But millionaire's yachts don't really tell the story. Where are all
the people that used to build Sharpys, Friendship Sloops,Chesapeake
Skipjack, Dorys, Skiffs and all the other wooden working boats - all
gone.


Bruce in Bangkok
(brucepaigeATgmailDOTcom)

They have moved to Indonesia in places such as Sulawesi, the Molluccas
and Kalimantan and a host of other places where they still built huge
wooden trading ships in the same old manner on the beach. You must
have seen some of these on your way through Bruce. The ancjors are
still hauled up by man power on a horizontal windlass.

A couple of years ago on Pankor Island near Lumut, an old boat
builder, Eng Hok, was building a 65 footer traditional craft for a
wealthy private client. It was built in the traditional junk manner,
being planked around solid bulkheads set on the keel.

When I was a young kid in Wellington, New Zealand I used to help a
friend's fisherman father caulk his 40 foot double ender with cotton
waste, red lead and hemp. Came in handy a few years ago when I was
able to show a friend who had bought a genuine 100 year old Colin
Archer pilot boat from a defunct US museum how to caulk his leaking
boat. he had kept it afloat with sikaflex but the water eventually
leaked past this. Couldn't find a genuine caulking iron anywhere in
Sydney (Aus.) so made one out of a brick cutting bolster.

cheers
Peter