Another damaged Swift boat...

Yet another damaged boat. The club use the boats a great deal so accidents do happen. This particular one happened when the bow got trapped between two rocks whilst turning in a tight spot.

The bow had lost all rigidity and was floppy! The deck was cut open at the bow to allow access, repairs made inside and bonded back on once the hull was straight. The outside was glassed and faired, then primed and painted. 

8' Sitka Spruce Oars

It's been a couple of years since I was last asked to make a pair of oars. This new order for a pair of 8' Sitka Spuce oars was welcomed as it is an enjoyable process. However, I had forgotten what a time consuming process it is. First up was collecting the timber and laminating the blade section to the loom with the Sapele veneers in between. Then the scoop and plan view of the blade was cut on a large bandsaw. Next up was shaping the blades using a homemade bollow plane, spokeshave and block plane. Once this was done the sapele tips were glued on and the looms (or handles) were rounded off. Then it was sanding, more sanding and then varnishing. Finally, I fitted some leathers to protect the oars from the rowlocks and delivered them to the customer near Southampton UK.

The finished 8' sitka spruce oars

Another Swift Rowing Boat Repair

The local rowing club had an incident whilst towing their boat resulting in a large pair of splits right through the hull, about 1.5m long. The hull had distorted around the damage.

Filler card showing the severity of the damage

 I had to cut the deck off to get to the inside and key up the areas to be repaired.

 The outside was sanded right back to the core material either side of the splits. Once the inside was glassed up the lid was bonded back on.

 Work began on glassing the outside with layers of very fine glass cloth and epoxy that were eventually feathered into the original skin. This was then covered in a very thin screed of epoxy filler, faired, primed and painted.

 The bow was badly chipped and looked pretty rough so that was tidied up and received a coat of black paint to smarten it up. The last thing to do was flat and polish the white paint and apply some black cove line tape to the deck/hull joint.

Coastal Rowing Boats Completed

The 2 Coastal Rowing Boats are complete and they left for Switzerland on a single trailer earlier this week. The hull and decks of the 4 were all painted in the same week and the rigging (seats, stretchers and their tracks) turned up in the nick of time. A couple of weekends were ignored entirely and several very late nights meant that the boats were ready for the trailer just in time. They were built largely from kits supplied by a group of guys in Guernsey who are really into coastal rowing.

The central trough clears water to a sump for the self bailer

Unusual wave breaking deck shape

The single prior to fitting out

Interesting built in riggers feature on both boats

A very tight squeeze between the bars on the trailer

 The finish on the hulls came out really nicely and made all the preparation worth it. The unusual design of these boats will mean they can be used even in the most choppy conditions on Lake Geneva.

About 11m from tow hitch to transom!

Coastal Boats Update

The single shown above is now upside down and having the hull faired, the chines filled and rounded. Over the next couple of weeks both boats need to be completed, ready to be trailered over to Switzerland. There is still plenty of sanding to be done. The ply needs sealing with several coats of Eposeal, priming and painting.  Then all the fittings should be here and can be fitted.  

The Coastal 4 with the riggers being bonded into place

The unusual bow section on the 4 

The riggers prior to being sheathed

Coastal Rowing Boat Builds

After several months in the planning, the kits have been delivered for the next project. This involves building a Coastal Rowing 4 and a Single. Once the boats are completed they are destined for Lake Geneva in Switzerland. I'm renting a large unit in Newton Abbot as the longer boat is around 11m long! They are coming together quite quickly and are essentially stitch and tape boats built from elite marine ply and epoxy that are built for long races in coastal waters.

The Single

The 4

Shaldon rowing boat gunwale replacement

A local artist approached me with a view to renovating a 14' rowing boat that he had just bought. The wood work was in a sorry state and one gunwale was broken in two.

