Made in England
Jeremy Flint meets boatbuilder Colin Henwood
COLIN HENWOOD isa master craftsman. With more than 40 years’ experience, he has established a reputation as one of the UK’s most respected wooden boatbuilders. And just as summer fades, when boats have been on the river providing relaxation for their owners, autumn offers different pleasures. For Colin, it is the season for boat restoration and maintenance, and the time when customers come in to commission projects to be ready for the next summer.
Colin’s workshop is based at the Sylva Foundation Wood Centre in Long Wittenham, near the historic village of Dorchester-on-Thames, which sits at the confluence of the
River Thames and River Thame. The Wood Centre is a well-equipped site, with machines and hand tools, which is run by the Sylva Foundation, an environmental charity dedicated to sustainable woodland management and education. The charity, which was founded in 2006, also provides a business hub for small companies and craftspeople who design from wood.
Colin’s workshop blends in with the community of woodworkers, which mixes experienced old hands with emerging makers. As well as the individual workshops, there’s an open-plan area inhabited by “hot benchers”, who rent a bench and have access to both a machine shop and the support of the established makers.
The Sylva Wood School also runs courses for schoolchildren and creatives to make things using homegrown timber, including Colin’s short courses on paddle making, aimed to revive Britain’s wood culture.
In an age when the yacht industry is dominated by mass-produced fibreglass boats, the demand for wooden boats stays steady. Almost all of Colin’s experience has been with traditional Thames wooden boats, a small branch of the marine industry, but one with an affluent clientele, where the emphasis is on high-quality work.
“There are a number of education establishments in England practising in wooden boat-building who turn out a steady stream of people interested in becoming professional boatbuilders,” Colin says. “The whole environmental
movement is working in favour of wood as a sustainable construction material. Wooden boats are often powered by wind, muscle or electricity and last a long time.” In short, they are the antithesis of fibreglass power boats powered by diesel-hungry engines.
This has been Colin’s life’s work. With a huge passion for making things by hand, he was, he says, “brought up in a family that made things. Whether it was a toboggan or a canoe, we’d always have a go at making one.”
Introduced to boats from a young age at his childhood home in Bath, Colin had the River Avon and the Kennet and Avon Canal on his doorstep. “Falmouth was the other family location where the creeks and inlets of the Fal and Helford rivers were and still are places where I learnt so much about boats and the sea,” says Colin.
Beginning his professional journey at a yard in Falmouth aged 18, Colin began building sail-training yachts before recession hit at the end of the 1970s. Colin found himself out of work and weathered the storm in further education with a geology degree and a desire to get back to boatbuilding. He found a job with a yacht builder and working in wood soon beckoned.
“A chance meeting with an artist who had just finished a series of Thames watercolours led me to Peter Freebody’s boatyard at Hurley near Maidenhead, where I became immersed in the world of exquisite Thames launches and began to gain skills,” says Colin.
By 1982, Colin decided to set up his own boatyard in a derelict farm near Hambleden in Buckinghamshire. With three years’ experience and limited business skills, he slowly established the business as work began to evolve. He collaborated with boatbuilder Robert Dean to form a partnership called Henwood and Dean Boatbuilders. Projects flooded in, including the restoration of a Thames double skiff Chambertin, a launch boat for the Cliveden hotel and traditional Thames crafts with electric motors.
Six years later, Colin bought Robert out, carrying on the company with a small team that established a reputation for high-quality work restoring, re-building and building new wooden boats. “By 2016, the boatyard lease had come up for renewal and the landlord wanted to develop the site, so it was time to move on,” says Colin. Tony
Knight, a craftsman who joined the company for 10 years after spending a week’s work experience as a schoolboy, and his business partner,
Dan Wood, took over and moved the operation to new premises. “I work on my own again just as I did 40 years ago, only I do have the experience and some business skills!” says Colin.
Colin teaches courses at the Boat Building Academy in Lyme Regis and at the Sylva Foundation. He does consultancy and survey work and writes about his experiences for a boating magazine. With the freedom to be more selective in the work he chooses, Colin enjoys meeting the people he works for. “Many customers have become great friends,” he says.
Speaking of friends, Colin ranks his hand tools as friends that have been with him through thick and thin. While machinery works well with straight and square timber, these two things are rarely found in a wooden boat. It is a combination of the hand, tools and eye that are a prerequisite for the complexity of shape and form in Colin’s work.
His boats require meticulous design and attention to detail. “The process of bending English oak timbers with steam into a beautifully shaped launch hull is a process that has not changed for centuries,” says Colin.
Once the design stage is done, Colin sources the best single oak log where all the timber has the same grain and colour. The structure is then built to the designer’s drawings. Mahogany timber planking is steam bent, shaped to fit, hollowed and copper-riveted to the oak timbers. “The planking is fitted in pairs so the hull is not twisted out of shape,” says Colin. The hull is then smoothed, painted and varnished and finished with a coat of antifouling to protect it. The deck, floor, seating, motor, battery, rudder and steering gear are fitted and the boat is equipped with nickel-plated fittings.
While Colin has no permanent colleagues, he needs to call upon the skills of an engineer, electrician, a boatbuilder, a signwriter, and an upholsterer to help with his projects.
His more recent boats are designed with a hull made to slip through the water with minimal drag to maximise the power from the electric engine. “The boat moves silently through water and the controls are simple,” says Colin.
The maintenance side of his work usually includes polishing or upgrading >
the finishes, filling holes, filing the deck, paintwork and generally making the boat look good again and ready for the river. “Understanding the materials and the many elements involved in making and maintaining a beautiful but practical boat is of constant fascination for me,” he explains.
He uses a variety of woods, such as mahogany and teak, and with his restoration work tries to replace like for like. He has used woods from sustainable sources for years. Sweet chestnut is another favourite of Colin’s.
“I’ve built a little skiff from chestnut and it’s proved to be a handsome and durable timber.” This is often locally grown and is extremely sustainable.
Since setting up his workshop, Colin uses ash for his paddle-making courses and has developed a range of canoe paddles made from ash. “Ash needs to become more valued to encourage woodland owners to replant it,” he says. “Especially the resilient varieties resistant to ash dieback disease.”
He finds it a rewarding career and getting on with the task in hand is an essential part of working on his own. “Although the least favourite job of lying under a boat, scraping off old antifouling paint, is a chore, everything else is worth getting out of bed for,” he says. “The side-line of paddle-making indulges my love of shaping with spoke shaves and planes. A paddle’s a simple microcosm of traditional boatbuilding, where the shape from the handle to the tip of the blade constantly changes in all dimensions.”
Colin’s joy for the craft is apparent in all the boats that pass through the yard, including favourite commissions, such as Lady Emma, a classic Thames motor canoe originally built 92 years ago by Andrews of Maidenhead and re-built by Colin; Lady Charlotte ,an electrical launch and an iconic Thames skiff; a version of a Venetian gondola, and a sculling boat for regattas and picnics. These boats are made to last, with a lifespan of over 100 years, which is just as well, as they are not the budget option. The most expensive boat he has ever built cost £500,000 about 14 years ago.
To get in touch with Colin or find out about his courses:
Colin Henwood, Sylva Wood Centre, Oxfordshire, OX14 4QT.
07721 527052; colinhenwood.com; colinhenwoodboats@gmail.com