Boatbuilders

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jon711
Posts: 365
Joined: Fri Oct 26, 2007 2:15 pm
Location: Harlow, Essex, UK

Boatbuilders

Post by jon711 »

Just interested, how many boatbuilders do we have on the Forum??

I served an apprenticship as a traditional boatbuilder, just wondered if there are any more....

Jon
Garry R

Re: Boatbuilders

Post by Garry R »

Not here!! PhD in protein biochemistry but that counts for nothing.
Rupert
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Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2004 8:40 pm
Location: Cotswold Water Park

Re: Boatbuilders

Post by Rupert »

I qualified as a boat builder at Falmouth College, and spent a few years doing boat repairs for a living. Still do the odd job here and there to keep the self employment ticking over! Sadly out of practice now, I find.
Rupert
DavidC
Posts: 216
Joined: Thu Jan 20, 2005 5:04 pm
Location: United Kingdom

Re: Boatbuilders

Post by DavidC »

Trained as a cabinet maker and piano technician and then applied it to boat building with some of the best from luxury yachts through traditional boats and on to high-tec stuff with pre-preg and nomex etc.
:)
admin
Site Admin
Posts: 112
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2007 10:12 pm

Re: Boatbuilders

Post by admin »

Started with Landamores many years ago, but got bored of bolting Oysters together for £1/hour (was a long time ago though). Like Rupert I ended up in Falmouth to get an education, but had a few bonuses such as working with Ralph Bird for a while (lots of evenings learning Cornish gig building), racing on Tom Bombadil, being a paid hand on a J class etc.

Ran refits and new builds of a couple of sail training boats, including some time at Swan Hunter, then worked out of Hamble doing restos (the fun bit) and pandering to the whims of chinless wonders with too much money and very little common sense (the financial bit).

Then became a student, supplemented by some time with Walker Wingsails and a Hillyard restoration before getting sucked into the academic world.

Now it's a case of getting into the workshop when I can, but there's a more exciting project outside it at the moment.
Nessa
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Location: East Angular

Re: Boatbuilders

Post by Nessa »

I have no idea about boat building, but when you're stuck on a beach in the south of France with a whacking great hole in your 470 and more regattas to go to before you go home you learn pretty fast.....

(a frenchie tried to bear away with the mainsheet jammed....the resultant crunch as he t boned me was quite sickening and the whole fleet heard it.... :shock: )

after that I have attempted to pick it up as I go along whilst studying via distance learning at the university of the cvrda...
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davidh
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Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2005 10:43 am
Location: Ventor Isle of Wight

Re: Boatbuilders

Post by davidh »

admin (I take it that's you Neil)

My laptop nearly self destructed at the words 'Walker Wingsail'. Were you involved in the big one of the little one that was going to be a 'foiler'??????

Good days, bad days but black days for the investors.... then the guy had the nerve to go on hunger strike as the Banks wouldn't give him any more money. Yet the crazy part was that the science was 'not bad' (not that good in places either) but in the 'delivery' - well..... nuff said as this is an open forum BUT - if you were there then you'd know what it was all like!

That really did deserve to be a 'lost class'!

D
David H
admin
Site Admin
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Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2007 10:12 pm

Re: Boatbuilders

Post by admin »

As this is in the Banter section I have no problems in drifting off with this one...

I was indeed involved in with the PlaneSail Trimaran when the company moved to Plymouth, I started off working there over one summer working on the Planesail tooling, and ended up taking a year out to work in the design office.

Too much history to go into it here, not the mention the legal action :wink: That killed off anyone ever giving a bad review to any boat in yacht press. The full story requires beer - I still have a load of documents somewhere as well, I see if I can dig them out. The transcript from the court case still makes interesting reading 8)

It was an interesting experience, the wingsail fitted to MV Ashington was a winner.

The Planesail tri....the theory is fine, but there were too many variables in terms of the design, the wing and more crucially, the control system.

