What Next?

Arctic Tern, another Tammie Norrie or that Woodfish faering I was looking forward to building in 2012; it looks like being an Oughtred year, or maybe they'll all fall through and I can dig into my diminishing savings and go sailing for a few months on Sally, whose 75th birthday falls in May.

Whatever the future holds it will no doubt involve boats of some kind. And to my 35 followers (that makes me sound like some kind of messiah), a Happy New Year. All I would ask is that you post a few more comments on my blog. You can't surely let me get away with some of that rubbish without demur?

Just Add Water

Well, there she is, finished save for a few last tweaks, and awaiting the water. It's been a long one this; a build that has stretched out over much of the Autumn, because it could. So much else going on that it was nice to be able to pick up and leave off more or less at will, to tackle other things, not least a summerhouse and, for the first time in years, a trip abroad.

Now I've seen a number of Tammie Norries, mostly in glued clinker, and still can't for the life of me understand why Mr Oughtred persists in designing boats with that method primarily in mind. OK, I do, and I respect him for it. It just means that we have to rethink quite a lot of the construction details, notably the centreline. On a plywood boat the keel is slapped on last, whereas this one is made at the outset. Logically, as this is clearly a traditional clinker boat, the plan should be drawn for that method, and modified for glued plywood? Or am I being contentious as usual?

As it happens, I prefer to make up things as I go along, rather than following plans slavishly. This one certainly followed Iain's lining out pretty closely, transom and stem shapes and general arrangement, and yet leaving a whole lot to work out during the building process, which is a huge part of the satisfaction.

Nevertheless I would like to see how Iain might suggest we build this in solid timber one day, with a detailed drawing of the centreline, for example. And maybe add a datum line that does not depend on the boat being built upside down. It's OK if your moulds are all fixed to a jig, as everything kind of jigs itself, but working up from a notional datum at keel level it a bit hit and miss.

Among many changes from the plans, including my own take on the rudder design (mainly due to having a nice offcut of Super Elite plywood, perfect for the job) I simplified the thwarts, and made the aft benches easily removeable, for revarnishing. The floorboards are more workmanlike as well. Who wants to revarnish fancy floorboards every season? These are solid larch, primed and finished in Blakes' deck paint, sprinkled over with non-slip granules.

The whole ethos behind this boat was ease of maintenance. It's a common complaint about traditional clinker boats that they need a lot of upkeep, and it is true, but only if the initial finish is so glossy and so precious that you feel obliged to spend every winter bringing it back up to scratch (or rather removing the scratches).

This one is designed to be used and used hard, with a minium of fuss. She's precious but there's no need to treat her with kid gloves, like some of those show boats you see  in which you'd dare not set foot for fear of scuffing the Epifanes. A fresh water hose at season's end, a thorough drying out and a misting with Varnol inside, and maybe a lick of varnish on the thwarts and topsides. I hope that'll be the extent of it most years.

As for weight, I have to say that in solid timber - Scots pine with larch garboards, in this case - the boat is significantly heavier than a glued clinker version, but will sit better in the water I reckon. As for looks, well you can judge for yourself. You know what I feel about plywood and epoxy...

Near Miss

She's been afloat for nearly 75 years; next year is the anniversary of her launch in 1937. She's been through a dozen or so owners, and sailed from the north of Scotland to South Brittany and all points in between. She is the second  of the Vertue class,  brainchild of Jack Laurent Giles and perhaps the most capable small cruising boat ever designed. Vertues have sailed virtually [sic] everywhere there's water and round every cape, headland and ocean. She'll outlive me, with luck, the kind of luck that stood by her the other night.

It must have been sheer luck, and not the strength of her ground tackle and riser - all of which were renewed a few months ago, well before the storm out of the north west swept down on Loggie Bay.

