Adrian Morgan (March 2010)

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EastCoastChris

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What does this column have in store? Just to warn you, in 2010 it will be stepping up it's campaign against epoxy/ply clinker.
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Just what we need in sailing a campaign for greater elitism.

Might I suggest to Adrian that his campaign should be expanded? The use of non-traditional "power tools" using that new fangled electricity and "varnishes" devised with the use of "chemistry" should also be barred from the pantheon of "wooden" boats. Clearly (pun intended), "varnish" should be varnish. Or am I missing the point that this is a finely drawn line of discrimination?

Adrian, like anyone else, is entitled to his opinion, he is also fortunate in having a magazine column in which to promote his views. To dismiss, out of hand, methods of construction that have made boatbuilding accessible to so many might be justifiable from his perspective as a craftsman, but belittles generations of amateur boat builders. Worse though, Adrian considers this issue worthy of a campaign, a campaign whose only purpose is to alienate those who fail meet with his own subjective ideals.

I own a beautiful plywood boat, designed by Maurice Griffiths and built by a cabinet maker in his spare time. He could not afford his dream boat. I look forward to being a second class citizen because I am delighted with my small piece of history.

Chris
 
Eh? Not having read the article, but it sounds loony. Many have built good and pretty boats with epoxy/ply. Myself included. A recent article in Watercraft by Jack Chipendale(sp) sugested that classic plank on frame was the least eco style of construction, due to the waste. Composite, be it ply or cold moulding, was a far more sustainable method of building. I know the arguments for all the methods, but a campaign against epoxy/ply??
A
 
I wonder if some of you chaps may be suffering some degree of sense of humour failure. I have yet to read the column in question but Adrian often writes with tongue firmly in cheek, he certainly likes to provoke his readers a bit, and this sounds pretty typical in those respects.
 
KenMcCulloch said:
I have yet to read the column in question but Adrian often writes with tongue firmly in cheek, he certainly likes to provoke his readers a bit, and this sounds pretty typical in those respects.
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Well I'd be pleased to admit my chain was well and truly yanked if that's the case :D

Passing 40 has proved more traumatic than I anticipated :o

Chris
 
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Romeo said:
Mr Morgan has of course been very busy recently. Working on a ply / epoxy community boat build. And very lovely she looks too! The evidence can be found here: http://ullcoastrow.wordpress.com/our-build/turnover/#comment-26
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She does indeed look very pretty. Adrian mentions these boats in his column...
...definitely not a wooden boat
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He does look slightly startled and perhaps a little guilty in that first photo :)

27-02-10-006.jpg


I have that increasingly sinking feeling that I owe Mr Morgan an apology. I may well have missed the point and in the process, ironically, demonstrated myself to be a fine example of a plank.

Here's hoping Adrian can save me my embarrassment by coming out with a thoroughly vociferous diatribe against all things ply/epoxy.

Chris
 
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Epoxy/clinker

Epoxy and plywood make good boats - Mirror, Enterprise, Gull, GP 14, Wayfarers, Waarschips etc. I have said that many times. My principal beef is with clinker/ply/epoxy, which seems to negate many of the benefits of a method perfected by the vikings. And all that mixing of epoxy mayonnaise, allergies, intolerance of cold and the interminable scraping of hardened epoxy from lands (that's me caught in the act with the hot air gun in the photo); the difficulty of seamless repair; plywood's lack of life. It is inert, cold, characterless. It looks odd under varnish... I could go on, but have pretty much exhausted my reasons why I dislike the method. It's a personal thing.

Let's not turn our backs on a boat building method that is so relevant to today's concern for the environment, so modern. Plywood is a throwback to a more wasteful age. I have a bin full of offcuts I can't burn or recycle. So let's have a debate. My point is simply this: please, please have a go at building a clinker boat in solid timber with shiny rivets and steamed timbers before you die. It is so satisfying and the result can be breath taking. Thousands of amateurs built beautiful clinker boats in the old days - the old magazines are full of examples. It is not as difficult as the epoxy/ply/clinker lobby would have us believe. I believe it's easier, safer, certainly far, far cheaper and the result is a joy forever (and almost infinitely repairable if damaged).

