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 for the owner to fit out and finish.
It is a long time since I built a boat with the “stitch and glue” technique used here and it took me a while to get back into the swing of it, especially as the pre-cut panels are extremely accurate and have to fit together exactly as designed. The seams are initially held together with wire ties and finished with fibreglass tape bedded in epoxy resin. There is more than 50metres of tape in this boat, all to be rolled firmly into place. It took my shoulder some time to recover.
It was sad to see the boat go out unfinished but the owner made a superb job of finishing it and wrote up the process in an article for Watercraft magazine.
Next in was a Yachting World day boat which had been sitting in a garage awaiting restoration for many years. Once again the owner planned to do much of the work. My role was to replace a split plank and re-lay the deck. The owner did not want to go to the considerable extra expense of a decorative veneer so we used a high quality standard marine ply.
