CRAFTSMANSHIP
YARD VISIT: JOHN MCSHEA
MIND OVER MATTER Boatbuilder John McShea is finding cleverer ways to do things, from laser-guiding fastening positions to multi-purpose knees WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS NIC COMPTON
I
t’s not often you walk into a boatbuilding workshop in rural
with ease while it was being worked on – both now and, in the future,
England and find yourself confronted by an art installation. Yet
for maintenance. As John wrote on social media: “There was a time
that was how it seemed when I visited boatbuilder John McShea
when this [turning a boat] would have taken around four people, a
at his workshop near Kingsbridge in Devon. At first sight, I
whole bunch of matresses and a lot of grunt. Now I’m weak and old, I’m
assumed that the fairy lights attached over the moulds of the new
having to use my brain a little more.” (Not that he’s either weak or old.)
wooden launch he was building were a leftover from a birthday
In a similar vein, the keel was fitted with a 1/2in (12mm) stainless
celebration (after all, he does have two young daughters). But then
steel shoe, with two eyebolts running through the keel and tapped
John turned off the main overhead lights so all that was left was a
into the shoe to act as lifting hooks, so the boat can be hung from
series of parallel red lines shining over the keel and ribbands from
davits at the owner’s home overlooking the Kingsbridge estuary.
what turned out to be laser lights carefully spaced out on a copper
Even before the first plank had been fitted, then, the new boat had
bar.
all the makings of a sophisticated, carefully thought-through piece
“We use those for lining up the fastenings, to make sure they are evenly spaced,” he explained. “We had to make special fittings to fit
of work. Whisper, as the new boat is called, is only the third boat John has
the lights on the track, but we’ll save time on measuring as well as
built from scratch. His first was the 18ft 6in (5.6m) Tempest, a motor
increasing accuracy.”
launch designed by Ian Howlett for Tristan Stone of Stones Timber
And the innovations don’t stop there. When I visited Frogmore
and Stones Boatyard fame. She was followed by the 19ft 6in (5.9m)
Boatyard, the launch’s centerline had been assembled and the first
Tenacity, which John designed himself and started building on spec,
plank was just being fitted. Where most boatbuilders would fit a
before a buyer turned up and paid for the boat to be completed. The
socking great oak knee between the keel and the transom, John had
finished boat had a more traditional shape than the Howlett design,
fashioned a ‘three-in-one’ stainless steel knee with a tube running
with wineglass stern sections rather than Tempest’s flatter run.
down through it for the rudder stock and a rounded lifting nut
For the new boat, John took his lines for Tenacity and pumped
welded onto the aft face. True to his wooden boat roots, he then
them into a CAD program. It so happened that he had just cut the
sandwiched the metal knee between two pieces of oak to give it a
end of his thumb off on a bandsaw and, in the resulting month off
more traditional appearance.
work, decided to “do something I’d never done before” and learn to
With the knee in place, the lifting nut emerged through a
use CAD. The result is a slightly leaner boat – John reduced the
specially-cut hole in the transom and was matched by another nut on
beam from 8ft 2in (2.5m) to 7ft 6in (2.3m) – with a finer bow, which
a stainless steel plate at the bow, allowing the whole boat to be spun
John hopes will build on his previous design. Elsewhere in the yard, John and his team (boatbuilder Jim Day and apprentice Jake Raine) were restoring a 112-year old launch called Diane, built by Brooke & Co in Lowestoft. Their main task was replacing the keel, which involved drilling a 6ft (1.8m) hole for the propeller shaft, drilling 3ft from one side, then 3ft from the other – much to John’s delight, the holes met perfectly. John has also been helping with the restoration of the 1896 gaff cutter Moonraker of Fowey, rebuilding the hatches and making new spars. Moonraker (ex-Lily) was sailed extensively in the Caribbean by the former GP Peter Pye who wrote a celebrated series of books about his adventures. But it’s not all about boats. John is married to artist Naomi Vincent (you might remember her floating sculpture at the Beale Park boat show a good few years ago) and produces his own line of organically-shaped (mostly wooden) sculptures. When I visited, a pair of wooden forks which I took to be the wishbones for a small
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Above: Jim Day prepares the first plank
windsurfer on closer inspection turned out to be a sculpture in
for the new boat; the three-in-one knee
progress. Renaissance man indeed.
CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2021
