INTRODUCTION

We are no experts when it comes to shipwrighting, or at least we weren't when we began to work on Nyala. The trouble with fitting out your own boat as an amateur is that by the time you can claim to know what you are doing the work is finished and the skills and experience you have gained may not be needed again for a long time to come.

The question must arise as to whether it mightn't be better to employ a professional to do these jobs but, cost apart, you lose a lot of the fun that way. Not that we would always have said we were having fun as we sawed and sanded timber by hand, filed metal into extraordinary shapes, or hung upside down in almost inaccessible lockers trying to drill and screw left-handed, but in retrospect we will admit that it wasn't all painful. As we go along you will see that there are some jobs we have had to leave to professionals for various reasons and I will make a brief mention of what these were.

Before we embarked on re-fitting our wooden boat my experience as a carpenter encompassed about ten years of domestic home-improvements ranging from my first efforts at putting up shelves which fell down as soon as they were used, to being able to build kitchen and alcove cupboards with doors that fitted, opened and closed, and gave good service. In between was a lot of reading, practise and determination that I could get it right if I persevered. I never went on a course or took O-level woodwork and I'm not sure that I would pass it now if I tried. Perhaps less surprisingly, I have been an accomplished seamstress ever since I was a child and I believe that the problem-solving techniques involved are common to both disciplines

David, on the other hand, did take O-level woodwork, metalwork and mechanical drawing (and passed them all). He has gained qualifications and earned his living in various branches of mechanical and aeronautical engineering, and by my reckoning if he can repair an aircraft so that it will stay in the sky, anything he does on a boat has to be all right. We did both know how to navigate and sail but that seems almost irrelevant in the context of what follows.

There may well be other ways of going about all the jobs we have successfully completed but I'm not convinced that they would necessarily be better ways. What we have done has worked and the tools and materials we have used, which we describe as we go along, have not been particularly technical or complicated. Our main weapon has been a logical approach, working out every job Keeping Nyala in Style step by step, and anyone who can do this can win. We hope that by writing about our fitting-out work in this way, from amateurs to amateurs, we can encourage people to take the plunge who would like to work on their own boat but may have been wondering how much they can manage on their own.

At the end is an appendix containing a collection of useful addresses we unearthed in the course of our work, and a list of what things cost. As prices change so rapidly, this must be taken as a rough guide only. It's worth noting that we managed to negotiate discounts with many local suppliers as we went along.

This book is about the way it has been for us and we hope the reader will find it enjoyable as a story in itself, as well as helpful. If it encourages you to go ahead and buy that old boat and take your dreams one step nearer to reality, good luck and have fun.