You know; this looks like a boat!

The skiff is finally reaching a conclusion. Ken has been down most mornings using the cool times of the day to work without interruption, as he works on the trims and fittings on the hull and the interior of the boat. Its then up to us to get to with paint pots and rollers to get the work done. Sure, every day brings forward new challenges and most of them will carry through as refinements on the second boat, but if we aren’t learning, we aren’t alive.

Finally the inside of the hull gets the go-ahead to paint while the trimmings are finalised. The rudder and yoke are tried out for a fit and the thought of a flagstaff to carry the club burgee is put to the more talented members of the team. “Do you think you can make one of these please, with a knob on the end, Theo?”  In the background, Bruce Uren is building oars and we are all looking forward to the results. The prototype seems to promise well.

The visitors have begun to multiply with a number of heads poking into the shed, to see what’s going on and all express delight in the work that’s been done. In fact we are going to have to put a roster board up for willing participants to help with the next one.  One thing we do know is that it will take a lot less time to finish the next one. The skills and planning developed over the last 5 months have sharpened the team up.

There is talk that the shed might get a “swampy”, an old evaporative air conditioner and that will make life a lot easier during summer. It’s already warming up and glues and 2 pack paints are going off faster than we would like. Not only that, but the easterlies are bringing in the flies that hang around. Fortunately the paint is going off so fast, that the little beggars just bounce off it.

A little Christmas get together was held last Friday and it was a good way for the morning shift to catch up with the afternoon shifts. It was a pleasant diversion and many thanks to all who attended. As to the skiffs well we will probably roll on from one boat to the next with a break over Christmas.

Please get in touch with the Bosuns shed team to register to be part of the team on the second boat and other projects coming up. We are looking for people who are handy and have the time on a regular basis to fit into the weekly schedules.

You can contact Bob Harrap on 0407 991 901 or Ken Baxter on 0437 281 611 to sign up for the next boat build.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.

Rick Steuart