Her near nemesis came  in the shape of a huge, rusty steel barge weighing god knows how much. Sometime in the early hours, around high water, this barge that had been lying for 20 or so years on the beach upwind took it upon itself to drift free whereupon it ran amok among the dozen or so yachts and workboats moored in the bay. With winds touching well over 80 mph it must have been horrendous: 20 tons of slab-sided steel careering through the anchorage like the proverbial bull in a china shop. And by a miracle, Sally, and all but one of the other boats was spared, though it must have been by inches, for she lay right in the path of the barge which fetched up on the beach just beyond where Sally lay.

One yacht was not so fortunate; whether hit by the barge as it careered through the fleet, or not, we will probably never know. But she was right in its path and from there to her resting place at Ardcharnich beach is clear water, with nothing to stop her drift.

Next morning, stem badly scarred we found her a few miles downwind, high and dry, holed on her starboard side, her port side badly abraded from bouncing on the pebble beach. With a temporary patch over the hole, Robin and John towed her back to Ullapool that night in the driving sleet, and next day we had her hauled and dried her out against the sailing club wall. Her owner was remarkably sanguine: "She's a lucky boat. Been aground five times now, and survived..." Make up your own mind.

My, How those Long Winter Nights Fly Past....

An extract from The Trouble With Old Boats (available from all good remainder shops, Blythswood, Oxfam and secondhand bookshops, priced from 99p, slightly foxed)

Dark and windy night in our Highland crofthouse, no telly, read everything, so we had the Ouija board out. It took me a moment to twig that I’d picked up Horatio Nelson, and it came as quite a shock, especially as I’d asked to be put through either to Horace, a forebear on my mother’s side who was purported to have stashed away a fortune in Kruger rands before passing away while fishing the Test last August, or failing that another relative, Horatio Sprague, US consul in Gibraltar when they towed in the Mary Celeste. No matter; what did England’s most celebrated admiral want, I wondered?

‘Need to set a few things straight, young man.’

Bee in his cocked hat about yachtsman’s ignorance of flag etiquette maybe? Something trivial from the great man. That was often the way with Nelson.

‘’Bout time we buried this Trafalgar nonsense once and for all. What’s it bin? Two hundred years? Bless me soul. Can’t ye leave me old bones in peace?’

Things were looking up. I grabbed my notebook. ‘But we do it to honour your memory, our hero.’

 ‘Well don’t. And that popinjay who prances around impersonating me with that woman on his arm, ’strewth, they trouble me sorely.' At which I think he meant that actor who impersonates Nelson at nautical gatherings, with a slim Ms Hamilton on his arm.

'Pah! My Emma was, bless me soul, a deuced sight more generously endowed than that slip of a girl. No tumblehome to speak of. Careening her’d be like heaving down a pinnace. My Emma was a first rate. Ship o’ the line. Broad in the beam, well fastened. When I came alongside, threw the grapples and fired me opening broadside…’

I tried to cut him short but he carried on it that vein for some time, speaking of buttock lines, bottoms and stays – naval stuff, you can probably imagine – until I managed to interrupt him, and advise that we lived in more prurient times, and besides, my editor was a Quaker. I lied. He sighed.

‘Pish. Where was I?’

‘Trafalgar?’

‘Ah yes. Trafalgar. Struck down in the thick of the fighting.Ticket to immortality and a prime spot in St Paul’s. Athough I’d have preferred a more weatherly gage. The Abbey perhaps?’

‘So the sparkly medals and the full uniform on the poop deck was on purpose, to attract attention? Kind of, how do I put it, "death wish"?' I ventured.

‘Nonsense. Remember when I left Portsmouth? Dashing down the steps to me cutter in full kit? Gets on board the old Vicky, stows me gear, weighs anchor and we're off Cornwall when – bless me – seems Emma’s forgotten to pack me second best. She’s not only forgot me old brown trousers, me smalls, me cravats, me silk stockings, but she’s sent me off with a trunk load of her stuff. So there I am, off to fight the Frenchies with seventy-two pairs of camisole knickers, in a fetching shade of pink, a t’gallant’s-worth of lace petticoats, fourteen bodices and seven ostrich feather bonnets. 

'Typical of the woman. Body like a goddess, brain like a colander.’

