Build a canoe in a weekend

You can't; it's impossible.

This was the challenge that Brandon and I set ourselves. After taking a hefty plastic canoe upstream to the Arctic circle in Finland, we felt we were overdue a decent canoe.

We had every advantage - experience in boat building, a workshop big enough to swing an eight, a bandsaw, planer, skilsaw, trestles, heating, the works.

Brandon cut out the ply to shape before we started, so we'd already broken the rules, and he faired some of the drafting errors. Works started on Friday evening, and by 1am most of the planks were sewn together with copper ties.

We paddled home to Andy's canal boat and fell asleep instantly.

In the morning we carried on stitching. Jojo came to help, and fed us when we looked hungry.

Thanks Jo-jo, you saved our sanity!

The gunwales and the inwales we cut from a lump of joinery pine, on a truculent bandsaw. As the pine was 8' long the pieces had to be scarfed together.

Its a good one, isnt it?

The strips, only 33mm by 15mm wouldnt go around the sheer so we rigged up a stove, coffee tin, foil and hoover pipe to make a steam box. Even so it was a three man job to clamp them in position.

We ended up with 25 clamps on one side of a boat, and three more sides to go!

So we had to make a million nips, to do the job of clamps.
In the meantime our host, Andy, harkening to the beat of a different drummer, was hacking up yet more joinery pine to make a strip planked boat. The stem was laminated from some well seasoned ash, and a strong back set up on trestles nailed to the floor.

After hours of hideous noises from the bandsaw, planer and router table, most of the joinery pine had been made into sawdust, leaving only a pile of very thin thin thin strips. These began to take shape around the carefully set up moulds, with assistance from Jack.

On Sunday we had a visitation from Jay, who set to work on the strip planked boat. Brandon and I worked on filleting the insides of our canoes. The shed resounded to Show of Hands, ABBA, Kinks and Paul Brady.

By the end of Sunday both ply boats were faired and ready for glassing.

On Monday the glass went on.

I was summoned home at 4:30 pm on Monday. So there you have it - three semi finished canoes. We worked from early morning to the wee small hours for two days, and two goodish days on top, and we didnt finish.

I haven't been so tired or dirty or happy for ages!

The Barge Boat

The Thames Barges are magnificent craft that once plied the East coast Rivers of England and occasionally ventured further afield. They are up to about 100' long, and each one has a barge boat, usually a 14' clinker built rowing/sailing dinghy.

Once there was a barge called Memory and when her trading days were ended she was restored by a Christian sail training organisation called Fellowship Afloat. They intended to use her as their headquarters for sailing small boats around the creeks off Tollesbury.

Tragically, Memory burnt down to the water, and Fellowship Afloat bought a marvellous ex lightship, now called Trinity, and they do much good work from her.

Memory's barge boat was given to another Christian sail training charity called Morning Star of Revelation, who do similar work on the Medway, but they run a 56' gaff ketch of that name. They used the barge boat for many years to run between the mooring and number 7 covered slip at Chatham dockyard where they were based. Eventually the barge boat came to grief as it was caught under Thunderbolt pier and crushed as the tide rose under the canting brow.

I obtained a replacement boat for Morning Star, a horrid aluminium dory, and claimed the demolished barge boat, which I intended to restore. I spent lot of time chasing rot about that boat, learning a great deal about boat building, before I gave in.

About this time, my new friend Brandon was about to go to boat building college in Lowestoft. We took the lines off the old barge boat; a weekend's back breaking work. Then we scoured timber yards and had several trees sawn up. I bought the timber, larch and oak, and copper fastenings, and Brandon made the new barge boat.

The picture above was taken recently by Julian Foad of the barge boat in Cornwall. We sail it (downwind only) under a canvas sail from a Montague Whaler, which has a foot length of 12'6", so tacked down to the stem head it sheets in to the transom!

The launch day was almost a disaster. As we towed it to Maldon, I stopped for traffic and the car behind ploughed straight into it. I thought she would be smashed, but she had punched the forward support over, and the strongback of the trailer took the brunt of the force, which was transmitted safely into the chassis of my car. The car that hit us was mangled, and the poor driver was in tears, as he had only just passd his test, and it was a new car.

We launched her a week afterwards at Bradwell Marina, and christened her Helena Jo, after my eldest daughter. We have had some great trips - the length of the navigable Crouch, right up the Butley River, and around Brightlingsea for the relaunch of Pioneer, a first class Essex smack rebuilt by Brandon with some help from Brian Kennel and chums .

Now Helena Jo has gone to Topsham to look after my brother, until we do a swap and he has Moondance back. She will take part in the Exe Estuary Challenge, a mad small boat raid around ten of the pubs on the tidal Exe.