About Me

I am in my mid 20’s and live in the Cotswolds. My most busy past time these days seems to be working with wood (generally through getting asked if I can knock something up for someone) and now that I have played around with it for years I’ve had a go at most aspects.

This is purely a hobby for me passed down from the days of watching my Grandad potter around in his workshop thinking… I wouldn’t mind having a go at that. Pretty much everything I write about is things I’ve picked up here and there or worked out myself though trial and error. I did a course at Lyme Regis Boat Building Academy a few years ago on GRP, but I mostly spend my time on the Internet reading about boat building and trying out new things.

So how did I end up building boats? Well at some young age one of my phases (there were many) was remote control boats. I ended up making a few kits from the model shop in Christchurch where we used to go on holiday, which gave me quite a good insight into the basic principles of boat shapes and how they all go together.

My brother-in-law and I were on holiday in Christchurch many years later and got a bit of a bug for boating, so I suggested ‘why don’t we have a go at making one … I’ve made some model ones before it can’t be that different can it?’. So from that came ‘Good Enough for Jazz’ and the start of things to come with building boats. My brother-in-law decided to give it up when I suggested the idea of another one (amongst other projects!) so I pressed on single handed.

Personally I find boat building the most interesting type of carpentry because it involves lots of different aspects, for example laminating or steam bending, as well as being a challenging shape with very few straight edges.

That’s how I got here anyway and I thought on the next project I would aim to involve a bit more of a networking side. So I’ll put up info about the next boat I am going to be starting in the coming months, as well as methods for the various different stages for those who may be interested to see. I’m no expert by any means but if I can help someone out then all the better!

The first few of my posts will be aimed at getting up to date with the boats I’ve done over the last 5 years or so and hopefully by that stage I’ll be around the starting point with ‘the next one’.