(Building a trimaran in a room)

Upstairs were millions of Chinese playing pop music. In this room, with me and a four foot Chinese lantern and very little else, was an American; he happened to be very keen on trimarans, having sailed one out of ‘Frisco. Studying the problem, they seemed ideal for idle people, and you get quite a lot of boat for your money. Having sold me on the idea of a trimaran, he then found a job in the north of England and disappeared. His place was taken by an artist and his girlfriend. We drew little lines on the floor to mark living, painting, and boatbuilding spaces. I drew a nice small space for boatbuilding, so as not to get her too worried at first. Plans emerged onto a big sheet of paper. Jerry used the plans for painting. The wood was calculated and ordered. It arrived when I was out. Jerry’s comment: “It was difficult!” However, it all stacked against the wall except the mast, which you tripped over as you came through the door.

The prologue started with me laying the plywood out on the floor to draw the shapes of the sides and bottom of the hull. Round one started in fine style with me sawing the ply into the correct shapes (sawing plywood is very noisy and destructive to the nerves). Jennifer realised that for the next few months she was going to live in an atmosphere largely composed of dust: the roof having stopped vibrating, I continued. The next thing to crowd out the pad was an improvised press for making scarf joints in sheets of plywood. This consisted of great baulks of timber and Spanish windlasses. Somewhat to my surprise it worked, except in that a combination of newspaper packing and too much glue has meant that my boat is indelibly printed with small portions of last winter’s news. This apparatus was by now overflowing my little lines in no mean fashion.

The next stage was the planing down of the two chine pieces (the flat-bottomed hull had no main keel). Big curly shavings everywhere — in Jerry’s beard.

Started drilling holes. Continued drilling holes. Blisters. All the hull is glued and screwed. Looking at the craft now, I think this was unnecessarily strong, but it gives a feeling of confidence to know that the boat will break up before it falls apart. It also gives beautiful blisters from the drilling and screwing. Then you get Aerolite hardener in the burst blisters.

I imported an outside friend to help with the fitting and gluing of the hull pieces, feeling a certain anti-boat emotion in the domestic air. Now the boat really started looking like a boat. I varnished the hull inside before fitting the deck. This meant that breathing in the room was practically impossible for a week or so, as the polyurethane varnish I was using seemed to have some sort of acetone base.

Now, because of small errors here and there, the gunwale of the boat had turned out to have a slightly eccentric shape. My theory was that if you make the deck the theoretical shape and push the hull around to fit it — Bingo! a symmetrical boat. This involved making a complete deck, together with stringers and two moulded cockpits, and then placing it on the hull shell. The beautiful woodworking at the Boat Show (on some stands) inspired me to try to incorporate oval moulded cockpits. The strips of plywood were soaked in the bath, which they turned brown. I’m sure the colour shouldn’t run out of mahogany like that. Nails were then driven into the parquet, which was a shame really, and the strips intertwined, so that they would dry in approximately the right shape. The strips were then glued and clamped together in a very rough mould, made slightly small to allow for the strips straightening a bit when they were removed. They did not straighten in the slightest. Force, curses, willpower and ignorance. They straightened. The deck was made; fitted; the hull was pushed into shape underneath it, and “Ye Gods!” — a symmetrical boat.

Eventually came the great day, when the boat and I were to be loaded onto my sister’s van and travel off to Scotland. Four incredibly optimistic people set forth to lower an eighteen foot boat from a window twenty feet up. Spiky railings round the basement. Simplest and most hazardous plan chosen. One rope to either side of boat. One rope to stern. One person on each rope. Push boat slowly out of window with a horizontal direction maintained by the person on the stern. When the boat is far enough out of the window for the stern to miss the top, the man on the stern rope slowly lets the stern rise and the bow drop. The people on the side ropes slowly lower away, and the boat goes into a steep dive, the bow being duly caught by a person standing in the street when it comes within reach. Stern is then lowered. Any readers with an eye for geometry will visualise a catch. Eighteen foot boat, five foot window: means thirteen feet outside, five feet inside. Question: will the boat clear the window before the person hanging on to the stern is dashed against the ceiling? Answer, to the surprise of myself on the stern, is yes!

In a few minutes the boat was on top of the van, and a great clutter of outriggers and crosspieces, spars and spare wood on top of the boat. Very small van; but the van stayed underneath and the boat stayed on top, and the next night, in fog and complete ignorance, I was driving over the ‘Rest and be Thankful’ pass, L-plates and all.