How to use leather on your wooden boat
By JIMI MCGIRR, 2010
A great winter project to reduce chafe next year
There are many kinds of leather, differing in thickness, colour and the tanning...
10 reasons to make your Boat from Plywood: Wood vs Ply
By Ian Oughtred, 2009
The argument for Plywood
1. Plywood may be ‘cheap and cheerful’, or finely finished in a traditional form.
2. Plywood is much easier to maintain...
Advantages of Owning Smaller Yachts: Adrian Morgan’s Boat Scale
Is it better to own a smaller yacht? Adrian Morgan's column weighs up the advantages of scaling down...
Thinking of Buying a Smaller Yacht?
It is...
Screws for Classic Boats
By ROBIN GATES, 2010
A scattering of screws plucked from the harbour mud revealed where another wooden yacht had met her end. Although showing the...
Velcro Spiling Board
I am currently building a traditional Thames skiff, in which all the many floors and frames are sawn out and joggled accurately to fit...
How to make a cross-tongue joint
Joining boards edge to edge. From Boatman's Notes, CB July 2012.
The plough plane is your hand tool passport to the cross-tongue joint, a key...
How to fix damage to a clinker planking
If damage to clinker planking is more serious (see Fig 1) and two planks are cracked and deformed across the land, then doublers will...
Making mast bitts
Make and install mast bitts that won't work your deck. From CB, August 2012
Mast bitts play a critical role for making off halyards and...
Air-Seasoning Wood
By RICHARD HARE from CB229
It’s one thing to go to the builders’ merchant for some kiln-dried Baltic softwood for use at home, but quite...
Bending Wood without Steam
By RICHARD TOYNE
In the late 1980s, when I was working on a yacht restoration at Mylor Yacht Harbour in Cornwall, I learned a trick...