Even the designer of the skiff building in my shed told me he would love to see one built in solid timber. It would be interesting to compare the two for cost, ease of building, weight, beauty.

Incidentally I once shared a boat show stand with Maurice Griffiths and asked him about why he used plywood. "That's all we had after the war," he said. "Awful stuff. I had to design them that way with slab sides. Much rather design round bilges." Then, just when I thought he was a real plank-on-frame traditionalist he told me how lucky we were now to have glassfibre to make boats from.
 
adrianmorgan said:
So let's have a debate. My point is simply this: please, please have a go at building a clinker boat in solid timber with shiny rivets and steamed timbers before you die.
...
Incidentally I once shared a boat show stand with Maurice Griffiths and asked him about why he used plywood. "That's all we had after the war,"
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Hi Adrian,

Thanks for the reply and your PM.

I'm sold for all the reasons you mention on solid timber clinker construction. I can fully appreciate the asthetics of working with solid timber and copper rivits over sheet materials and glue. I'd love to have a go, I really would, and if I ever have the time and the space I will!

As I said privately, I like things to be what they are. What got me leaping on my soap box was the suggestion that, irrespective of their relative merits, epoxy/ply boats weren't "wooden". Now that is a matter of semantics. There is no doubt that epoxy/ply is not traditional, it's clearly a composite method of construction. However, the primary materal is still the wood not the glue that binds it. The frames and structure all hold more in common with traditional methods than with contemporary GRP boats.

What do we mean by "wooden"? Why did I get so hot under the collar? Clearly it must mean different things to different people. I can see where you are coming from and I even agree with a lot of what you say. But I took your comments to mean that epoxy/ply boats weren't to be considered as part of the "wooden", "traditional" or "classic" stable. My boat is definitely mostly wood, much of her construction in terms of knees and stringers and frames is traditional. Is she a classic? I think so she's a good example of her type, from a time now past, with a little bit of history attached to her. She may be the Morris (Maurice? ;)) Marina of Classic Boats, but I still love her.

It's not that one way is better, but that each has it's place.

I've not built a boat. If I was about to embark on building one I'd want a design that was true to itself. If I chose epoxy/ply, I'd want it to be epoxy/ply and proud, not masquerading and something it wasn't.

Perhaps your campaign should be to encourage boats to be true to their origins, not faux-reproductions? Clinker for clinker and hard chines for ply?

Chris
 
Quote:
What does this column have in store? Just to warn you, in 2010 it will be stepping up it's campaign against epoxy/ply clinker.

What a complete nob head .And yes I have built boats . Adrian can you see the sun yet.:D
 
"Perhaps your campaign should be to encourage boats to be true to their origins, not faux-reproductions? Clinker for clinker and hard chines for ply?"

Yes, Chris. I think you have an excellent point. "To thine own self be true, and all that". No masquerading.

Adrian (Nobhead)
 
Let me try to raise the tone a little!

There are, I think, two good reasons for building an epoxy and plywood lapstrake boat:

1. The boat will be kept out of the water ashore, in weather conditions that would not suit an orthodox clinker boat.

2. The boat will be kept out of the water afloat (i.e. the boat is a tender to be kept on deck aboard a bigger boat) The point in this case being both drying out in the sun and weight.

I built a ply/clinker boat for reason (2) and chose ply/clinker not hard chine because the boat that the tender belongs to was built in the Thirties.

After nearly two decades I can summarise the experience by saying that I have had to make a few "significant" repairs - there are two sizeable patches where the ply rotted locally, invisible under the antifouling paint, following a crack in the epoxy encapsulation, and there are three places where serious crazing of the outer veneer on the inside of the boat, consequent no doubt on a collision, required reinforcement. There are three places where a hole was mechanically punched through the bottom of the boat by a stake or similar. Last year I was thinking of a gallon of paraffin but was inspired to strip the boat and re-coat entirely with epoxy once more, except that I have subsituted Coelan on the real wood bits and on the topsides.

For much of this period, I also owned a larch clinker pulling boat built for the RNLI at the IBBTC (i.e. to a very high standard). This boat is about the same age; I sold her a bit ago for a reasonable price to someone who very much wanted her. She did not exhibit any of the same symptoms, and was kept afloat on a drying mooring or under a cover ashore in the winter.

