Practical Boat Owner - June 2018

I

n many ways, the 1990s were a

good time for me: I had a nice

terraced house within commuting

distance of London; a great job

editing a boating magazine I loved;

and I was married with two lovely

children. There was one big gap in my

life, however: I had no boat.

My wife and I had sold our 32ft

double-ender after our first child was born

and hadn’t found anything within our

price-range to take its place. So when

yacht designer Nigel Irens was looking

for guinea pigs to build a kit boat he and

Ed Burnett had created for a TV series, I

jumped at the chance.

It might not have been the ocean-going

vessel I dreamed of owning, but it would

at least get me back on the water. It would

also mark a small personal milestone

since, despite working as a journeyman

shipwright for several years, I had never

built a boat from scratch.

The Western Skiff, as Nigel christened

his new design, was a slender 14ft dinghy

intended for rowing; it had an elegantly

raked transom to discourage the use of an

outboard and a small lug rig to use as

auxiliary power. The kit – seven sheets of

ply and two sheets of MDF (for the jig), all

pre-cut and ready to assemble, along with

several gallons of epoxy and various

interesting-looking powders – arrived

while I was on holiday in Cornwall. My

Nic Compton describes how he adapted his 14ft Nigel Irens-designed

skiff to cater for his life now – 20 years after he first built her

A man's best friend

A skiff, one man and his dog, Winnie, in their

element, exploring a rocky Devon coastline

PRACTICAL

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Writer and photographer Nic Compton

has written 18 books about boats,

sailors and

the sea.

His latest,

readily

available

from retail

booksellers,

is Off the

Deep End: A

History of

Madness

at Sea. Will Sterling

Zennor Compton