Following his self-imposed challenge to build a clinker dinghy for his young daughter, Phoebe, Jonathan Gornall has set himself up with tools, a shed, wood and plenty of good advice. Now he must make a start.
10 FEBRUARY 2017 So this is it. Day Zero. Crunch time – the point to which all the fine talk and day-dreaming about building a traditional wooden boat has been leading, the money-where-mouth-is moment, when romantic notion must strap on its spikes and prepare to leap the hurdle of reality.
In my hands I am finally holding a heavy chunk of rough-sawn oak about 800mm long, 150mm wide and 80mm thick. The very weight of it, the texture, the smell – even the taste of it, somehow, borne on the air – signal to my five senses and, perhaps, a sixth, that I am poised on a threshold. A tree that has grown
