Monday 16 May Car troubles found me walking in from the Denmark Mechanical Repairs garage this morning when Mark cycled up beside me. We were a little late and JP and Nick had opened up and discovered our gleaming hull was a bit tacky despite it curing over the cold and wet weekend. We gave…
Thursday 12 May The weather has changed from warm swimming weather yesterday to cold and wet today. Thus it wasn’t surprising that we needed an early cup of tea to warm us up to start work. Adrian and JP started by giving our beautiful skiff a light sand and then a clean up ready for…
Tuesday 10 May Harry was in the shed showing his mate Doug the progress on the skiff when I arrived this morning. A familiar crew of Nick (who I had passed on the bike track slogging up hill without an electric motor), JP, Adrian and John S with Archie turned up today to sand the…
Monday 9 May Covid is starting to bite in Denmark, Paul sent a text saying he had it and wouldn’t be in. Mark got to the shed before me and opened up and we spent most of the morning almost alone except for visitors. Mark worked away on the tabs on the frames while I…
Thursday 6 May The replacement wood for the next keel arrived at my house on Wednesday morning just after I had told Robert Ayliff that it hadn’t appeared. He rang and was about to apologise that his courier Mainfreight, had told him that they didn’t deliver to Denmark, now he’s really confused. I loaded the…
Tuesday 3 May All my thoughts this morning were on how to keep a class of Year 11 boys from Denmark Senior High School busy when they visit today. I decided on a glue up of the boat 2 bow stems. We needed more baking paper to protect our table tops first and I nipped…
Monday 2 May I did manage to get to the shed first with Harry’s contraband jigsaws that JB had picked up in Albany. Everything was neat and tidy and ready for the final shaping of the stems and then the glueing of the keel into place. Nick got started on shaping the bow stem with…
Thursday 28 April I was late again today but the team had let themselves in and opened the front door. The reason for my lateness was because I had been carefully deconstructing the jigsaw puzzle Harry had leant me as I didn’t want to loose any pieces. It had been a challenge as well as…
Tuesday 26 April When JP and I turned up admittedly late this morning there was a gathering outside the shed in the sunshine of Adrian, Nick and Stuart. A little later on Ed turned up and then Veronica so we had quite a full house. We started by having a look at the Off Centre…
Monday 25 April After attending Denmark’s dawn service for ANZAC day where Harry and Kay were taking their part in the laying of wreaths it was a slow start in the shed. JP and Mark turned up as I was pulling out the keel timbers. Then there was a lot of head scratching as we…
Saturday 23 April Around 20 people turned up for the Whiskey Plank Ceremony on Saturday morning. The kettle was on for cups of tea, biscuits and cake were on display but the real draw card seemed to be the single malt whisky kindly donated by Nick Shaw. It was a good opportunity to gather for…
Thursday 21 April The core crew turned up today to do the final shaping of the planks and glue on the Whiskey planks. They were Nick, Paul, Adrian, Veronica, myself and eventually JP who had been off hanging a curtain rail for a mutual friend. We had an early visitor, Dai/Thomo, who had to get…
Tuesday 19 April I cycled in a little early this morning so that I could have a bit of a clean up before the gang arrived. First in was Colin who started taking the clamps off plank 5 and went on to saw the depth notches for planing the plank lands. Next came Veronica followed…
Monday 19th April Easter Monday and we still have a keen group ready to glue on plank 5 and glue up the scarfs on Plank 6. Nick was first in and went straight to planing the last plank scarf on this boat. Then Paul, who planed the plank lands on the ends of plank 5….
Thursday 14 April After I had opened up Colin arrived back fresh from holidaying in his caravan and wanted to get cracking but no sooner had we taken the clamps off plank 4 than we had visitors. Sal B had given me warning that her son Olly and his friend Otto were keen to get…