Finished... but Where's the Proof?

Well the Frank Knight-built dinghy went down to Struy the other day and, as always, I packed a camera to capture the moment of hand over. And then forgot to take any photos.

Ah well. All I can say is that she looked pretty good with mahogany thwarts back and varnished, as was the foredeck. Those of you who (loyally) tune into this blog will be bitterly disappointed of course. But be patient: I will get some shots by hook or crook before too long.

Those of you who also take that excellent publication Classic Boat can read a little about it in the next issue.

Meanwhile I have begun work on the next one: an elm-planked 10ft dinghy that was originally fitted with a centreboard. I only discovered this today when I hacked off the crude blanking piece over the slot. If anything this little gem is even nicer than her bigger sister. I fully intend to take off the lines. Unfortunately, again, I forgot to take my camera to the workshop today. Believe me, she's a little beauty with fabulous mahogany thwarts, Honduras no doubt and unobtainable now. Bent timbers were shot though and all will be replaced.

I have a feeling she was amateur built in the days when amateurs built clinker boats, as the quality is superb, but somehow not professional. In that I mean better. It has taken more time. More care has been expended and that is so often the way. So-called professionally-built boats have a put-together-by-time-served craftsmen-to-a-timescale-and-standard quality about them, whereas amateur-built boats - that is those built by super talented amateurs who may well be brain surgeons, nuclear scientists, climate change researchers or former British Rail managers - can be exquisite. Maybe it's the quota of dedication (I was going to say love) put into them, and the (unpaid) hours.

And if you want to know how to build a clinker dinghy, then you can do worse than subscribe to the thinking man's nautical magazine, The Marine Quarterly. You will not regret it. This quarter's issue, aside from the clinker treatise in 2000 words, includes pieces on scurvy, Brixham trawlers and Thames eels.

www.marinequarterly.com

You know you should...

Progress

The last of the new timbers were steamed in on Friday, and the last of the nails riveted up this morning. The shell now has the strength it lacked when it came into the shed a few weeks ago, plank splits are healed and the next stage it to flip her over to start varnishing the bottom, after some more remedial work on damaged lands and various divots.

Of the timbers, only three split before they could be bent to the planking, which was an excellent ratio. Nothing more annoying than having timber after timber split on withdrawal from the steam box. Well, maybe split planks in a new build at the hood end fastenings just when you've riveted the entire length.

After work on the bottom it'll be time to flip back over and finish the interior with another coat of bilge paint, varnish and the final fitting of the thwarts and floorboards. Then back where she belongs: in the water as good, almost, as new. And certainly stronger now with the slighty beefier timbers.

A'steaming We Will Go

Half the new timbers are now steamed in and riveted up, and the rest will be by Monday. I have increased the scantlings slightly to 15mm x 25mm as the old ones proved too weak, long term.

I am surprised at that in a boat of such quality. It always seems to be the oak timbers that crack first, followed by the planks in way of the cracks and from then on it's a downward spiral. But then as this one has lasted fine for 50 years or so, who am I to query the builder's methods.

The new timbers do look a little, shall we say, agricultural, but then I don't want someone in 20 years' time wish they'd been stronger.

One thing I could not do was to steam them in gunwale to gunwale as it would have meant removing the gunwales, so they meet at the keel centreline. This will mean building  in some of the lost strength, possibly by a series a short timbers across the centreline and riveted to one or two lands either side.

It's wonderful though to see the strength coming back into the floppy shell as the timbers go in. Restoring a boat like this is indeed like renewing a life and - not to get too romantic - you do feel as if this is a living, albeit sick, creature that is being nursed back into health after a period of sickness and neglect.

More Tales from the Milking Parlour...

Splits mended, planks scraped it will soon be time to steam in the new oak timbers. Rather than try and find mahogany to match the original I went for the epoxy and mahogany dust option, in effect reconstituting the timber using a modern mix. The alternative might have been replacing the damaged sections in larch, then staining to try and match the mahogany.

This way the original material is retained and the repair will be both strong and almost invisible. The splits were in the usual places, where the bilge runners had broken and at the turn of the bilge, where most of the steamed timbers had also broken.

The bilges are now white which will make them easier to clean.

I also restored the floorboards, which can be a pain in the neck. Just when you reckon you've finished the boat, here come the damn floorboards, and as they are the first thing you see, they can't be an afterthought.

More next week when the steaming starts. First, on Monday, it'll be time to machine the oak. Where did it come from? About 200 yards from the cow shed where I am working.

Timber miles? About two. That's the way it should be, if at all possible. Besides it's nice to think that a little bit of Leckmelm Estate has been incorporated into a boat built in Ipswich and restored up here.

