The Trow Cartopper.

Well I think I’ve got all the bits and piece that I need. All I’ve got to do now is organize my time. I freed up a couple of hours midday but spent nearly half that time looking for the charger for the cordless screwdriver. I eventually found it more or less where it was supposed to be, except that it was hidden by an old wetsuit which I’d stuffed on top of it when I was rummaging around looking for the cordless screwdriver in the first place. Kicked myself so hard I spilt tea down my front.

I picked up the ply and the 1 by 1 and a plank for the oars from the carpenter's and loaded it onto the van which wasn’t easy with 20 knot gusts coming out of the northwest. Looking at it I realized that this would be the only time I get the boat on top of the van.

The carpenter used a Catalan expression that I hadn’t come across before—"bolets" meaning wild mushrooms, used in a context where in English we’d say “balls”. As in “You’ve got some wild mushrooms to be building a boat.” Mind you, it might just have been an idiosyncratic thing. This guy is obviously mushroom mad like many people round here, and I’m not surprised; there are excellent mushrooms to be had by the diligent fungi hunter. The “rovellon” and the “cep” make good eating and simply fried with garlic and parsley they are well worth a morning in the woods.
The carpenter’s office has a wall of photos depicting him with various boleti, much as a fisherman has photos of his catches.

Peppers, as in red peppers is another Catalan synonym for balls, “te pebrots”—he’s got red peppers—Is said of someone courageous. So, if you ever witness a daring exploit in Catalonia you know what to say to fellow on-lookers.

Back in the workshop after I’d got my tools sorted out I whittled away at the sternpost and the mizzen step for a pleasant while.

The idea is to get my eye in with the carpentry on the smaller bits before I move on to the major cuts. I’m reading the measurements directly off the computer and what with the number of times I come back into the house to check lengths because I don’t trust what I’ve written down I think it might be worth moving the imac down to the garden shed.

Ideally I’d move into a large, warm workspace and live in there for the duration of the build and not get distracted with all these Christmas meals. I’m sure I’ll spend more time in the kitchen than working on the boat over the next few days.

At the Copy Shop

From Tennyson's The Princess:

Sweet and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea!

I read somewhere about printing cutting plans full size. It makes sense—take the plans to the copy shop on a cd and the copy shop gives you a 5m roll of paper which you align on your butted sheets of ply and fix. Then you make a small hole at each co-ordinate and mark the wood underneath, remove the paper, join the dots and you’ve avoided all the fiddly measuring of x and y. It sounded like a good idea so I took a cd along to the shop and asked for a quote mentally totting up what I could spend, about 40€ seemed reasonable. Well the chappy did some adding up, asked me what sort of paper I wanted; the lightest I said, then he was back to the computer screen and after a while looked up with a big smile on his face and exclaimed 400€.

Blimy, this could be an expensive boat if I wanted it to be. The reason for the exorbitant pricing was that the copier only takes a certain type of photographic paper. Then why did he ask what sort of paper I wanted? Well there was a more expensive, better quality one if I wanted it. The other alternative was to try copy shops 100km away in Barcelona.

Toying with the idea of a trip to the city I realised that measuring out the co-ordinates was something I was quite looking forward to, something to be painstaking about. I was relieved that the temptation to go down the paper route had been ruled out. I’m not convinced it would have worked either; imagine tussling with an unwieldy bolt of paper, it catching the wind, snagging and ripping or getting wet, more trouble than it’s worth.

I might just have had a lucky escape from an expensive cock-up.

And so the day ended.

Hello

Welcome to The Invisible Workshop. For the present a communal garden in Spain.

The idea is to document the construction of Gavin Atkin’s Light Trow. The trials, tantrums and hopefully triumphs of a prototype boat build.

I don’t consider myself particularly well qualified for the work ahead but trust that rudimentary carpentry skills and a passion to be on the briny will see me through.

The project started over the summer, in my mind at least, after sailing to Ibiza on Capitaine Ulysse, a 12 metre aluminium drop-keel cutter. I’ve been sitting on a boating dream for about a decade and after the three day cruise the no boat situation became untenable.

Up until now I’ve satisfied this chronic case of sea fever by moving from the city to a house by the sea, windsurfing when its windy, body-boarding or surfing when it’s wavy, pottering in an inflatable dinghy or swimming when its calm. Or, more recently, simply standing on the beach gazing at the h2o.

The Light Trow will take me over the horizon on summer days with a light sea breeze, to sail, to muse on the blue dome above me and the blue disc around me. (I’ll try not to get too carried away here.) Hopefully I’ll do all this in style for the Light Trow is a very stylish craft. A gentleman’s day-sailor. Based on the Fleet Trow, a heavily built work boat mainly rowed, Gav's version is lighter and carries a small yawl rig which only adds to her traditional looks. From her nearly plumb bow and gentle sheer to the reverse raked transom and sprit lugsails on unstayed masts she breathes style and class. At least on paper. I hope all these fine qualities will survive the machinations of the Invisible Workshop.

Of all the plans I’ve looked at she seems to come closest to my personal brief. It’s taken me the last ten years to realize that a small, simply built craft is what I need. Not the huge boats that I used to dream of that all came with the drawback of having to become a millionaire first.

For the moment I have a large hole in my pocket and 8 litres of epoxy under my bed. I started on the stem about a month ago but stopped after sawing my hand instead of the wood. The stem, whose wonky angles needed rectifying, has since disappeared, no doubt swept up and thrown out, confused with the debris of domestic life.

Here are plans for Gav’s Light Trow and the links to his site. www.intheboatshed.net

And here is a photo from the beach; a beautiful green wave rears out of a brown, grey sea.