Alas, COVID-19 has forced us to push pause on our build. Nonetheless, it’s as good a time as ever to reflect on the past few months, during which we’ve been making steady progress on the St Ayles Skiff build. After final levelling of the build frame, and ensuring that the moulds were all on straight, our members got to work sanding and gluing up the four ribs. Next, the strips of douglas fir that make up the curved ‘aprons’ or ‘inner stems’ at either end of the boat’s backbone were planed down to the correct size, and laminated together using a mould lent by Kinghorn; in the picture, we see Joel and Bill adjusting some of the 20 or so clamps necessary to hold everything in place while the glue sets.
The next step will be to mount the ribs and aprons to the build frame and glue the hog (the inner part of the keel) along the top, creating a skeleton upon which the planks will then be laid. That, however, will need to wait until we can safely reconvene.
In the meantime, we hope everyone is keeping safe and healthy.