And the idea is still going http://www.shadotec.com/index.html. I guess the patents went with individuals not the company.
davidh
Posts: 3166
Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2005 10:43 am
Location: Ventor Isle of Wight

Re: Boatbuilders

Post by davidh »

Gosh yes... there really was a bit of a stink about things at the time. But lucky you - buy the sound of it you were at Plymouth not Hamble (where a lot of the fuss originated from)

Did you ever see the small 'one man' version that was supposed to lift up on foils - had a small cockpit like an Me109 that you were closed in to. Scary - it didn't even foil when towed behind a speedboat....

D
David H
Pat
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Joined: Mon Sep 27, 2004 1:42 pm
Location: West Wiltshire (Wessex)

Re: Boatbuilders

Post by Pat »

The boat fixer in this house spent most of his teenage years as a carpentry apprentice and the rest of his time applying those skills and learning more to do up houses (own and for others), occasionally diversifying to earn the cash to do up a property by building horseboxes and trailers, market trading, running a shop or a pub etc. He does want to build a boat one day though.

I've no boat building or carpentry skills but as suits my cvrda role I did a degree in computer science in the seventies and spent most of the next thirty years working for various software houses and companies designing, writing and supporting software and databases.
(Half Cut and What a Lark Removals Ltd)
alan williams
Posts: 1650
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2004 10:44 pm
Location: Devon

Re: Boatbuilders

Post by alan williams »

Hi Neil
How did you manage to work at Walkers when he would not employ smokers? Dave Stone an old crew of mine who worked for Walkers. Used to say that the concept was good but the design of the trimaran hulls as terrible. With the weight of the rig in the wrong place, this ment that it sailed with the stern to deep in the water and that the resultanting drag held it back.
Cheers Al
MartinH
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Joined: Fri Jun 27, 2008 4:55 pm
Location: West Wilts

Re: Boatbuilders

Post by MartinH »

admin wrote:
It was an interesting experience, the wingsail fitted to MV Ashington was a winner.
I'd forgotten the Ashington. She once got me really confused during a forenoon watch in the Irish Sea. There had been a contact on radar for a while then this dirty great rectangle climbs over the horizon. I was quite relieved to finally see a ship underneath. :)
Martin
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roger
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Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2004 12:08 pm
Location: Frome Somerset UK

Re: Boatbuilders

Post by roger »

No trianing here. I am still learning at the feet of the master harpsichord maker. I can claim that my father trained on the beach at Keyhaven under the tutelage of old Bill Adams who taught him how to build and maintian clinker built Lymington prams etc as well as look after the rough and ready fishing boats.
To my shame I didnt pick up much as a lad apart from buying a tree from the forestry commision and making a new mast for the mirror after a windy day in the solent.
He went to Soton uni and ended up worknig in the shipyards at Vospers and then building the first hovercraft with Cockerill and writing the Hovercraft bible which now fetches silly money on Amazon. (I wonder what the 1st edition with the authors scrawlings in the margin for the 2nd edition which never happened is worth. Not that its for sale)
So I dont have the proffesional training but can claim some knowledge passed down.
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Garry R

Re: Boatbuilders

Post by Garry R »

My Dad built an Enterprise and a couple of Cadets. Superb with his hands but basically an old fashioned Father who kept a house and home financially but left the kids to Mum. Was a poor communicator and teacher which was a great shame as he could have taught me so much. So basically have picked it up as I went along - thanks CVRDA.
Pat
Posts: 2555
Joined: Mon Sep 27, 2004 1:42 pm
Location: West Wiltshire (Wessex)

Re: Boatbuilders

Post by Pat »

If antecedents count then there's great great grandad William Herbert from Brightlingsea who was a "yacht's man" and his grandaughter (my great aunt) married John James the local boatbuilder. Sadly he died before I was born and left the yard to his James nephew. It's now a hideous housing/marina development :-(
(Half Cut and What a Lark Removals Ltd)
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