Well, that’s it: Friday was the last day of my one year boatbuilding course at the International Boatbuilding Training College in Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard.

The last few days were spent on fettling and making tools for clinker planking, which will be used at the College (see below), and later at home. My gripes are all ready to go, and I have made a small steam box to steam the hood (forward) ends of clinker planks.

On Thursday, we has a masterclass from Bob, our Senior Instructor, on how to ‘pay’ caulking seams with hot pitch.

Thursday is, by tradition, Thirsty Thursday. With an end of term mood in the air, we loaded up a car with two dustbins full of scrap wood and headed to the Hot Walls area of old Portsmouth, just next to the Round Tower. A few drinks at the nearby Still and West, and a bite to eat, and we took our firewood onto the shingle beach outside the Hot Walls, and had a bonfire … and some more to drink! It was a lovely way to mark the end of our time at IBTC Portsmouth.

We had a tour of the RN Museum workshop on Friday afternoon. Here, there are teams of riggers, shipwrights and conservators working on HMS Warrior, HMS Victory and the other parts of the RN museum’s collection.

Amongst many interesting pieces, the most fascinating for me was a section of Victory’s mizen mast, removed after the battle of Trafalgar.

Sadly, HMS Victory is slowly being munched away by death watch beetle. Here are a couple of photos of the results:

Victory’s rigging also needs regular maintenance and replacement.

When I spotted this mug sitting nearby a shipwright’s bench, I was reminded that have been advising patients for over thirty years – and not just patients, I might add!

In my experience, advice is rarely followed when sought, and almost never welcomed, let alone followed, when offered without request!

Clearly the shipwright has learnt this too, and has a healthy, if cynical, view on the matter.

I have not quite cast off from IBTC. In a fortnight’s time, I am going to spend two or three weeks completing the planking on the 10ft Paul Gartside dinghy that the next group of students have already lofted, set up and started to plank up … the very same dinghy that I have decided to build myself at home. I will be working with Bob Forsyth, and it’s the chance of us working together, and my having a masterclass in dinghy planking along the way, that made me decide to do this. I am looking forward to using the gripes and steam box I have made, and will let you know how it goes.

The exam week went OK – I think. I know I’ve made some errors, but overall they seemed to go OK. Between exams, we caught up on some odd jobs, and have been finishing things off in our last two weeks.

One of the group has erected a mockup of a large boat’s hull, for caulking practice.

Work on the Deck Boat is about done. Rowlocks have been fitted and all the knees have been fitted now.

I have finished my decking exercise:

My test oar has had many coats of varnish, and I have now added the leather and copper bands to both Practice and Test oar:

During this week, I have also been making Gripes in readiness for making my own clinker dinghy. They hold the new plank in place for fitting and fixing. Here are some of the wedged gripes, complete with leather protective pad:

There’s just two more days to go … ahh!

It all feels rather odd. The year has gone so quickly. But I have learned so much and dare to feel the I can now build a clinker dinghy on my own – though I am glad to have the offer of a helping hand and advice from a couple of the instructors!!

On the 14th of January, we had a two day sojourn at the Solent University, for our module on composites. Fibreglass/GRP is just the tip of the iceberg as far as composites are concerned, with differing resins and different materials, such as carbon fibre, kevlar etc. Some testing mathematics too, but it gave us an insight into an aspect of boatbuilding that is a world apart from the traditional skills we have been learning. We learnt about tank testing for initial stability and had a tour of the facilities, including their test tank, 3D printers, and the state of the art bridge and engine room simulators where, I’m ashamed to say that (in a brief period of inattention) I crashed our simulator tug on Southsea Beach! Happily, there was no real harm done.

On the 16th, we started our City & Guilds exam oar. We have all made an oar as a practice piece a few months ago, and took about two and a half weeks to complete it. This time we had just six days to do the test piece. It went really well, and we all felt a great sense of achievement, halving the time to make this second spoon oar.

On the 21st, we were given a treat: a ride on Motor Gun Boat (MGB) 81.

Motor Gun Boat (MGB) 81 was commissioned and accepted on the 11th July 1942; she first worked up at HMS Bee, the Coastal Forces base at Weymouth, and in August 1942 joined the 8th MGB Flotilla at Dartmouth.  Over the next year MGB 81 was involved in six actions.

An official order dated 26th August 1943 redesignated MBG 81 as MTB 416.  The 8th MGB Flotilla itself was also renumbered the 1st MTB Flotilla.  Although the boat was reclassified as a torpedo boat, we have no specific evidence of her ever having carried torpedoes.  However, her first recorded action as an MTB was on the 21/22 April 1944 in Lyme Bay, when three groups of E-boats were plotted in the area.  The MTBs were vectored on to the five enemy craft and engaged two at close range, and MTB 416 suffered action damage.

She was back in service for the Normandy landings and was involved from the 6th to the 30th June.  A few days after D-Day, the flotilla transferred from Dartmouth to HMS Hornet at Gosport.  Overnight on the 23/24 June 1944, MTB 416 was involved in an attack on a German convoy leaving Cherbourg.  Although MTB 416 was only backing up the operation, one of her crew was killed.

She was paid off in April 1945, after which little is known of MGB 81. However, in 1958, she was arrested by Customs officers at Shoreham whilst on a smuggling operation!

From June 2017 to November 2018 MGB 81 underwent a major structural rebuild and internal refit, and was equipped with three new engines.  This work was paid for by the Chancellor using LIBOR funds.

Our work on fitting out DB (Deck Boat) 1 continues. I have fitted the last of the ten thwart knees, and had a great time on Friday shaping the transom.

One of the exercises we have to do, if we can, is to make a deck structure, laid with planks (not teak, as far too expensive). It’s an exercise that we can work on in stages through the course. This week, I managed to get the planks cut and fitted, and the seams caulked with mastic.

This coming week, we have our City & Guilds and College Diploma exams, but I will have some time this week and the following two weeks to complete the deck exercise and any other outstanding work, such as completing the fitting out of DB1.