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SPRING IN YOUR STEPINSIDE: 24-PAGE GUIDE TO CENTRAL AND SOUTH LAKES

HUNTER DAVIESSTUART MACONIEJACKIE MOFFATDAVE MYERS

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SPRING IN YOUR STEPINSIDE: 24-PAGE GUIDE TO CENTRAL AND SOUTH LAKES

cover lambs.qxp 12/03/2010 16:38 Page 1

PROFILE: STEVE BERESFORD

Steve Beresford with the 14ft National Redwing,a traditional clinker boat which he has built

in his workshop near Cockermouth

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April 2010 CCUUMMBBRRIIAA LLIIFFEE 49

In a light-filled building which oncehoused prisoners of war at Moota, nearCockermouth, boat builder Steve

Beresford is preparing two craft for the RYAVolvo Dinghy Show in London’s AlexandraPalace in March.

There’s a pleasant scent of varnish and thecurves and finely planed surfaces of theupturned hulls are graceful and tactile,demanding to be stroked.

The 14ft National Redwing and 12ftTideway are both traditional clinker boats,their hulls built with overlapping planks ofwood in a technique used successfully by theVikings and developed centuries earlier.

Steve, 44, a chartered mechanical engineerwith more than 20 years’ experience inmanufacturing, started his Good Wood BoatCompany 18 months ago after graduatingwith distinction from the InternationalBoatbuilding Training College in Lowestoft.Qualified in clinker and carvel construction(in carvel, the planks abut rather thanoverlap), he builds wooden boats tocommission and also does restorations andrepairs. He runs the business with his wifeChristine and they live in Cockermouth with their children Matthew, 14, Daniel, 11and Katie, 8.

Steve finished building his first boat, theRedwing, last July and it raced in its classchampionships in the Isles of Scilly thefollowing month. When I meet him he is fine-tuning and varnishing the Redwing andfinishing off the Tideway, which has not yethad its first outing.

Dinghy owners are understandably loyalto their class, Redwing afficionados valuingthe relative speed and lightness of the dinghyand its durability and Tideway enthusiasts

four or five traditional classes to the modern sailor.

He says he has chosen boats which arehard to build to start out with – the Redwingis notoriously difficult because it has arockered hull. “This is partly so I candemonstrate what I am able to do. They also look beautiful in the water and have an eye-catching design and they’re undisputedclassics.”

The Redwing was designed by the famousUffa Fox for Looe Sailing Club in 1938 andSteve’s is the first to be built in wood for 10 years.

His Tideway is the first to be built in woodfor seven years and, before he received thecommission, members of the class examinedhis work on the Redwing. Subsequently, toSteve’s delight, a member who’d beenapprenticed in the Sixties to LH Walker ofLeigh-on-Sea, which designed the Tideway in1954, came up to help him.

Working closely with the classconcerned, it takes Steve sixmonths to build a dinghy from

drawings to show-finish, though subsequentbuilds will be faster if the templating hasalready been done.

In the case of the Tideway the processbegan with the class associationcommissioning a naval architect andproviding Steve with a lines plan. For theRedwing, the original Uffa Fox lines plan andconstruction drawings were available.Alternatively, Steve could measure a best inclass boat and draw the lines plan himself.

Once he has a lines plan, Steve produceslofting – a full-sized drawing of the boat on aboard on the floor – and creates MDF

Steve Beresford left manufacturing to start his own business making wooden boats.Mary Ingham visits his workshop near Cockermouth to hear how the mechanical

engineer embarked on a new career crafting craft Photography by Phil Rigby

BUILDING ONTRADITION

➨

A block plane used by Steve

appreciating the boat’s classic ‘Swallows andAmazons’ design. But the boats are proving abig draw to non-sailors too.

“Even when people are not interested inboats, most can appreciate the beauty ofwooden boats,” says Steve. “They aresomething else – their shape and history,everything works so well together.”

The Tideway class has now licensed Steveexclusively as their builder of wooden boats.He has started work on a second Tidewayand hopes that in a few years’ time he willhave a stand at Alexandra Palace bringing

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50 CCUUMMBBRRIIAA LLIIFFEE April 2010

templates which he builds the boat around.Some of the templates are set up on a jig andthe planks bent around them.

