Small Boat Voyages

Time to give the boat a new name. Decided since the model is called Sea Otter that Tarka would be most appropriate. One of the original old name plates was on but the other was badly rotted so this was replaced with a new piece of birch plywood made to the exact dimensions. I hand Read more

When I started to get into sailing I was fascinated by the language, being someone who has spent his career in computing, coding languages are the thing that holds everything together and makes it work. But it’s the programmer that makes sense of it to mould it into something useful. Boats are the same in Read more

After working nearly every weekend on the new boat since Christmas and remembering I still have a family, at least for the time being, I decided to take a weekend off so we packed up the car and came here to Bridlington to see the local traditional fishing boats, Cobbles, go out to sea and Read more

Restoration is probably too stronger a word for this process. It’s a general clean up and repaint. No structural work necessary. But the overall appearance is improving vastly. I feel reassured about the oil finish on the topsides. This little boat has bucketloads of charm than seems to come shining through more and more each Read more

Mulling the future of this boat I was facing a choice. Should I varnish, epoxy then varnish, or oil. Conscious that a great deal of dust had been created and more to come I wondered whether I could acheive the same level of finish that this boat originally had. Varnish might look nice when first Read more

The brightwork was all solid but the top layer of protective varnish looked patchy, a lot of areas were scabby and some parts was peeling with large flakes coming away easily. The coating was tough having been originally infused with thin epoxy and then coated in thick epoxy and finally varnish. The varnish is there Read more