jeremy Freeland, complete with family crests on the blades, she slipped along as she once did on the Thames at Oxford all those years ago, powered by an undergraduate with an ancient title. To date, it is the most satisfying restoration I have undertaken.

Sharpies and ChrisCrafts

Never come across them until I spent a wonderful ten days a few years ago in Florida. Not the ghastly east coast, but the Gulf Coast, where life is lead at a much slower pace amid swampy, manatee-infested creeks. Well, not quite. But there's an old world feel about this neck of the new world where they still call the Civil War the War of Northern Agression, and vow one day to secede.

That time I travelled up country to Cedar Quay, and into Georgia to meet the late, undoubtedly great, boat builder, naturalist and author Robb White (of whom more at some point) and on a second visit we motored lazily up the St John's River, visiting old Civil War sites, eating aligator burgers (not) and hanging out in waterside bars. The Mount Dora Antique Boat Festival was a highlight.

The festival is all about Gar Woods and ChrisCrafts, polished to perfection. But whilst there I met a fellow called Walt, who sailed alone in a sharpie he built, spending nights anchored in the shallows or creeks of the low-lying coast. He's sold it now, but he seemed to epitomise a uniquely American spirit of independence. And in contrast to the shiny sleek motor boats owned by the rich, the very rich. So, for a contrast in Americana, here are some photos.

That's a commuter boat. Nice thing to have if you live on Long Island Sound and worked in the City.

That's my favourite: very rare, very valuable, so much so that the owner wouldn't take it on the water for fear of damage. Pity. You should have seen the engine...

Apart from the sharpie, and Walt standing on the stern, who can identify the other boats? Some have clues in the photo. On a dreich, that's miserable, day in the Highlands, it does the soul good to see warm waters, blue skies and nice boats.

Wykeham Tip

Here's one I did earlier, but I reckon it should be more widely promulgated. Those of you who have Wykeham Martin furlers, read on. Those who don't won't have a clue what all the fuss is about...

The Wykeham Martin furling gear is a classic of marine engineering, as good today as it was when it was first invented. It has its idiosyncracies, naturally, one of which is to twist up your halyard above the top swivel, without unfurling the entire sail. This habit of sticking then unravelling at breakneck speed is due to the simple, and not entirely fricton-free top bearing, which is under some fierce luff tension. This tendency to twist up at the top does little for halyard longevity or sail shape. 

My solution was to fit a stainless snaphook, Wichard make the best, through the eye of the top swivel’s bronze shackle pin, and mouse it up good and strong (I added some rubber self amalgamating tape). The Wichard hook clips on and runs up the forestay (see picture) locking the top part of the swivel, allowing the bottom half to turn freely, and unfurl the sail without sticking. The snaphook also has the advantage of keeping the ‘sausage’of the furled sail nicely under control when it’s hoisted aloft.

Something about Sally

Sally II was launched in April 1937, at a time when good timber and shipwrights were both plentiful. Her hull is of long-leaf pitchpine from Pensecola, scarcely obtainable today, her keel of English elm and her grown frames of English oak, interspersed by steamed timbers in the pre-war fashion. Her ballast keel is a lump of lead weighing around two tons, held on with a dozen 1in diameter bronze bolts, and the straps deep in her bilge that keep her hull from drifting apart are forged from a type of bronze developed for the hydraulic pipes of Wellington bombers, Tungum alloy.

She was built in four months over the winter of 1936/37 by three men and a boy, employed by Messrs Elkins of Christchurch, Dorset, and her lines were drawn by of one of the most talented designers of the pre-war years; a Cambridge graduate who spent the early years of his career in the drawing office of aircraft manufacturer and later, bolstered by a family legacy from the Fry’s chocolate empire, set up as a naval architect in a little bow-fronted Georgian house in Lymington. Slight, bespectacled, chain-smoking Jack Laurent Giles made his name, ironically, not from the radical, race-winning yachts of the pre- and post-war years but from a handful of modest cruising boats, based on the lines of French fishing boats and pilot cutters, among them a 25ft sloop called Andrillot, the forerunner of the Vertue class.


