Required Reading...

...apart from this load of old c***lers is Sam Llewellyn's very promising new Marine Quarterly. You probably know Sam for his nautical thrillers (and occasional contributions to the thinking gardeners' quarterly Hortus to which Sam's dinky little, impeccably produced Marine Quarterly bears a striking resemblance in terms both of size and excellence of content.) It's even got a proper colophon (Ha! That's got you thinking, eh?)

I was hoping Someone would buy me a subscription for my birthday and the catalyst came after reading an issue of Hortus, a subscription for which I had bought for Her Who gardens. Inside was a flyer. Within days she had reciprocated, and a packet arrived soon after with the first two issues of the Marine Quarterly, which I am now devouring.

All this pompous preamble boils down to this: if you are a lover of all things nautical, and literary and want an alternative to the repetitive yachtie porn that masquerades as sailing journalism these days ("How to service your outboard"; "Building a plywood pram"; "Seven chart plotters on test"; "Whittling a thole pin"; "Fitting out the easy way"; "Fog in the Channel: a cautionary Tale..."; "We sail the new Suneteau 43" etc etc) then take out a subscription to Sam's Marine Quarterly.

One day I may pluck up courage to submit something of my own, but I am in no doubt about the high standards from the likes of Tom Cunliffe, Roger Taylor of MingMing fame, Alex Ramsay (who sailed with Tilman) and Sam himself.

Now, back to the comfy armchair...

www.marinequarterly.com

We're Off...

Progress since Tuesday on the Tammie Norrie has been patchy, but as of today the centreline is taking shape. The timber for the transom is on order, a composite of Super Elite 12mm faced with larch. On the inside or outside? Haven't yet decided. I have to admit that plywood has its place in a traditional boat: the transom, so long as one side is real. I think it might look rather good: larch on one side, mahogany on the other, and the top capped to hide the end grain. But I have asked Robbins, the supplier, to please, please select a piece with a grain that looks the part, rather than that strange squirrely pattern.

So that's it for the week. The rabbet's cut, barring the section meeting the transom, and centreboard slot marked out. The stem is one piece, the two sections tenoned together with an ancient piece of iroko, the inner face of the apron capped with a laminate of larch, and I'll probably cap the outer stem similarly, but with oak - a kind of larch sandwich, rather than a laminate which eats up timber, requires a jig, rapid working and masses of glue and pressure, two words with huge disaster potential.

And would you believe, as soon as I began work it all came flooding back. Maybe two plywood boats in a row had wiped my mental slate clean. However, this time I wll be taking photos at every stage, including the crucial centreline structure so next time I won't have to scratch my head too long or, as I usually do, soak in the bath with my eyes closed visualising every stage of the build. Nearly drowned last Sunday. Fell asleep counting rabbets...

Back to Work

Gun punt gone; Nutshell pram gone; loch boat gone, so a few days off were just what I needed before work began on the Tammie Norrie.

And do you know, it took me a day of head scratching to remember how it all goes together. Thing is every time I build a boat I look to ways of doing things a little differently, which is one of the joys of building from scratch. Iain Oughtred's plans are superb, but they don't really go into much detail about how to build in traditional clinker, and, believe me, there are differences, beginning with the centreline.

In a ply/epoxy boat it's all planked onto the keelson or hog, and the (outer) keel gets plonked on at the end. In a traditional boat the keelson/keel assembly forms a T shape, and the rabbet is worked into where the two join. And it all gets a little interesting where it joins the stem, which can be made solid or laminated in two parts, just like its ply counterpart.

And there are so many ways to make that vital join. I was taught to half joint the inner stem (apron) to the outer keel, and blend the keelson into the apron, with a knee to strengthen the join, but in Iain's plans the apron sits on top of the keelson, making a sandwich with the outer keel. Too complicated to explain, and my head was spinning by the time I figured out (or remembered) how it all went together. Best to draw it (which I did with the centreboard case (above).

In the end I went for a solid one piece stem, which will mean chiselling out a rabbet, rather than forming the rabbet by slapping the outer stem onto the apron (after planing the protruding planks flush). It's always been a problem lining up the hood end screws in a two-part laminated stem. I am sure there's a clever trick to scribe a screw line on the ouside of the plank by following the fore side of the apron, using some contraption that straddles the excess plank end, but I've not discovered it, and thus every so often a screw gets a touch too close to the edge, or too far away, resulting not in that elegant curve of screws but a bit of a detour.