In another 40 years, who knows, someone might be taking the timbers out again and replacing them. With what? Pre-formed oak-style carbon laminate, perhaps. Roll on. Make life a lot easier...

Nice One Mr Knights

It was only after getting the boat into the shed that I spotted the little oval nameplate on the transom. Frank Knights Boat Builders Ipswich. Frank died in 2008 aged 91, but he is at my shoulder as I work on the boat he built all those years ago. And it's pretty daunting to know that I am breathing life back into a boat that has lasted so long, and built so effortlessly well.

The planking is mahogany, the good stuff, with a few almost unnoticeable scarphs in otherwise full-length planking. It's all copper riveted, with rose head nails at the hood ends. When  I broke out the steamed timbers I was impressed to find, where needed, perfect little teak wedges so they lay on the planks fair. So many other touches spoke of a boat built by a master, from the closeness of the seams to the beading along the thwarts and gunwales.
How did a boat like this get up here? Who knows, but she certainly had little use and the varnish was all original, which made the task of stripping it off all the easier. Unfortunately at some point someone had ladled a stickier, tinted coating on top which could not be burnt, but had to b scraped off. I wish people would think before they did that. Somewhere down the line someone is going to have to scrape it all off.

When Frank retired, he closed the business citing, as one of the reasons, the difficulty of getting people to spend the money needed to keep old (clinker) boats up to scratch. And I fully sympathise.

Owners seem to be losing the knowledge of what it takes to maintain a clinker boat, preferring to bodge and make-do until it's too late. Whereas a little bit of TLC every year is the answer.

Back to work

Time for an update, now there's no excuse (Christmas; New Year) to keep away from the workshop. What you would see if you ventured north beyond the safety of Inverness and up over the Dirrie Mhor to Ullapool would be a shed full of boats: a mahogany dinghy; my With runabout, and a classic motor bike: 1991 Honda VFR750F, plus bit of Sula, the Shetland boat: rudder, mast etc.

The exquisite Frank Knights-built mahogany dinghy came my way recently for restoration. It was going to simply be a question of re-timbering and back in the water, but it was clear this was a cut above the rest, so I set about stripping the hull down to bare wood again.

Thing is, once you start there is no going back. And there's no easy way, is there? John suggested caustic soda and washing up liquid. Is that wise? I'll keep using a scraper and hot air gun as it helps to dry the planking while you scrape. Forget Nitromors. Stupidly expensive and almost totally useless.

Instead of replacing the two sections of split planking with hard to find mahogany (or larch, which would stand out), I will employ a technique learnt from Dick Johnson, boat builder and formerly editor of Yachting World. The splits must be bone dry. Epoxy and mahogany dust mixed produce a mahogany-like material that when varnished is almost impossible to tell apart from the mahogany itself, and will be every bit as strong too. It's a technique I used on the Thames skiff with great success.

Also in hand will soon be the replacing of the top section of Lobie II's mast, which plummeted deckwards during last summer's circumnavigation (of the UK). That'll be tricky. The mast came out alongside the pier yesterday, and was strapped to a makeshift trailer for the journey up the glen.

The mast, of spruce, built by Moody's on the Hamble is a work of art, glued, I fear, with Aerolite or similar. A scarph had given way, I suspect under compression from the shrouds which may have been overtightened. The trick will be to build back the strength.

What Next?

Blog posts are all about upbeat news; stuff designed to make readers envious. At least that's what I feel when I read some of my favourites, not least a new one called Marginalia. http://www.eyeinhand.com/Marginalia/

It's often the stateside blogs which make me most envious and this one is no exception. Here he is swanning his melonseed around a big pond in the lee of Assateague island, a sandy barrier north of the Chesapeake which looks so exotic. It's probably disappointing when you get there, but that's the joy of the internet, and the magic of Google Earth in particular which allows you to swoop down into other people's back yards.

I shouldn't say this, but when I get an enquiry for a boat I will often Google Earth to see where the fellow lives, from which you can tell a great deal about his or her serious intentions. Dare I say it, but a caravan site off the M6 is less likely to yield an order than a detached house in West Sussex. That's the pity, as the guy in the caravan's need to escape would be far greater, but for the lack of dosh. If I were a millionaire boat builder (is there such?) I would build for free for those whose needs are greatest and that would rule out the very, very rich. But I'm not...

Not a lot on the horizon for Viking Boats at the moment, but we have been shortlisted for a Classic Boat prize, I am told, and before you say "bribery and corruption" or "nepotism", the fact that I write a monthly page of nonsense for the magazine or that I bought the editor a pint of London Pride the other day has nothing to do with it.