My own conclusion is that for general use if kept afloat one is better off with "real clinker" but there are suitable times and places for using ply / epoxy clinker.
 
adrianmorgan said:
It would be interesting to compare the two for cost, ease of building, weight, beauty.
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I agree it would be very interesting. There are certainly issues with plywood and rot. For someone building a new boat, if there's little difference in the costs and ease of building then solid timber has a definite advantage in longevity.

Perhaps the campaign should be to be against the assertion that building in plywood is first choice for ease and economy for the amateur builder?

Anyway, looking at my original post I think I do owe Adrian an apology. I accused him of discrimination and wanting to intentionally alienate people amongst other things. So Adrian, I wholeheartedly apologise, I think I have a much better idea of what you meant now and it wasn't what I accused you of, sorry.

Chris
 
adrianmorgan said:
"Perhaps your campaign should be to encourage boats to be true to their origins, not faux-reproductions? Clinker for clinker and hard chines for ply?"

Yes, Chris. I think you have an excellent point. "To thine own self be true, and all that". No masquerading.

Adrian (Nobhead)
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I totall disagree. For every 100 boats there will be one beauty.If people have fun building whatevever they want let them go ahead even if it is a ****ter. I thought the ocean was a playground.You pays ya money and you have a choice . I like to think for myself thanks :).
 
No need to apologise

Chris

Really no need to apologise. It's a great debate and long overdue. I am just trying to redress the balance somewhat towards an old technique, more relevant than ever today, that has been hijacked somewhat, and persuade a few people to rivet a few planks of timber together rather than reach automatically for the epoxy and plywood in fear that traditional clinker is too scary.

Some things are much easier; some a little harder, but overall they balance out. The debate about longevity, ease of building, cost, weight, health and safety, repairability, sustainability etc is intriguing. However, when you gaze on a freshly-oiled newly-built clinker boat, larch planked and timbered out in steamed oak, rows of shiny copper rivets all in a row, and smell the aroma from the Varnol, all this is forgotten, for it is a wondrous thing indeed...

Adrian
 
adrianmorgan said:
persuade a few people to rivet a few planks of timber together rather than reach automatically for the epoxy and plywood in fear that traditional clinker is too scary.
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I think that would be a fantastic result, the debate however is certainly a complex one. I think the longevity of solid timber is a great plus. There almost certainly isn't a 'right' answer, another good reason to encourage people to consider their choices rather than assume plywood is the best amateur option.

That said, I suspect whether it's a shelf that doesn't fall off the wall or a freshly built clinker boat with perfect rivets, when standing back to admire one's handiwork we all feel that glow of pride in our achievement.

Returning to my original gripe, in the column you express the view that if there is to be a wooden boat revival, it must be based on traditional methods. For me the important thing in a "wooden boat revival" is the boatbuilding: the return to small scale individual boats for those who don't, for whatever reason, feel that a production yacht is for them. Wood, whether ply composite or solid timber, is perhaps the most accessible material for the individual builder. I hope I understand much better your point of view, but I still struggle with the premise that the best approach is to distinguish epoxy/ply from traditional methods. Would it not be better to advance on every front available against the belief that boat's are things that must only be bought?

Chris
 
To drift the thread a little, anybody aware of an article on rebuilding epoxy/ply boats? I built a Wooden Boat 7' 7" Nutshell in 1988-90, and the three planks each side (cheapish marine ply) have gone rotten. I've bought two sheets of Robbins Super Elite Marine ply (or what ever it's called, but the most expensive they do), have dug out the ladder & templates I originally built it on, and am about to take it apart. I'll need to unglue the lands which have woven tape in, release the planks from the transoms/bottom/laminated frame etc.
Can't seem to find too much advice on taking apart and rebuilding such boats.

IanC
 
Ian,

Adrian may wish to put his fingers in his ears and hum briefly...

I suspect a heatgun, a strong scraper and lots of patience will be your best tools.

You might find some of the information on the West website useful if you've not already seen it.

Chris
 
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