Row, Row, Row your boat.
Last week, the Bosuns club took the yet to be named St Ayles Skiff for its first test on the water.
First of all she stayed afloat; a big win for the team and the oars were a pretty good fit with only minor adjustments to be made down the line. Full marks to Bob Harrap for the flashy design on the blades of the oars, the paintwork made the blades 25% faster.
Because we were still just feeling our way around on the boat, we took the boat out of the pond and spun it around again with the next change of rowers to happen. Everyone was in agreement that the boat is almost ready to go and what we need is people to take her out on a regular basis.
Because there were others who hadn’t tried the boat out, we went out again on Friday morning to take her for a spin out to the channel markers and then across to the start box with our reluctant coxswain Steve getting into the swing of it. Most of the starters on Friday had other commitments and were away early in the peace, but the new cover has been made for the boat and those who stayed for a coffee helped put the cover back on.
We look forward to getting use of one of the sheds for the interim, so that the St Ayles skiff and the next one to be made can be housed properly until proper storage is available.
We had a bit of luck in that drone pilot and club member Jim Henry was around and he provided some drone footage from which we took some stills and combined them with other stills from the boat. Many thanks Jim and there is a bosun’s club video on the club TV featuring his work as well.
Rick Steuart for the Bosuns club.
