Yard News
Edited by Steffan Meyric Hughes: +44 (0)207 349 3758 Email: steffan@classicboat.co.uk
ROWHEDGE, ESSEX
How to build a boat upright
This 16ft (4.9m) dayboat could be the last for east coast boatbuilder Fabian Bush, who has told us he is “slowing down” at 65, but not necessarily retiring altogether. “They take a long time,” Fabian explained. “About two years from commission to launch.” Hand-built, heavy 16ft clinker dayboats like this are a, built it upright – to “honour tradition” as well as to try out a new method. Fabian is partway through the finishing (in mahogany and teak), and she will carry a gaff sloop rig in cream clipper canvas, with a Torqeedo outboard in a well. Finishing touches will include a foredeck, a dark-blue painted hull, copper antifoul, a solid teak sheerplank… and plenty of shiny bronze fittings. This is roughly the 40th boat built by Fabian and, as well as maybe being be his last, it is perhaps the last ever to be built in Rowhedge.
