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Is yours an iron, steel,
aluminium or other metal boat?
Or do you work with metal boats?
Tell us about it!
Tell us all about metal boats. Do you have one? Where was it built and when? What are the advantages of the material used? What disadvantages?
Do you work with metal boats? Tell us about what you do and how you got involved in the work.
We're interested in your hints and tips too. If your interest is in the Steel
Boat, you will be pleased to hear that you have a page devoted to
your interest already! If yours is any other kind of metal boat, it's up to you
to tell us about it so that we can devote space to your specific interests too.
 In the
meantime, we'd like to take this opportunity to thank Terry and Viv of T.M.T.T.
at the Polypat Caraibes Boatyard, just next to the drawbridge on the French
(Marigot Bay) side of the Lagoon at St. Martin in the French Antilles, part of
the Caribbean chain, for letting us use
their scanner to copy more than seventy photographs loaned to us and due to be
returned as quickly as possible, when we suffered an equipment failure.
Terry, recommended by everyone in the area and beyond, is the man to see for top
quality stainless steel fabrication and aluminium work, when you're in St.
Martin. South African-born Terry and his lovely wife, Viv,
will have been in St. Martin 11 years this August; their boat was caught in hurricane Luis
when it hit St. Martin (5/9/95) and their plans had to change. We were introduced
when my appeal for help on the Cruiser's Net, that morning, was answered by
Trevor Lawrence aboard the catamaran 'Bilbo', a knight in shining armour, of
whom there is more in 'Not Just A Clever Face' - Portrait Of A Sailor - in
Sailors.
Trevor took us over to T.M.T.T. and was kind enough to do all the scanning for
us as
well, leaving us free to get acquainted with Viv. "Did you know" Viv
asked, as we chatted, "that the dialling code for St Maartin is 5995,
the same as the date of hurricane Luis? " Well, no, we hadn't realised
it until she mentioned it. Spooky, huh?
 Meet
some more South Africans - Tony, Joan and baby Jesse, just six months old
when this picture was taken in June 2000, who dropped by in their dinghy to say
farewell on their way back to their hard-chine steel boat 'Kind of Magic', which
they were about to sail southwards before the hurricane season could begin and
catch them too far north.
 The
French also favour hard chine steel designs, so there are a great many in the
Caribbean.
A couple of years back, we met Tony in Chaguaramas and acquired a re-conditioned
gearbox from him, for our starboard engine. It was going very well, and probably
still would be, but the pesky engine's head gasket decided to go, so it's temporarily
out of service again!
We met a lot of South Africans sailing the Caribbean, some of whom were absolutely charming and many of them were travelling in vessels similar to 'Kind Of
Magic', being a design which it is, apparently, possible to build relatively
easily...
We did encounter a certain amount of resentment towards their community from
local populations but not so much because of the racial history of their
country, which one might have expected.
It was much more evident that local people who rely on work from visiting yachts
were feeling the squeeze as more and more South Africans arrive in the Caribbean
each year and compete for jobs on boats; from delivery crewing to re-building
damaged hulls; willing to offer attractive price reductions on labour. Steel
boats seem to require rather a lot of maintenance, unlike a couple of
century-old iron boats we have met which look as though they'll go on forever!
Unfortunately we didn't have a camera handy for either of them!
We'd love to hear about your metal boat and how she was built -
if you have photographs, so much the better...if you're in the metalwork
business tell us all about it.
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