Sustainable Sailing

Today I was building a part for the boat out of Plywood. It brought back lots of good memories.
Some of the the tools (2 clamps) I was using I inherited from Dad. They originally came from Pop’s building firm in Wolverhampton (Biddulph and Thrift).

One (circular saw) was bought when we had to scrap our first boat (a 16 foot Hornet that we eventually gave up on stopping the leaks – I think we paid £50 for the boat and used the trailer from an earlier free boat, a GP14).

Others (electric plane and workmate) we bought soon after we were married when we were creating built-in wardrobes from particle board and louvered doors.

Still others have been bought since we started working on the boat (orbital sander, drill, finger belt sander, table saw.

Those memories reminded me of Dad’s passion for keeping things lightweight on boats. I remember him hiring a router to cut out a complex web shape in the bottom of the table he built for the Eygthene 24 in 1977.

So I used my hole saw to make extra holes in my project to reduce the weight by 508 grams – the final weight is 3350 grams so I’m not in the same league.

However, every time I look at our mizzen mast (the part I was making is a support for it) I will be reminded of Pop, Dad and the years of projects Jane and I have shared.