I have since set up a one man traditional boatbuilding, restoration and repair business with a workshop near Dorchester in Dorset and despite being on top of a hill which is generally windy, often wet and in the winter finger numbingly freezing, I am as happy as a ‘whatchacall in doodah’. Setting up a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) was very straightforward and so was finding free business banking. Much more of a challenge was finding an insurer who understood what I was doing and what Professional Indemnity (PI), Public Liability (PL) and tool insurance cover I needed. Such specialist insurers do exist but take some tracking down.


Managing a website has also been problematic. The free website builders I found utterly confusing and the managed ones hugely expensive. After trial and error with different free websites, I managed to find an easy to manage website for a couple of pounds Sterling a month. This site will not get me to the top of a Google search, but once potential customers have been directed to the site it is proving useful for contact details and showing a gallery of previous projects. See www. bowkermarineservices.co.uk. Of course the IIMS has a website offer that is really worth a look at.


I try very hard to stay up to date with surveying issues and the yachting and boating world. I subscribe to boating magazines, such as Professional Boatbuilder, Practical Boat Owner, Classic Boat and Classic Sailor, Watercraft and get out on the water as much as possible on as many different craft as I possibly can. I am very lucky that I have access to power, sail and paddle. I also keep my IIMS Continuous Professional Development up to date and thoroughly enjoy attending the training events, particularly the


Yacht & Small Craft Working Group Training Days, at which there is always something new to learn and the valuable opportunity to meet likeminded, supportive and professional folk.


Since setting up on my own I have been involved in some really interesting projects. My first job was to make a wooden ensign staff for a yacht kept in Sardinia. The UK owner sent me a picture of an ensign staff and said he wanted one exactly the same but different. So I laminated some thin pieces of Mahogany which I rounded off for the staff and added a bobbin made from Ash. I have built an 8ft clinker pram dinghy from scratch from a Table of Offsets and lofting, with Mahogany planks and Oak keel, timbers and thwarts, which is for sale and of course Recreational Craft Directive compliant!


I


have also built a pair of 17ft sea kayaks made from marine ply and fashioned a Greenland paddle from some Cedar left over from the pram dinghy sole boards.


I spent a short time working for the Atlantic Challenge charity on one of the Bantry Bag gigs that are used for international youth seamanship competitions. One job I was given was to make the scarf joint on the very visible top strakes, so I had to get that right. These boats are copies of a French Navy Admiral’s gig that was driven ashore on Bere Island in southwest Ireland in 1796. This boat remains in Ireland and is the oldest surviving vessel in the French Navy. The extraordinary gigs are 38’ 2” long x 6’9” beam and draw 14”. They are rowed with ten oars, 5 of which are over 18’ long. There are 2 masts and the sails have dipping lugs.


Fourteen countries have Bantry Bay gigs and participate in friendly contests of seamanship, sportsmanship and style.


A larger project found me working on a 1950s Watson Class lifeboat. Areas of the half inch Mahogany double diagonal planking had to be removed to attend to some galvanic corrosion issues and the planking replaced, all made slightly more difficult as due to the internal air tanks work could only be done from the outside of the hull. The half round rubbing strake also had to be replaced and approximately 100 feet of new oak rub rail was made from 4m long oak boards, routed to shape and scarfed together so no joins are visible. A significant difficulty was removing the old brass screws which tended to crumble as soon as the screwdriver touched them. When the boat was in RNLI service it would have been overhauled regularly and items like brass screws would have been replaced routinely so such corrosion is unlikely to have been a problem. But when decommissioned RNLI boats enter the leisure world they unfortunately do not get the deep maintenance attention they once did and require.


Another interesting job involved replacing a number of larch planks and 3 thwart knees in a ‘Berry Boat’, built near Weymouth probably 50+ years ago, and used as a fishing boat, even being winched up and over Chesil Beach for fishing in Lyme Bay.


Figure 1 - A pair of 17 ft, marine ply, Shearwater sea kayaks. The Report • June 2017 • Issue 80 | 35


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