Sally is the second of the class, although the name was only applied much later. In 1937, when Philip Sharp, a Poole lawyer, commissioned her she was just a standard 5-tonner in the days when even standard boats were custom-built.

Those who know their sheerlines will have no trouble guessing her provenance. For the curve at her bow is extravagant to say the least, sweeping up from aft like the ski-jump on the bows of aircraft carriers to let loose Harrier jets. That alone is not enough to place her; for that you have also to take into account the little upward ‘kick’ in the sheerline aft, and the elegant transom, full and buoyant, with the tucked in sides delightfully known as tumblehome. Sally II is indubitably, undoubtedly, undeniably a Laurent Giles.

The Best

The Shetland boat I am restoring is a constant source of delight. Built by Iain Best (a man I admire but have never spoken to, let alone met) it is a thing of simple, honesty. The shape is gorgeous (I think she'd be called a Whilly Boat but I am no expert) and the planking fair and true. The garboards angle up at about 45 degrees which gives the keel extra bite in the absence of a centreboard, and which requires some clever bottom bevelling on the next plank up amidships, and top bevelling on the garboard fore and aft, all executed by Mr Best effortlessly, as befits one who I read spent time in Scandinavia learning from the experts.

But it is the sheer honesty of the boat that impresses me most. Nothing fancy, all done to a high but not obsessive standard, all joints close fitting, all the important details right. All in all, a joy to work on and bring back to close to where she was when launched, perhaps 20 years ago. As good, or nearly, as new with a couple of rotten sections of planking replaced, chips, dings and blemishes smoothed away, new thwarts and the distinctive canted rangs remade and refitted.

The pleasure restoring her was akin to that of building the Woodfish faering you see in the photo that heads this blog. Three planks and a few brilliant frames, developed over centuries, fashioned from natural crooks, loose fitting thwarts and there you have it: to my mind the quintessentially perfect clinker boat, perfected by the Vikings and never likely to be bettered for its elegant simplicity.

Photos of the Whilly Boat will follow at some stage, when the first of the undercoats is on and she emerges into the daylight after many years on the beach (literally). My hat off to you, Mr Best...

Working with Your Hands Good (says the BBC)

Just read an intriguing article on the BBC website about the sense of true achievement that can only come from working with your hands, as against cobbling up advertising slogans, shuffling papers or watching a computer screen for eight hours a day in a London office.

Here's the opening paragraph, the rest is well worth reading.

If the new year and inevitable return to work leaves you yearning for change, is working with your hands the answer?

The time for reflection is nigh - a new year, a new you. But is that workstation you've slotted back into looking depressingly familiar? 

As millions of workers drag themselves back into the office to contemplate another 12 months of drudgery, many will be wondering if they are in the right job. 

Writer and mechanic Matthew Crawford thinks a lot of us would be better off trading in our mouse for a screwdriver. His recent book, The Case for Working With Your Hands, has been a huge hit in his native United States, praised by critics and politicians alike. 

Mr Crawford, who used to run a Washington think tank but now mends motorbikes, says it is no wonder people are miserable at work. Jobs have become so specialised and process driven that it is hard to see what difference you are making. And in those rare cases where one's impact is obvious, the result may seem pointless.

Blast for the Future

Not sure how to break it to all those who value my ethical stance on plywood vs sustainable timber, and lovers of wildfowl, but I have been asked (nothing confirmed yet) to build a gun punt, possibly in plywood.

You will know that a gun punt (sneak box in the USA) is basically a low-slung heavy canoe, designed to be paddled unobtrusively towards unsuspecting ducks, at which point the lanyard is pulled on an enormous cannon mounted on the bow.

It's an ancient sport and tightly regulated. It also requires great skill, patience and fortitude, crouched in a punt in the dark hours before dawn with only a thermos and a cheese sandwich to stave off the bitter cold of an East Anglian winter morning.

Just can'tsee how I can get the bottom out of larch, so Bruynzeel it will have to be, and probably the better for it, but I fully intend to plank the sides in larch, fastened with bronze screws or maybe riveted.

More on this anon, but the problem at the moment is finding plans for such a craft. My prospective client has plans for an 18ft version, which could be scaled up to the required 23ft, but having googled for hours, and digested much useful information, anything first hand would be welcome.