Building a dinghy
The idea of building your own boat is something many people aspire to. David Parker describes his own experience in the construction of a wooden sailing dinghy and shares some of the lessons he learnt along the way
Valuable lessons learned in the course of a DIY wooden boat construction project
This is a story which actually began over 20 years ago, but the latest chapter should start with the words ‘an old friend’. You see, that is all one old friend wrote in the subject bar of an email about another old friend, although I didn’t know that at the time. When I opened the email there was no explanation, just an eBay link. I clicked on the link, and there before me were pictures of a boat I had built but had to sell about 12 years ago.
The boat had taken me some years to complete, but I reluctantly ended up having to take it to a boat jumble not long after finishing it. This was because I was a freelancer with a young family, and over a lean patch the dinghy had to be sold at a very cheap price.
Unfortunately I was owed money by some publications which went into liquidation, and I needed to find some way to pay the bills. The dinghy was among other items which had to go – although that hurt the most. Extraordinarily, however, through that chance sighting on eBay and my friend’s email, I have now bought it back.
In the intervening years it has been kept under cover by Ian Thompson of H2O Dinghy Chandlery, who bought it. I was very fortunate to have sold it to him because he looked after it so well, and the boat is still in excellent condition. I know it is only a modest little wooden dinghy, but if ever anyone epitomises the phrase that ‘we don’t own boats, we are just the custodians of them,’ it is Ian.
I mention this not just because I feel I owe this fellow boating aficionado a debt of gratitude, but because there is something about the self-built boat that really gets inside you. However grand or small they may be, they leave their mark in a way no pre-bought production craft can. Either consciously or subconsciously, you end up putting part of yourself inside them, and it stays there. True, there may be sacrifices along the way if you decide to build… but just tell yourself a social life is overrated, and if you subtly write the names of your family down on bits of paper you shouldn’t forget them.
How do you build a boat?
However, there will be hurdles to surmount. Before I started, when I was researching self-build possibilities, all I ever saw or read about in magazines seemed to be perfectly-built craft completed by knowledgeable amateurs with good facilities and impressive skill levels. While I had carried out a fair amount of restorations and rebuilds, I didn’t think with a new project I could emulate the varnished delights exhibited at places such as the old Greenwich Wooden Boat Show. But I was wrong to look at it like that, so don’t be too self-critical and allow yourself to be put off, thinking you need an elaborate