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Notes from the
IABBS
(excerpts from the magazine)
by Jim Betts
[email protected]
Good Design + Modern
Materials = Success
When I was first in touch with lain Oughtred some years
ago, he was already a "name" in boat design, but not widely known outside
Britain. For some time he had been a successful racer of dinghies and had
begun to design some very interesting clinker-built small boats. Thanks to
his imagination and devotion to wooden boats - and helped by his
enthusiasm for modern materials - he became one of the driving forces in
the rebirth of amateur boat building in Britain,
I had seen some material on his Grey Seal, a 22-ft, clinker-built
sloop with traditional style, but a certain modern look about it. We
doodled an idea of mine that was to be called the Black Pearl, a
modification of Grey Seal with a slightly larger cabin and this and that.
He was a pleasure to work with and I am sorry that nothing came of the
idea. (Maybe it's time to try again? Well, not right now as I'm busy
enough!)
A new look at what he has been up to
When I started contacting designers all over the world about the new
IABBS, he turned up on my list and I contacted him. I was pleasantly
surprised to see that he has grown and prospered. And I was aghast at his
fancy literature. A 68-page catalog with 33 designs from 7 to 22 feet, and
a 178-page book, both very nicely designed, illustrated and printed. To be
frank, I do not know of any other designer with a more impressive
presentation. (NOTE: Designers - send me your material and prove me
wrong!)
Frankly, I fall in love with boat plans on a regular basis, but I
have really been smitten by lain's Wee Seal. I don't like the term "cute"
except when applied to puppies and kittens, but this is a cute boat! Perky
and jaunty come to mind. It is almost a cartoon; the kind that brings a
smile to your face. I'd like to have one. It would be finished bright
(varnished wood to you newcomers) and I would sail around in the starting
area of a yacht club race and watch all the people on their plastic modern
racing machines look at me with great envy.
What brings it all together and makes
it work
The basic clinker boat has been around since the days of the
Vikings. Maybe it's the long ends and the swooping sheer, or maybe it's
just that the Vikings were adventurers and used the boats to explore new
lands and do battle with enemies. (It is widely thought that they came to
America before Columbus.)
Years ago (as we say) such boats (also known as lapstrake) were
planked over steam-bent ribs and fastened with rivets. Such hulls swelled
and shrank as they dried and got wet, so it was not unusual for them to
leak a bit, at least until the hull had soaked up a bit of water. This
type of construction fell to the guns of progress. (Fiberglass chopper
guns.) The Jersey Sea Skiffs became plastic and - for some years - had the
lap-strake pattern molded in.
But modem materials can also be put to positive use. What lain has
done is use plywood and epoxy. Plywood is more stable and does not shrink
and swell, so the "planks" hold their shape. (Unless you paint such a
boat, the plywood really has to be Mahogany or such so it looks like
*"real wood.")
But the ''real secret" is the epoxy. This will about stick any-thing
to anything. And it is gap-filling, meaning that you do not have to have a
perfect joint. In a sense, epoxy sticks to itself as well as to anything
else. So the strakes (planking) will be just as strong and watertight as
if they were one piece of plywood. A plus is that where the strakes
overlap, you have a sort of double-thick reinforcing structure. Such a
boat has a monocoque form and does not need a lot of frames and
longitudinals and such. This gives more space inside the hull for the
accommodations. It also makes for a boat that is lighter than one with a
lot of interior structure.
Another plus is that the individual strakes are light weight and
easy to handle. The plans for such boats show how to cut the strakes, so
they Fit properly and look nice. (Make that "look right!")
 As
a plus, lain's book -
Clinker Plywood Boatbuilding Manual - is a very good book for
boatbuilding in general. It has chapters on tools' materials, setting up,
planking, interior work and fitting out. There are many drawings and
photos showing step-by-step building. The book is available from
www.amazon.com (click the cover above)
The plans catalog is $18 and lain will take U.S. checks,
lain Oughtred,
Struan Cottage,
Bemisdale,
Isle of Skye,
Scotland IV51 9NS. -
JB |
