CRAFTSMANSHIP Adrian Morgan
It often begins with an email enquiry, to which I respond rapidly; after all, who needs a week to spec a new boat? It’ll be 20, 30, maybe 40 working days, plus materials depending on size, and the price will depend on whether I need to loft afresh or rustle up some moulds, tucked away in the recesses of the shed that I could modify to suit. I can usually come up with a figure in days, and a firm quote follows once the finer details are decided. That’s not to say we small boatbuilders experience the creative agony of an artist. After all, we are tradesmen: only artists suffer, reclining consumptively on couches, arm languidly trailing – or used to before that fellow came along with the pickled shark to take the mickey out of the art establishment and become a millionaire. Enough. What I am trying to say is that the process
Getting to know you P
rocuring, and I use the word advisedly, for I do not mean it to sound acquisitory, a client for a new boat cuts both ways. Sometimes I’m not sure who is doing the acquiring, me or the client, for it can take some convincing for me to build a boat, and for many reasons. The first of which is that, fundamentally, I am bone idle.
Thus my initial reaction to any enquiry – I fear this will come as a shock to those who think it’s all joy and romance, this building of little wooden dinghies in a Highland shed – is one of despondency at the thought of another small mountain to climb, and the energy required. For building even a modest-sized clinker boat takes it out of you both mentally and physically. Especially when the thermometer inside the cow shed reads -2º C.
86 CLASSIC BOAT FEBRUARY 2012 Client research is a vital, and, er, warm part of the process
of connecting with a new owner is slow, and imposes stresses on both sides. Have I quoted a reasonable price; left myself enough time; am I mad to take on such a project? Whereas on the other side it’s a case of: is that a reasonable price; will it be ready in time, and am I mad to commission a boat in the first place? And from him? But as time goes on and the email traffic increases, a bond develops. The emails become deeper and more specific. Six or seven strakes; do you think bronze rowlocks are better than galvanised (answer, no); should I go for balanced or standing lug (depends if you want a boom, or like going to windward); what about buoyancy? This process of bonding is an essential part of the business, and I must say that emails are excellent methods of communication. After only a brief exchange you get a pretty good idea of who you are dealing with by the tenor of their replies. Is he (or she) a busy professional for whom a new boat commission lies 20th on a to-do list, just above ‘sack the accountant’, a consultant psychiatrist (in which case he’ll learn far more about you than vice versa) or an experienced sailor looking for a retirement boat? In my experience, worryingly, most will be your equal at building boats, which is also reassuring – at least you don’t have to explain what a jerrold is. Or is it a gerald?
“Then, miraculously, I remember that I quite enjoy building boats”
Finally comes the dawning that, despite all my subconscious attempts to wriggle out, I seem against all odds to have secured the commission (albeit for a ludicrously low price) and there’s nothing left but to get on with it. And when the temperature outside my shed is marginally higher than it is inside, and the snow lies deep, I wonder what the hell I am doing. Too late. There is no longer any wriggle room. Then, miraculously, I remember that I quite enjoy building boats. Which is fortunate, as that first instalment is in the bank. The time for lengthy emails in a warm room in front of a computer screen is over. Time for the tools...
CHARLOTTE WATTERS
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