‘So it was either the full dress, medals and all, or Emma’s underwear on deck, your lordship?’

‘Exactly. Pink knickers and a feathery hat - not likely to inspire men in the thick of a sea battle. Of course, I kept that for the privacy of me own cabin. Nothing like a freshly laundered pair of knickers on a long passage. Remember we chased them  from Ushant to the Indies and back before we cornered them off Trafalgar. Clean underwear twice a week. Splendid.’

‘One more thing, your admiralship. That “Kiss me Hardy” stuff?’

‘Pah. Delirium. I was fast fading and here’s this vision of sobbing loveliness in lace bending over me, bodice heaving, eyes brimming. By my life! It was my Emma! Here at my last! Bliss! So, indeed, yes; I did whisper the immortal words “Kiss me” and “Hardy”, but not in the same breath.

‘When I saw Emma me heart leapt. “Kiss me”, I croaked. Then a pause as the mist cleared and there, instead of my dear one, was me old whiskery mate, flag captain Hardy, inches from me face, ear cocked for me last words, not the blessed Emma after all. “… Hardy?!!!”, I cried, with some measure of surprise. 

'Too late. Great wet smacker, on the forehead thank God. Ah well. Beats that fellow whose last words were something about bringing him one of Mr Bellamy’s meat pies, though I wished I’d thought of “I think I can smell burning”. Who said that? Brilliant, quite brilliant, don’t yer think, young man? Must look him up. He'll be lurking about up here somewhere...’

To Catch a Fly

Well, they say everyone's doing it the days; publishing books on the internet and crossing their fingers it'll go viral.

So here's the first instalment of a murder mystery, set on the banks of the little river that wanders through our patch of the Highlands. Well, it's not ours, exactly, it just runs through our valley. Kind of like a river runs through it.

To Catch a Fly

An Inspector MacDonald Mystery

CHAPTER ONE

One in the eye

The hooded crow, perched on a branch over the river, cast another quick hungry eye on the bright morsel hanging just out of reach. A cold wind ruffled its black feathers and sent the birch leaves rustling. The crow darted a glance, and seizing its chance, made a violent stab, only to lose its balance in a flurry of small, frantic wing beats. This was the third time he had mistimed the attack, failing to coincide with the inward swing of the small, moist, round object that had attracted his attention that morning, the elusiveness of which was now maddening him, blinding him to all sense of danger.

His first attempt had succeeded only in setting it swinging, like a marble on a string. Then the wind had dropped, the swinging had subsided and for a minute or so the crow could only watch the morsel floating, as if suspended in the air, so close, just feet away. A gust breathed through the trees, catching the ball, setting it in motion once again. The crow, judging his moment, made another stab as it swung towards him. This second attempt was more successful. The sharp beak made brief contact. The crow now sensed the sweetness, and the smell – a delicious odour of incipient corruption that obliterated all other instincts.

Using aerial skills honed over the years of scavenging the hills, the crow flapped noisily from his perch, and judging his approach to perfection, took the eyeball in his opened beak and with a delicious sense of triumph, swallowed it whole.

At once he knew he had made a terrible mistake. Who knows what goes on in a bird’s brain? Had this been a human the horror would have been instant. As the last shreds of optic nerve slipped down his throat, the euphoria of greed evaporated. The twin barbs of the salmon fly on which the eyeball had been expertly impaled bit and held. The 20lb monofilament to which it had been turle-knotted, held fast. The more the bird flapped and struggled, the deeper the hook bit.

At the beginning, four hours before exhaustion set in, and for a second or so at a time, the crow, like a hooked fish sensing escape, managed a few, panic-stricken strokes of flight. The line would then tighten, bringing him crashing to the ground in a tangle of broken feathers. Twice he managed to fly to the opposite bank and get a perch on the overhanging branch of a big rowan. But always there was the hook firmly lodged in his throat and the insidous, near- invisible line snaking down towards the river. Twice, having reached the branch, and recovered somewhat, he had taken to the air, only to be dragged brutally down by the strength of the monofilament and the weight of the 10 weight double-tapered Hardy floating fly line to which it was attached via a short length of heavy sink tip.

