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The St Ayles skiff takes shape in Alec Jordan’s workshop
I’m delighted to be able to report that our friend prize-winning amateur boatbuilder Chris Perkins has regained his usual confidence and interest in plywood lapstrake boatbuilding.
Chris’s standards are high, and a recent stitch and glue project left him feeling a little down – not I think because there was anything wrong with the project itself, but because it just wasn’t Chris’s kind of project.
What’s brought the old passion back has been spending time in boat kit supplier Alec Jordan’s workshop, where he’s been working on the first St Ayles skiff.
The St Ayles skiff is a new Iain Oughtred design intended for use as part of the Scottish Coastal Rowing Project, which aims to inject new life into the sport of competitive rowing on the sea in Scotland, rather in the same way that gig racing has taken hold in the South-West of England and beyond. There’s more about this project at intheboatshed.net here and a post about Alec’s initial model here. There will be more coverage in an upcoming edition of the excellent Water Craft magazine.
You can follow Chris’s reports on the project’s progress at his weblog: http://strathkanchris.wordpress.com/ . In the meantime, I though intheboatshed.net readers might be interested to read what Chris has been saying about the project this week:
‘It’s the end of week 2, and the hull is fully planked up. The whisky plank went on on Thursday afternoon but we were too knackered to celebrate appropriately!
‘Keel and outer stems should be on by close of play Monday next and off the mould and right way up very soon thereafter. If Cromartie Timber have done their stuff by the time I head south at the crack of dawn on Monday I will be taking some very nice larch down for the thwarts and their support beams (good and strong so that larger rowers can be accommodated without fear of breakage) so that we can install them during the week.
‘The inwale and breasthook timber is already in the workshop so given a fair wind the structural work should be just about done by the end of week three. Then it will be just a bit of a paint job and then we’ll throw it in the water for a propulsion test – any volunteers?
‘The biggest delay the build is facing (and it’s a very satisfying cause!) is the stream of interested groups and individuals dropping by to see how she is coming along – there is a real buzz about this project locally and it seems to be developing a momentum of it’s own. If all the enthusiasm turns into boats, then the Firth of Forth may well have a spectacle on a par with the gig racing of the South within the next year or so.
‘I’ve included some snaps of the fully planked hull this morning – I think they say a lot about how pretty this design is turning out, and how very slippery she will be.
‘Cheers, Chris’
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