After a cracking weekend on Barton Broad with some of my fellow HBBR’s talking boats, looking at boats and occasionally playing with boats the time has come for a reality check. 

Now I think we are having fun ! - Stangarra on Barton Broad

 Stangarra, my Iain Oughtred Stickleback canoe is supposed to be apearing on the Water Craft stand at the Beale Park Boat Show – turn right as soon as you enter and you can’t miss it. My little baby is rather the worse for wear after an autumn and spring becoming intimately aquainted with the rocky shores of Loch Assynt and the R Kanaird. However I have always maintained that my kind of varnish is the most easily repaired finish for a small boat so now would be a good time to practise what I preach. However this all might be a tad late – I was working out the day count against the to do list and as usual the two miss by a large margin. The existing varnish has had a light sanding with 400 W&D paper and currently looks like this :

Can this possibly be alright on the night?

All that remains is to produce, to quote Editor Pete, the ’fabled finish’. The pressure a simple remark like that puts one under Ideally this means three more coats of varnish laid on in perfect conditions. i.e. no wind and an absence of what looks like cotton wool drifing down from the surrounding trees. All this at the same time as I had intended to follow the HBBR Raiders on their cruise down the Thames from Lechlade to the show at Beale. Something will have to give – I think it will be the daily walk alongside the Thames path – I think I can manage one day away to allow the varnish to harden up enough for the delivery trip to Beale on Thursday so it looks like the raiders come under the lens on Wednesday when they should be a bit south of Oxford. Later today (Sunday) the motley crew assemble at the Trout Inn, Lechlade, ready for the off in the morning. It looks as though Chris Waites brand new skiff ‘Octavia’ will taste water for the first time with her Launch party. What is left in the bottle of Glenfiddich from ‘Ardilla’s’ launch at Barton Turf will be on hand to suitably christen her.

If you want to see what happened in the end you will have to come along to the Beale Bark Thames Boat Show next weekend, 5th – 7th June, and find out. If you want to chat about Oughtred Canoes or my take on clinker ply I will be around most of the time – If Stangarra isn’t in her appointed place she will be out on the pond – hopefully in the hands of one much more skilled than I. Currently the forecast looks pretty good again so see you there?