Some technical stuff.

It might help people understand what we are up to if I try to describe the key stages in the building process.

Firstly, boil your kettle: while this is happening, add a teaspoon of tea per person to the pot, plus ‘one for the pot’…

Once you have this delicate process sorted, build your boat.

Sadly, we fell at the first fence. Despite numerous hints, Joe seemed incapable of addressing the needs of the workers, so don’t blame me if the thing sinks. It is worrying, but maybe things will improve while I am away on a fact-finding mission to the pubs of the River Thames in the next two weeks. I have a secret hope that it will be more or less seaworthy by the time I get back.

I digress… the key stages of the process are: building the strongback (the frame that supports the whole construction), setting up the moulds (a series of formers around which the boat itself is built). These two phases are possibly the most important – we are going several extra miles to get them absolutely right, so the boat will be ‘straight and true’. This is tough for two blokes who have zero scores on Completer-Finisher, but we are faking it well so far.

Once we have the moulds set up, the keel, stem and stern (which need to be accurately cut and shaped) are put in place. The next stage is to fix the strakes or planks: a very tricky operation if you are starting with a tree or even a sheet of ply, but, it is hoped, very much more simple because the complex shapes of each strip have been precut for us: that’s the real advantage of the kit.

As we go along, there will be much application of epoxy, both as a varnish and as glue, probably to the two of us (Joe has mysteriously found a use for most of the latex gloves already), but also to build up a pristine, waterproof surface on the boat.

Once we have the planks in place, we flip the boat over, removing it from the strongback and moulds. Then we start the fitting of the various interior components: thwarts (seats), decking, knees (strengthening braces) and tholes (rowlocks). Finally, we shall remove various structural components of
Joe’s house to get the thing outside and then, at long last, sea trials will commence.

Simple, really.

Our Strongback - almost complete and dead level