Meet the blogger

As I am not able to do anything on the project at the moment I will give you some of my background for better understanding. Three years ago I stepped out of the corporate rat race. It was no fun anymore for a lot of reasons. Luckily this enabled me to go into a kind of early retirement.

I had for sometime a vague and romantic plan to build a woodenboat in the future.  Now very sudden the future became today.   What to do?
So I went to the Bootbouwschool (Boatbuilding school) of Bert van Baar in the Netherlands for a course to build a Ness Yawl with a group of 6 people.

In 9 days we completed the hull, rudder and centreboard.  One of my collegue builders acquired the hull to complete it. The course infected me with the "woodenboatbuildingbug". (nice word for Scrabble)  

During such a project you do a lot of tasks but of course as a novice you totally lack the total oversight. Luckily one of my (3) daughters announced that we would become grandparents for the first time.  I had my new project! 
I ordered the plans for the "Baby Tender"  from Warren Jordan in the USA.
(www.jordanwoodboats.net )  

Building that small 45'' boat out of real wood (no ply) and to rivet in stead of using epoxy was a steep learning curve.  My theory is that for building a boat you should have patience, accuracy and sufficient manual skills.  On a scale from 1 - 10 my score on all aspects is 3 according to my daughters trying to be positive. But the end product was ready on time for my first grandson Taeke.

To complete my training I went back to Bert van Baar.  Now for a course to build the Galloway Faering.  This is a Iain Oughtred design in mahogany and again riveted. As  had now some experience I would understand better what I was doing. After 9 days I was the lucky bastard who could acquire the hull.

It took me quite some time to finish the boat. We launched it May 1st 2011.
Just in time to participate in the Iain OughtRaid where during a weekend a lot of Oughtred designed boats came together with the Maestro present. Fun!

The missus baptizing the boat with a glass of Beerenburg. (kind of Dutch nautical herb brandy)

These projects look impressive but I only did part of the job myself. It is quite different to start with a set of drawings and to set up the whole project on your own. We will see in the coming months if I progress on the learning curve.