The Tideway’s backbone, keel and stemare made in oak and the planking andwooden components used to fit out the shellare made from mahogany. The fittings such asthe oar crutches are in corrosion-resistantsilicon bronze. The copper rivets, which holdtogether the planks and the timbers givingstrength across the boat, are all hand-fastened– more than 1,800 were used on theRedwing, says Steve.

“It’s a process which has worked forhundreds of years and which relies on a highdegree of craftsmanship. One of the things Ienjoy about clinker boats is that the planksoverlap but come in flush forward and aft – atthe stem and the transom.”

Steve buys wood from a number ofsuppliers and has a Forest StewardshipCouncil certification recognising hiscommitment tosustainable and ethicalsources; he thinks he’sthe first boat builder inthe UK to gain thiscertification whichdepends on rigorousprocedures andinspections.

The wood grain hasto run in the rightdirection for eachcomponent so part ofthe boat builder’s skill isto select the most suitable log in the first placethen select the best boards for the differentparts. “The plank has to be durable in waterand have the right mechanical properties,”says Steve. “It has to be able to be bent withsteam, be strong enough for a particularcomponent and look right.

“Both these boats are raced so what’sfinally produced has to be a fair boat,consistent with the racing rules, so thateveryone is competing on an even footing.Consistency is really important which is whyI’m in this market. What appeals to me is theblend of engineering – developing the boatfrom drawings – and the hand-skills andcraftsmanship.”

In the big-scale engineering projects he waspreviously involved in, it was very rare tohave a finger in every pie. Now, says Steve, it’sall up to him; Christine, who does theadministration; and a number of friends whohelp out because they love the way the boatslook and share the Beresfords’ respect fortraditional skills and sustainability.

Steve was brought up at Cottingham,near Hull. His father, a teacher, washopeless at practical tasks, says Steve. “I

was the family DIY man and I loved makingthings. It was Lego and Airfix at first andlater I rebuilt motorbikes and restored classiccars.”

He gained a mechanical engineering

degree at the University of Bradford on asandwich course during which he worked in alead smelting plant in Australia and in aSheffield steel works. He took a year out towork for a church missionary society whichflew Cessnas in East Africa, maintaining alltheir vehicles except the aircraft and learningto improvise.

After he and Christine married, Steveworked as a professional engineer in the foodand chemical industries. The couple moved toCumbria when Steve gained a job at Albright& Wilson’s Marchon plant at Whitehaven.After Rhodia had taken over Albright &Wilson in 1999, he travelled all over Europeon manufacturing improvement projects thenin 2002, tiring of the travel, he moved toSellafield to do similar work.

“I’d always talked about doing somethingmore craft-based mid-career,” says Steve,who still does a small amount of professionalwork in industry. He’d also always enjoyed

outdoor activities suchas walking, fell running,and open canoeing andhe subsequently learnedto sail on Derwentwaterafter Christinesuggested they take acourse to celebrate awedding anniversary.

When he visitedWindermere SteamboatMuseum, he was soimpressed with theexquisite craftsmanship

and geometry that he started researchingtraditional boats, found out about theLowestoft course in traditional wooden boatbuilding, left his full-time job at Sellafield andenrolled.

The course, at a working boat yard ratherthan a conventional college, included threemonths’ joinery practice to become skilledenough to work on boats then a year learningall the skills from clinker planking to teakdeck laying on everything from canoes toocean-going racing yachts.

West Cumbria Development Agency hasbeen very supportive and provided start-upand equipment grants. Steve uses a widerange of planes, chisels, saws, andspokeshaves, some designed specifically forboat building such as a bollow plane – usedfor hollowing the inside face of a hull plank.Steve made his own bollow plane out ofbeechwood as boat builders had done forcenturies before him.

“It’s been a hard slog,” says Steve. “It’svery much a niche market – all about gettingto know your customer so they trust whatyou do. But it gives me a real sense of purposeand pride when someone says: ‘Oh, what abeautiful boat’.”

■ Good Wood Boat Company, MootaBusiness Park, Moota, Cockermouth CA130QF. Tel: 01900 821236 or seewww.goodwoodboat.co.uk.

➨

‘What appeals to me isthe blend of engineering

– developing the boatfrom drawings – and

the hand-skills and craftsmanship’

The Redwing competed in its class championships in the Isles of Scilly last year

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April 2010 CCUUMMBBRRIIAA LLIIFFEE 51

Steve works on the bow of a 12ft Tideway, with the National Redwing in the background. Below: the Good Wood Boat Co workshop at Moota. The building once housed prisoners of war

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