Choose Your Project Well

A well-meaning friend nearly bites off a project too big

- Adrian Morgan

I am speaking to the converted, by and large, when I say that we all think old wooden boats are special. OK, there may be some who take the magazine out of nostalgia for a long gone era; not only owners of Gib’ Seas and Beneteaus, but also RIBs and Sunseekers and even hovercraft or jetskis perhaps? And why not. Classic Boat is a broad church, and perhaps the sight of so much varnished mahogany might one day persuade you to mend your ways.

More likely you will have formed an unshakeable aversion to jetskis, a prejudice that unites us all. Mostly you will already have formed an attachment with something built in wood when wood was good, and an apprentice might knock you up a clinker dinghy in their tea break, and the yard owner charge £8-7s-6d on top of the £400 for the little 5-tonner.

That’s certainly what it was like when