Sometimes I think I am in the DCA on false pretences. Living so many miles inland and being committed to preaching the Gospel in little chapels on the Welsh border every Sunday, sailing has to be mainly a dream with me; but I do occasionally build a boat.

"Puck" took me six years to build - a 12' 6" ¾-decker on traditional lines, mainly in Larch which grew on the farm I then managed. One problem with her is the time she takes to rig, and besides that she is rather heavy; so I decided to make something simpler and light enough for the car-top. That was when I opened my Dixon Kemp, 1884 Edition, and started considering George Holmes's Humber Canoe Yawls. About that time someone gave me John Leather's "Sail and Oar", and the result was that I settled for Holmes's "Ethel".

Transferring the plans from the book page to the workshop left me claiming only to have the curves 'almost' the same. That was one slight compromise. The other was the timber. Where do you obtain Willow nowadays? Taking the easier way out I went to the builder's yard where they let me sort through a big stock of door-stop battens to avoid nasty knots, and I thus managed to buy a useful supply of Spruce - springy, and almost as light as Willow.

From paper patterns I produced cardboard frames, and then rough wooden ones on which to build the boat. That was easy. More difficult were the Oak ribs. A forester and I searched several acres of felled trees before we found enough limbs of the right curve; and then reducing something 6 ins. dia. to 1" sq. was no easy task.

The battens for the skin measured 1¼ " x ⅜", and it was my intention to use them as they were for strip carvel construction. Accordingly I bought a big supply of 2" brass panel pins to be driven through into the edge every 4", while I used copper nails to fix them to the ribs. By the time I had put two strips on each side I had found my mistake. The pins bent too easily and here and there came out of the side. From then on I had to halve the battens and cut all those nails in half too, so I must have driven between 5,000 and 6,000 nails into the hull by the time it was finished.

Slowly the work progressed and when I reached the virtually flat area near the keel I finished off with boards of about 2½" wide, the seams covered on the inside with narrow battens. Every piece was glued to its neighbour with a 2-part resin glue, so I was fairly confident as to the strength and soundness of the hull.

Eventually the great day came to lift it off the frames and turn it the right way up, and the first job after that was to set about the fore and aft buoyancy compartments. These I dressed liberally with several coats of bitumen before sealing-in with decks of marine ply.

At about this stage I began rubbing down and varnishing. In the few places where a seam appeared slightly open I pressed in a mixture of glue and sawdust first. Still not completely satisfied I next laid bed sheeting over the inside and "glued" it on with successive coats of varnish.

Then came the seats. A local timber importer sells off the waste for firewood, and from my latest bundle of Miranti off-cuts I managed to find enough for the floors as well. The stern seat is fixed, but the centre one comes out in two pieces so that there would be room to lie on the floor to sleep on board.

By this time I was realising that my usual fault of making it strong had taken over again, and there was no hope of ever putting this on a car-top, so my welder-son and the rest of the family combined on a Christmas present and a lovely galvanised trailer emerged. Meanwhile, I pressed on with what remained to be done.

The oars I made were short enough to fit under the side decks, their blades resting beneath two little lockers near the bow. Onto the Oak centreboard I cast about 12 lbs. of lead and folded a sheet of lead along the bottom of the rudder. On the top of the rudder I made a yoke. This being a yawl I had to cope with the problem of a mizzen mast, and thought at first to take yoke lines to a foot bar, but saw snags, so thought again. Next I produced two copper tiller rods, but found they dug into the side decks, so they had to be scrapped. Reluctantly I began considering one of those tillers which bend around the mast, but could not relish the thought of steering with my arm crooked behind my back - when suddenly I had a brain-wave! Why not a continuous line right around the well, passing through a horizontal cheek block abaft the main mast, and guided elsewhere through eyes? This I did, and found it best to cross the lines as they passed the mizzen mast, the result being that the boat steers like a horse! You pull her round to whichever way you want to go.

I've put no shrouds on the masts. There is a forestay on the main, apart from which my larch poles seem strong enough to cope with the standing lug sails.

So after 470 hours made up of odd minutes over 2½ years, putting together £320 worth of materials, "Grayling" was ready to launch, and this we did over a grassy bank near Wroxham one lovely morning in October, 1986. She sat lightly on the water and seemed perfectly stable without the lead ballast Mr Holmes had in his. And the steering - WORKED! Why hasn't this been done before - or has it? Nowhere in all my old boat books can I find such a suggestion. I was pleasantly surprised too how close to the wind she could sail.

She's 13' 4" overall, and 5' beam, and now lives under a sheet in my drive; but perhaps next Summer instead of building I might get a little sailing on Llangorse Lake, and realise another dream.