BUILDING A WESTERN SKIFF – PART 5
Jeremy cut some short lengths of Douglas
fi r, bevelled them to shape and epoxied
them into place, using the usual mix of
colloidal silica and microballoons to
thicken the epoxy.
It was then time to turn the boat upside
down to paint the outside of the hull.
Jeremy applied two coats of neat epoxy to
the upper two strakes – the lower strake
and bottom board having already been
sheathed in epoxy and glass. He then
masked off the top strake and the transom
and applied three coats of grey undercoat
(“standard cheap and cheerful paint”) to
the rest of the hull, fi lling as necessary in
between coats. This was followed by two
coats of Hempel’s Brilliant Gloss Cobalt
Blue, applied with a small roller, which
Jeremy found gave excellent coverage
and a very nice fi nish.
Jeremy had a harder time getting hold
of his chosen varnish: Le Tonkinois, an
“environmentally friendly natural oil based
yacht varnish” based on a Chinese recipe.
At the time, the company was apparently
relocating its factory from France to
Poland, and as a result the UK supplier
was out of stock. Jeremy eventually
tracked down a pot in Germany, through
the giant online chandlery http://www.svb24.
com. Once he had got hold of the varnish,
he found it a delight to use and applied
three coats to the top strake and transom
(two coats wet-on-wet followed by a light
sand and the fi nal coat), before turning the
boat over and doing the same on the
inside. The gunwales had already been
sealed with two coats of neat epoxy, which
quickly builds ‘depth’, and only the
thwarts needed priming with a coat of
varnish tinned 50/50 with white spirit.
Best to take your time
“Each full coat took three hours to put on,
which was longer than I expected,” he
says. “It’s so fi ddly around the gunwales,
you’re just asking to have runs, especially
on a surface that’s already sealed with
epoxy. But it’s one of those things that, if
you rush it, you’ll regret it later.”
With the hull complete, it was time to fi t
a few bits of hardware. From the outset,
Jeremy was determined to make the boat
as light as possible to allow him to
transport the boat easily, if necessary on
his own, and without the extra expense and
clutter of a trailer. To that end, he made all
the thwarts removable, so the boat could
more easily be lifted onto the roofrack of
his car. He also devised an ingenious
system whereby a pair of wheels could be
temporarily attached under the stem and
the whole boat then pushed, wheelbarrow
fashion, to a slipway just 100 yards down
the road. (It will come as no surprise to
learn that Jeremy once worked for the
Barrow Boat Company, which has built its
whole business around this idea.)
To make the carrying wheels, he used a
length of oak, about 2in by 2in and 18in
long. He drilled holes into each end of the
oak for the wheel bolts to slide into, and
LEFT Component
parts of the kit
boat arrive in
the back of a
horsebox!The fi nished boat got three coats of varnish in Jeremy’s workshopBeautifully constructed centreboard case thwart (left) and stem knee (above)Adjustable rowlock plates were hand
made by Jeremy’s dadNew and old – Jeremy Butler’s new skiff
alongside Nic Compton’s older boat