Once, in his increasingly frantic attempts to escape, the crow managed to lift the rod tip itself, which lay some six inches under the fast-flowing water of the quarry pool, beside which the matching Hardy Expert rod itself lay, complete with gold anodised Orvis Excel large arbour reel, an outfit that had probably cost its owner, who lay face down in the shingle beside it, around £2,000.

Wishful Thinking

Thought perhaps that if I put up a photo of a faering, I might just be building another one soon. Fingers crossed, but if it comes about then it will not only keep me gainfully employed for a few months, but satisfy my longing to build one of Iain Oughtred's most delightful, and my favourite, small boats. The perfection of simplicity.

Choose Your Poison

I have just been asked to contribute a piece about modern methods of restoration, you know, how to epoxify your old boat for the next decade. But I found it impossible not simply to reiterate that old mantra: "Restore like for like". If she was copper fastened, with oak timbers, then replace with copper rivets and oak timbers. You can probably justify a little high-end mastic, rather than some ancient, highly toxic concoction, and I would say that epoxy for plank splits, and certainly over a plywood sub deck, are an old boat's life savers, yet generally the traditional stuff is best.

Six litres of Varnol went into the Honduras mahogany planks of this skiff, inside, while the numerous splits in the hull planks were fixed with an epoxy/dust mix, and the topsides then primed with Woodseal before varnishing wth Hempels' Classic

The exception to the rule was my devotion to the now-defunct Woodseal, a single pot clear primer by Hempels, which was great as a first coat under varnish and paint; a really tough first layer, which gripped the wood fibres like egg to a non-stick frying pan (at least ours, until we discovered that frying eggs in butter is the answer). Now it's back to old technology, and Varnol (sometimes mixed with a little Cuprinol) as a first coat under anything, varnish or paint. It also is magic for revitalising old, dried-up, brittle timbers.

 So here is my list of poisons. What are yours?

Paints and finishes

Varnol to prime bare wood surfaces, revitalise old, dried up timber and provide a basis for a paint or traditional varnish finish, which can be anything good from International, Epifanes, Hempels etc. Varnol, thinned up to 75% with pure turpentine, provides a superb foundation, which to some extent penetrates into and sticks to the bare wood, and the subsequent paint/varnishes. It can also be left as a final coat, which can easily be touched up by misting with thinned Varnol.

Underwater primer, as a base coat for bottom paint. I don't buy the expensive stuff from the top makers, as it's a pretty simple concoction and my local stockist, Norlands, have a perfectly good alternative at half the price. I'll try and remember the name...

Varnish, best quality from Hempels, (Classic or Favourite), International, Ravilak or Epifanes. No two-pack products. Again, Norlands do an excellent varnish, which is thick and brown and is called Sea Plane varnish, which I like the sound of. Good for general use, and nowhere near as pricey as the posh stuff.

Primer undercoat, (Hempels or International Pre-Kote) often mixed with proprietary enamel to give a semi gloss before the final topcoat. Norlands do a cheap one which is fine.

Hempels Multicoat (for a semi gloss finish that requires one coat, primer/topcoat: bilges in clinker dinghies, for example). Highly rated: tough and easy to apply.

Enamel, best quality ie International Toplac or Hempels.

Black bitumen, to seal the bilges on old boats, after soaking in Varnol, or as a last resort.

With the demise of UCP and Woodseal I am looking for a bulletproof, high tech clear primer, ideally one pot. I suspect I will need to go for International's two-pack clear primer UCP replacement, or the equivalent Epifanes, and try not to waste the mix.

Glues

Collano Semparoc for all laminating. I have also used it as an epoxy substitute when building a clinker ply pram (with epoxy fillets to strengthen joints and seal end grain). Much better than Balcotan, which bit the dust for some reason. I do not mourn its passing...

Epoxy, to mend splits in planks (mixed with wood dust from the plank itself).