News & Reports

Work Party 14th March 2014

The next Work party at Abbey Meads lake is scheduled for Friday 14th March at 09:30.

The access to the West bank is still very muddy and cannot be driven on. The committee decided on the spot to reinstate the work party that was postponed in February, to clear the brambles and other vegetation alongside this track, a) to let the sun get to dry this out and b) to allow people to walk on the adjacent grass area. This work party is planned for this Friday 14th of March starting at 9:30 AM. Alan Viney is hiring a hedge cutter on a pole in order to cut the brambles at their rooting points and we need as many ‘rakers’ as possible to move the dead brambles into bonfire areas or if necessary down the bank. John T and myself are the first signed up rakers, but we need more people, so if you have time on this Friday morning please come along and help. You will need a rake and some gardening gloves. Even if you can only spend a short amount of time, please come along and help as many hands make light work. It is important that we get as much of the dead brambles cut as possible and this will only happen if the cut parts are raked away.

Workshop 16th December 2013

GAMES 1 Now to be held at Guildford on 22nd February 2014

Due to weed at Poole GAMES 1 will now be held at Guildford

There was another very good turnout of 21 enthusiasts from 5 clubs and the feedback afterwards was that it was a really excellent and informative evening workshop.
CONSTRUCTION was the subject and Roger Stollery followed on from the previous DESIGN workshop, demonstrating how the shape of designs is created with an understanding of how they are to be made. There were examples of frameless hull shapes, made merely by joining specifically shaped panels together, like the SUPABUG design Footy. From that starting point of the most basic box section hulls there were curved shapes requiring more extensive shaping using temporary frames on which to construct the outer skin, or being sculpted out of solid wood or a series of ‘bread-and-butter’ planks of wood.
The examples on show were carved plugs for the CRAZY TUBE, BOTTLE boat, YOT BOOT and ICE Footy. There were questions about how you get both halves to look the same when you are carving the wood to create shape which is ‘inside those bread-and-butter buttock lines’. This is done with ‘inside’ shaped patterns which are tested against your carved shape until it fits perfectly.
These patterns are the reverse of the section shapes that you need when you are planking a hull shape OVER those frames. There was a good example of the sections permanently in place in Charles Smith’s balsa planked barge hull. He explained the difficulty of planking the barge shape which is a simple box section in the centre transforming into beautifully curved ends. There was also a balsa planked IOM hull plug where the shape is created outside those frame sections.
After the introduction Roger moulded a Footy keel and rudder in just over half an hour to show how easy it was in that once you had a mould. It did not require very much skill to produce a beautiful shiny product. That session was over in just over half an hour which included explaining the process and answering questions as the parts were being moulded. During the moulding session the meeting was buzzing with discussions about the planked boats as well as the moulding.
In ‘Blue Peter’ style, there was a keel, rudder and ICE hull, which had been made before the meeting in moulds ready to be cracked open and 3 people had the pleasure of doing this and some of these bar on the attached picture page of the evening. Many of Roger’s moulds may be borrowed.
The meeting continued after the coffee break with continuous talking and there was a lot of learning from each other as everyone had a skill to offer.
The next Friday Evening Workshop is on Friday 26 January and will be on REPAIRS, with this including not just the mending of hulls or keels, but the finer details of keeping your rigs in tiptop condition ‘in the workshop’ to give the maximum amount of driving force.

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Report by Roger Stoller