Henry

Henry is a friendly gentleman, with a chuckling laugh and a monocle. Or a wild and blood-thirsty pirate, like Henry Morgan. Or a round belly, or a plump plum.

An apprentice masterpiece, this delicious little dinghy was made as tender to Mike Burns’ Albert Strange yawl ‘Sheila’ to celebrate her 100th anniversary. 

Now some years later he does need a bit of attention, and planned changes are to replace the transom, put on gunwales and covering board, make the foredeck in teak similar to what willow will have and put a rig on him. The transom, gunwales and thwarts will be varnished, the planking painted ivory white and the floorboards blood red. Yum Yum.

Willow

 
Previously known as Seedy, this scruffy looking clinker-built launch is the first of the boats to be renovated. Lots of things are rotten and need replacing, including the transom, gunwales, inwales, sheerstrakes and stringers. A new foredeck of iroko veneers laid in a bed of graphite-coloured epoxy is also planned, along with a small afterdeck and enginebox top to match.

‘Willow’ came to Roland as a name, in a flash of William Morris, when biking back from Waldringfield to Cromarty by full moon.  Green and cream she will be, with her name carved Arts and Crafts style on the aft deck beam…

Beside the Deben Cruising Club and the model boat pond, willows grow.

Timber cockle shells
Sprout man-trees of waving wood and wire.
Old Willow bends at the water’s edge
Laughing in whispers.

Cromarty

Cromarty
Built in 1898 to carry eels from Holland to London, this old lady sits smiling on the Woodbridge mud, not far from the historic Tidemill. A comfortable and appealing home. Although she seems to be in retirement now, one can never be entirely sure as lurking beneath the cockpit floor is a 150 HP of DAF diesel engine.
In theory she could be off anywhere after getting through the maze of moorings that lie between her and escape…

Serenus

The East Coast’s most beautiful boat. This 34 year old lady, originally a bermudan ketch, had an image revamp in the ’90s and now dances the Themes Estuary as a Gaff Cutter. She lives at Waldringfield on the River Deben. She is closely pursued by the 7′ 6″ pram dinghy “Cashew”, who hangs in davits at her stern, and also the inflatable “Ripper” who slouches at her side.

At Eversons Boatyard

The place: Woodbridge, Suffolk, England. A picturesque river pranked with a myriad masts and tinkling with tapping halyards. Beside which stand a collection of tall weatherboarded sheds. Eversons Boatyard.

In the gathering dusk of a Sunday evening in August, two pairs of feet crunch on the loose gravel in the yard that can be glimpsed behind the buildings.  Monstrous shapes, some enveloped in rustling tarpaulins, loom out of the gloom. The owners of the two pairs of feet halt beside one of these.

“Here she is,” says the shorter of the two figures. It’s hard to see the reaction of the other. Over the gentle evening zephyrs an acute listener may have heard a sound possibly like a faint gasp.

The taller of the two walks slowly, with reverence, towards a tarpaulin covered monster. She (which we now infer from her profile) reaches out a tentative hand and touches the side of the shape before her. 

“My… Boat!” we hear in a breathless whisper.