The Blog

The winter months are always a slow time. Epoxy is the consistency of thick honey, damp and cold are the enemy, heaters and lamps are in constant use. And then there’s the inconvenience of having to stop for Christmas! I have been trying to keep the pace going in order to finish the mast in the workshop and to free … Read More

A couple of months of limbo dancing under the long table in the workshop has left us quite weary and glad to have pulled the mast together without major mishap. With the shear web (4mm ply and spruce edges) glassed both sides and reinforced where necessary, we fix some 20mm plumbing overflow pipe to its forward side and run the … Read More

I have described before how progress on a project of this size never seems to be linear, but is all long slogs and sudden comings-together. These last couple of months have seen some real forward leaps as the boat starts to take shape. I have also been spending big sums on essentials and trying to resist the fancy gizmos… On … Read More

I was not exactly overjoyed when the Editor decided to call my whole series of articles ‘Only for Nutters’, but this month I am coming clean on the many changes I have made to the original plans. You can decide whether I have taken leave of my senses or not! A yacht club acquaintance once cautioned me about making even … Read More

In the last issue I explored some of the ways in which I continue to be motivated during this long period of construction. It has been exactly two years since I started and there is probably another year to go, considerably longer than originally anticipated. I have largely managed to avoid the subject of money, but this seems a good … Read More

  The cold months of the year are always a problem. Epoxy has to be coaxed from the can and is often too thick to mix or penetrate glass and wood. The heaters have to go on, damp is a constant enemy and generally working in low temperatures is a pain. I had decided that as soon as the weather … Read More

Thinking ahead, the hardest part… Building my boat on top of a hill might not seem the most sensible way of going about things, but it has had certain advantages: low rent, security, and proximity to home, which keeps travelling time and costs to a minimum so I can nip over to switch off the vacuum pump late at night. … Read More

A new and potentially dangerous development in the sport of yachting has recently come to our attention. Originally devised as a design progression from the Thames barge, it should be viewed with extreme caution by any serious mariner. A number of readers have reported sightings of these experimental craft, noting their cumbersome construction, single hull, lack of lateral stability and … Read More

Warmer weather finally arrived in late April 2006, and work could begin again in earnest. Each hull was rolled onto one side to grind and glass the keel. The copper ties were simply snipped off and ground and sanded back with the ply. Parts of the hulls low down near the centre needed quite a bit of filling because of … Read More

After building the polytunnel Cathedral and getting the shell of the second hull completed by Christmas, it was time to take stock of progress. Things had not turned out quite as expected, especially the timescale. Oh, and the budget… The early months of 2006 were cold and wet in Devon, simply too cold to do much with epoxy because it … Read More