Not so with a rabbet. You can get those screws in bang where you want them, although fitting the plank ends is not quite as easy as simply planing them flush.

All pretty esoteric boat building stuff, for which I apologise.

But you can see at least what a stem/keel joint looks like as drawn by Mr Oughtred. Mine will have the same profile but not the same construction. Which means next time I build a boat I'll spend another day trying to remember what I did the time before.

PS And those monetary calculations are before the carriage was added (stuff from Robbins, if you must know...)

14,000!

Just hit the 14,000 mark. Strikes me there are some funny people out there, hunched over hot computers rather than in their sheds building lovely wooden boats; bathing the kids; walking the hills; brushing up their tennis; indeed all the worthwhile things they should be doing rather than logging in to this load of....

But welcome all!

Question: What is the Boat Doing?

There's a clue in a previous post, but can you (without peaking) tell me what this boat is up to?

The answer is that she's a scallop diving boat, going about her work, quite properly, and there's a diver somewhere underneath. The point surely is: would you not make absolutely clear your intentions if you had any doubts about your indentity being misconstrued? Would you not, with a man in the water, employ every correct IRPCS signal to make sure approaching boats keep well clear? Would you, in short, with a human life at stake make your purpose unambiguous? Rather than an A flag that can't be seen, and lights during the day which risk being obscured by bright sun and no day signals.

No one was at fault; it was simply a misunderstanding that could, surely, have been prevented. If the sailing boat skipper (an extremely experienced yachtsman on passage back from Norway at the time) had had any inkling of what he was approaching, then things might have turned out differently, avoiding action taken earlier and a cheery wave would have ensued.

Welcome 23rd

It wasn't that long ago that I was waiting with bated keyboard for the 10,000th "hit" and now it's up towards 14,000. Plus there's a Dennis Willard just signed up, so welcome. I would love to know what all the other 22 followers signed up to read. More of the same nonsense I imagine. Let's hope you are not too disappointed. At least no money changed hands.

As I write Peggy Lee is singing Sunny Side of the Street, the sun is down finally after a glorious day that makes the Highlands worth living in, the shed's swept and ready for the next commission, deposit paid,  there is a shhhmall glasshh (they call it a dram up here for my one Iranian follower) of Ardbeg by my computer, the gun punt went south yesterday and all is, temporarily, well with the world. Well, it's not well to be honest, listening to the news, but certainly in this neck of the world things could be a lot worse.

Just heard that Thembi left from the Faroes today en route to Jan Mayen (see posts below). Bon voyage. Meanwhile another club member arrived back from Sweden with his new yacht. All went well until, spinnaker up, he came upon a fishing boat in Edrachilles Bay, in the middle of a very narrow passage. Turns out it's a scallop diving boat. Now, tell me, no A flag visible, no day shapes (but lights signifying restricted in ability to manoeuvre, against the sun mind you), no indication which side he had a diver down; what's our man to make of it, under spinnaker with no room to manoeuvre either. Narrow miss. Angry words...

Wimp

Some are born brave, and intrepid; some are, well, a little wimpy. As Thembi (see below) and Sumara, a Vertue class sloop, head for Jan Mayen, my own Vertue lies at her mooring dreaming of an owner with greater cruising aspirations than a gentle circumnavigation of the Summer Isles (about 20 miles, more or less).

I have an excuse though: Sally II has no mast. Well she has a mast, but they are separated by a mile or so of Loch Broom, boat being at her buoy in Loggie Bay; mast in the rafters of my shed at Leckmelm. The two are however due to be united for an August cruise, the mast having been stripped and varnished, Sally's topsides likewise.

I can't help thinking though that the best place for the mast is where it is, gathering dust, perhaps, but not deteriorating in the harsh Highland climate. And absolutely the best excuse for not heading for Jan Mayen. "No mast, mate. Sorry."

That's a photo of her taken last year at fitting out, dried out in Loggie on a perfect spring day - the kind of day when you would not want to be anywhere but up here.

Today, the day after mid summer, it's blowing a bitter north easterly and as my punt project is more or less finished, have been trolling the internet, which was where I came across the latest news of Sumara of Weymouth, en route to Jan Mayen where her crew, and that of her companion Thembi, will climb the Beerenberg volcano. Which makes me feel even wimpier...