Once the old varnish was removed and the surface sanded, it was clear that the Iroko that I had in stock wasn't going to match. So I got a plank of Sapele and machined it up to make the inner and outer sections. The inner has a lip on it that hooks over the edge of the GRP and the outer is screwed and glued to the hull and the inner section. The old one was held on with lots of clenched copper nails and was hard to get off. I had to cut it into about thirty pieces to break it free from the hull. 

The knees were plywood and were in surprisingly good condition but the boat would look so much better with solid wood knees. Something for the future perhaps.

 

The new timber wouldn't bend to the bow section of the boat so it was steamed for an hour and then pulled into shape and clamped up for a day in the sun. Once bonded and screwed, it was then sanded smooth and all the wood work was coated up with a product called Rapidcoat. It leaves a "hint of teak" semi-gloss finish but best of all requires no sanding between coats and you can put 2 or 3 coats on each day in warm weather. 

Shaldon Regatta Dinghy Project

The past 4 weeks have involved working with small groups of children from Shaldon Primary School to build 2 Shaldon Regatta Dinghies to sell in the village. This fits in with the ethos of giving the kids real life learning experiences. Each morning 2 groups of Yr6 kids would come to the old ferryboat workshop in Shaldon to help fit out the bare GRP hulls that were sold to the school by River Teign Rowing Boats in Teignmouth. We were provided with the sapele hardwood, keel bands and fittings needed to fit out both boats. It was quite a challenge for all of us, the main stumbling block being that the tools required a little more strength than many of the kids could muster. After trying various hand saws we ended up using fine toothed Japanese saws that cut on the pull stroke.

The bare hulls as the project began

 I was really impressed with how motivated they all were and some of the templates they made for knees and breasthooks were very accurate. Many of them had never used any tools (although they were reluctant to admit it in front of their peers!) but soon picked it up with excellent results.

Taking shape

 After many hours of cutting, planing ,drilling, glueing and sanding the boats were finished and one was put on display outside the school. Both boats were sold by the end of the day and the project was declared a success! Well done to all of Yr6, Ben Miles ( the school governor who got the whole thing organised) and also Jack Haywood who brought his wealth of knowledge and skills to help us for free.

Rudder build

This month one of the more interesting projects has been building a new rudder for an old wooden sailing boat. The original rudder had started to rot where the rudder cheeks meet the stock and the pintle was badly worn. The new one was made by joining three planks of iroko together using stainless rods and epoxy to make the capital D shape. The cheeks were then routered out to accept the tiller and bonded on with epoxy. Stainless bolts also helped clamp all this together and were later covered with grain plugs.

The original metal straps were removed, ground up and then several coats of epoxy primer were applied. They were probably unnecessary due to the internal reinforcement but they keep the traditional style of the original.

A nice looking little boat that attracted lots of attention
 from people waiting to board the steam train opposite the quayside

Straps hide a crack in the main spine of the original rudder

Almost all of the original strap bolts sheared off or had wasted away

No wonder the rudder felt a little strange

14' Strip plank canoe final update

At last the canoe is finished and ready for someone to enjoy. Although I must admit I really like it and it just fits inside my garage if I were to keep it! I took some pics and video clips to promote it and the YouTube video is below. If you're interested in owning this one check out the Boats For Sale page on the website

I went for a less fussy design on the decks
 as they are shorter than previous canoes

Ready for her maiden voyage

14' Strip plank canoe update 2

With the Solo dinghy restoration complete and other off-site jobs done I've added some decks, bulkheads and seats to the canoe. The seats have laminated ash supports and are scalloped in the middle for comfort.

 The bulkheads are 5mm elite ply with cedar strip on one face. They have one skin of cloth and epoxy over them and are bonded in with an epoxy fillet.

 The decks are ash and cedar. The combings on the decks are laminated 4mm strips of ash bonded in with thickened epoxy and shaped up with a curved sole spoke shave.

Next up is a lot of sanding and finishing. To get the best results I obviously need a dust free environment which may prove to be most easily obtained by moving the canoe somewhere else for varnishing.

Ash strips clamped up on formers to make the seat frames