Hanningfield Gigs

Years after i built the first two of these i thought its time to tell the story! A couple of friends had acquired a fleet of Angling skiffs from Hanningfield reservoir in darkest essex. These were heavy GRP 18 footers.
A few of us had started a new Rowing club Ltrc in 2003 & having been pressganged into the job of founder Chairman i had to address the problem of how we could fit the fledgling club out with a few boats.
Sketching on the back of the proverbial fag packet in the yacht club bar came up with the idea of stretching one of the 18 footers.
The most beat up Skiff was put into my garage & the length was fixed at 21ft as it was the maximum length i could get in on the diagonal. Her transom & aft tank was cut out with a diamond cutter & a gig style stern fabricated from mdf. A mould was then taken polished & re affixed. This allowed the boat to grow by 3ft.

This is a photo of the as yet unnamed Gig on launch day in 2003. She was not a great success being far too heavy & did not have enough carrying capacity.
Needless to say she showed some potential by racing at the annual row 4 a reason race & winning it in some style.
In September the Clubs base at Benfleet station burned to the ground & the new club promptly collapsed.


The Club restarted in 2005 April fools day if i remember correctly!
Again i was pressganged into the Chairmans job. Again the question became pressing, we needed boats!
The Gig had been languishing on the marshes for over a year & she was again brought to my house & put into the Garden.

This time i sawed of the heavy GRP gunwales & seats & cut her in half right across the middle a centre section mould was knocked up & this was the result. Great care was taken to make sure the hull was straight and this shot shows she came out well!
Despite now being 26ft long she was now at least 50kgs lighter. Shortly after this she was named Dauntless after the Clubs Sponsor.
She proved to be a Good boat & tracked straight & true.








I built a second Gig in Dauntless Boatyard's Shed in early 2006, built underneath Paul redmans catamaran in just three weeks. This one was named Proud Mary after the Credence clearwater revival song.
There were a few subtle differences, her thwarts were slightly wider spaced & the stern had a slight kink in it, this caused a slight tendency to turn one way at speed.

This shot shows her just as she emerged from the shed.








 To be continued!

A New Commission!

Those of you with an eye for a good rowing boat may recognise this one!
I recently corresponded with a potential customer & after much talk of rowboats he placed an order for this boat.




Those of you who may have done the Great River Race will have seen the "Dinghy" Maggie which won it this year & has featured in the trophies for many years.
She is a standard Cosine Wherry 14ft long.

This one is a stretched version of the same boat.

There are some small differences, the sheer on the standard boat tends to go flat or droop if you follow the plans exactly so i have sprung it up a little at the ends.
She will make a fine pair oared Skiff.







Behind her is the mould for the 18ft Hanningfield Skiff & it was polished out last week ready to lay a new one up for the new Southend Coastal Rowing club,
There is a first class crew who need a good light fast boat.
Lots going on at the moment!

More sanding & painting!

Well im nearly there, days & days of fairing & sanding, three coats of hi build primer & most of it sanded away again!

This was the second coat of Hempels light primer undercoat, it is good stuff & sands really well.
As you can see a lot of it is on the floor.
I looked like an extra from Braveheart!

Tools used Rupes long bed orbital sander
Sealey Random orbital sander.
Various hand sanders.

The last coat was final sanded down by hand using a foam sanding block & 240 grit paper. At this point i wished i had made her a little shorter!

And this is the result.
First coat of two pack polyurethane (Hempels polygloss).
Rolled on & tipped of with a brush.
A poor mans spray job!

This is why its taken a while longer than it should.

If i ever get to the stage of a production mould the finish will have to be better than this, probably to the tune of another 2 weeks work.

But for now She will do!

Out of the building cradle

On friday i lifted the Gig out of her building cradle ready to roll her over ready for final fairing & painting.

In the background are the rear doors to the shed, there is 1" clearance each side, and yes i have measured it!
I have worked out a good way of doing the stretchers but it will entail some stainless steel welding, I had better get some practice in!

Once rolled over i started fairing, didnt go well at first as the the filler i had skimmed her with clogged the sandpaper really badly, i identified the problem as the vinylester laminating resin i had used being unwaxed. This meant that the surface although cured had a faint tackiness. Remedy was to get a wide carbide scraper & scrape the surface layer off, several hours later with arms dropping of she was ready for a sand down & first coat of Hi build primer.
The hull is very fair & the time spent on the building jig was well spent.

The primer is a Hempels two part epoxy intended for superyachts, the local chandler has a job lot of the stuff. Downside was it stinks something awful & i had to open the doors & windows wide.
Overnight it had cured well enough for a rough sand up before the second coat.

The second coat went on this morning & by lunchtime was touch dry
Back to the sanding tomorrow if its cured enough!

Im looking forward to the not too distant future when you can see her out on the water not stuck in a shed!

More nice bits = progress!

Good progress today, she is starting to look like she might get wet sometime soon!
                                                                                           


Got the thwart knees all rounded off
with the router & fastened in along
with the rowlock blocks.
Thwart knees are laminated mahogany & are barely 3/4" thick.

I now have to figure a simple strong & light foot stretcher system, the rowers will sit slightly staggered.

This Gig is a real meld between modern GRP boatbuilding & traditional wooden construction, if i ever get as far as a production version it will have far less woodwork on it!

Weight wise i am pleased my son & i can pick her up one each end quite easily.

A day away from her tomorrow as i am in the home workshop, a friend is coming round to wire up a couple of machines for me,i might be able to build boats but i avoid wiring especially 3 phase!
First to be done is my trusty Harrison 140 metal lathe,
i need to get it running to turn up some custom rowlock pins.
The other is a Union graduate wood turning lathe, just come out of a school.

A man can never have too many tools!

Fitting the nice bits!

I have been busy this week fitting out, the new thwarts were bolted in today with their pillars & all the thwart knees are fitted. Also got the rowlock blocks fitted.

I have got the coamings on the fore & after deck.
More photos of the details tomorrow!

I Was hoping to have got more done but had an attempted break in last weekend, i had to spend some time doing repairs & applying anti climb paint to the edges of the roof. It is lovely stuff, thick non drying paint that gets everywhere.
Despite wearing gloves i had to throw my shirt away afterwards.
Its the price of having a workshop in a remote location but then friends had a yard broken into which was like fort knox with cameras & everything.
The fact that the building is insured along with everything in it gives peace of mind. However i dont leave power tools there overnight!

Last of the fibreglass work!

I have been finishing of all the structural bits, seat risers with plywood inserts & bonded in fasteners to bolt the thwarts to, bilge stringers to mount the stretchers on & floors to stiffen the hull bottom.
 

 This shot shows the seat riser core built from foam & the first floor fitted.

The rectangluar cut outs in the core next to the keel are for two Elvstrom self bailers.

Fore deck & afterdeck fitted & bonded on.
This forms two large wateright buoyancy tanks.
All risers & stringers now bonded in with csm & biaxial cloth.
Vinlyester resin used thoughout. 

To the left of the boat you can see a large pile of timber. This was liberated last week from a friends barn where it had lain for the last 30 years.
Offered as mahogany it was not clear quite what it was as it was rather filthy but it turned out to be a mixture of brazilian mahogany, Utile, Iroko & Dark red meranti.
Mostly in wide 11ft & 16ft boards 2" plus thick it was a good result!
On the floor to the right of the boat are the gunwales.
And if anyone wants to know what the bucket is doing in the middle of the picture, its to hold the chains from the lifting tackle & stop me banging my head!

Thwarts are also all machined up & ready to go in, first set i machined i junked as the timber had a nasty streak of sapwood. Second set came up very well.
More progress!