A couple of launches
Family boats for swimming, picnicking and fishing locally are mostly either RIBs which I have little to do with or solid motor launches, which come my way form time to time. Just ahead of one of the lockdowns a Plymouth 16 ( I think that's what it is) came to have its...
2020 and All That
Like everyone else I have had a bit of an odd year but I have been very lucky and the work has kept coming through the door . 2020 started with my first new build for a long time in the shape of a Selway Fisher Stornoway 14 hull to be build up from a Jordan Boats kit...
Wild Goose 3 – For sale!
At long last Wild Goose is finished! Or rather I have done all that I plan to do, with any old boat you could go on doing things more or less for ever. So now she is for sale. She has full set of spars, sails in good condition, lots of fittings and a repaired road...
Schleicher Rhönbussard
In 1937 the Schleicher Rhönbussard was just about the state of the art in gliders. Things have moved on but there is a thriving vintage gliding community in this country and in the rest of Europe. Most of these aircraft were built in a combination of plywood and...
Wild Goose – Part 2
I am slightly taken aback to discover that Wild Goose has now been in the workshop for nearly three years. To be fair, she was always a side project to be worked on in quieter times and I was away sailing for four months last year. Still, the job continues to move...
New Boat for Old
The local open boat race fleet is thriving and has reached the point where the doesn't seem to be enough boats to go round. One new boat has been built recently but this is a huge commitment in time and money so people have been looking for easier ways. As a result...
Woozle’s new rig
Like many wooden boats Woozle's history is a bit uncertain but in any case she is an elegant little 12ft clinker dinghy which has been restored by the International Boatbuilding Training College in Lowestoft at some stage and she is an established member of the...
Adventures in plywood
Like many other technologies plywood production improved a huge amount during the second World War. As a result of this , the shortage of solid timber and rising labour costs, the 1950s and 1960s saw a boom in the design and building of plywood boats. As so often with...
Wild Goose
Every now and again a boat comes along that leads me to break my rule about not buying any more boats. The excuses this time are: She is a well known local boat with a local sail number and a reputation for sailing well so she should be easy enough to sell when she is...
Not all boats are beautiful – some are just useful
Natural England amongst many other jobs, looks after coastal nature reserves so inevitably they need boats. This run-about GRP dory is definitely useful rather than pretty. It seems generally well put together but whilst the bow locker is nicely made out of iroko,...
