Always had an interest in this, starting with a plan to build a small boat (aged 9) from hardboard!  Thankfully my Uncle Albert talked me out of that one..

I’ve built fibreglass canoes (thanks to a 1970’s documentary by Valley Canoe Products in Nottingham), ocean going pleasure boats (while working at Birchwood Boats Ltd), and various types of stitch and glue plywood boats.

Here’s the list:

• 6ft Hardboard pram, 1966 – plans abandoned!
• 12ft Fibreglass pram, 1971, never went to sea.
• 16ft Outrigger sailing canoe, 1980  – Papua New Guinea, fast sailer.
•  variety of GRP canoes sold under the “brand” Aspen Boat Company with my University friend Toby Ellis, 1981, Nottingham.
• 14ft sailing catamaran, 1983 – Honduras.  Excellent whether rowed or sailed
• 28ft Outrigger catamaran “My Boat”, 1988 – Papua New Guinea, something of a party boat.
• 17ft Hunky Dory boats for the National Youth Development Fund (NYDF), 1988 – built as a teaching exercise under the kind permission of the designer John Gifford. My students later set up their own NYDF-support business to build and repair small fishing dories.
•  15ft FC Oxford rowing dory, 2015.  This boat is my own design for a safe and fast surf launched row boat.  Used on the river Hull and off the Holderness coast for sea angling with my good friend Bill Lart.