Since the launch of the first St Ayles skiff a month ago, the bosuns club hasn’t slowed down a bit. The skill sets that were taken on board over winter have been coming together and the new hull has been planked in less than four weeks as the team went gangbusters prepping and gluing up far more swiftly than the first boat.
The bosuns took the chance to take a quick break last week and thank the club bosuns with a small bbq on Friday to celebrate the final planks going on. But of course no ones perfect and the final plank was put on the Monday after and now we are concentrating on fitting the stem and stern with the keel to be dropped on, hopefully next week. But everything was given a good clean up and the shed is slowly emptying of the sawdust and shavings that we have been eating, breathing and brushing out of our eyes for the last 4 weeks.
Hopefully the final preparation of the hull will not be too far away and we can look at the fit out of the interior shortly afterwards.
Remember to speak to your class or fleet representatives if you want to take the skiff out on the water. Once we have them both finished, then there will be the chance to race the boats after you’ve done a bit of practice on the water. When using the skiffs the Cox of the rowing team will be the responsible person to make sure that the skiff is left in an appropriate state for the next team to use. (Think, neat, tidy oars stored properly etc) A short session will be arranged with prospective Coxes to show them the ropes prior to their first row.
We are also beginning to pick up more work as Jetty two comes on line again with the last of the refit to be done over the next few weeks and other jobs are being tossed about. We will be looking for volunteers shortly, don’t hesitate to drop by the shed on Mondays, Wednesdays & Friday mornings.
More to come in a month.
Rick Steuart for the Bosuns club.
