roeboats

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From floating skip to...

It’s blooming cold here at the moment and I’m trying to stay productive while waiting for the temperature to rise. I thought you might be interested so see what other projects are ongoing here. After the highs of International Awards it’s back to earth with a decided bump. Pictured above is the boat I bought for myself in a rash move over Christmas 2021. A post pandemic blow out or mid life…

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Lady Min wins Restoration of the year 2023.

Three generations of the O’Keeffe family the trophy for the boat built by their ancestor Maurice O’Keeffe in 1902. Boatbuilder Photo: Marcus Holdsworth/ Classic Boat As you can see from the above photo I was beyond delighted to receive the Classic Boat award 2023 for best restoration under 40′. It surely made up the the many days spend in a hill top cow shed with the wind, rain and snow blowing…

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Lady Min Nominated for Classic Boat Magazine Restoration of the Year Award

At sea at last, first sail for Lady Min in nearly 30 years I was delighted to discover that Lady Min has been nominated for the Restoration of the year award by Classic Boat magazine. You can vote for her here and see the other entries here. I’d be most grateful if you could take a few moments to vote for her. If you would like to have your own boat restored, repaired or built don’t hesitate…

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Last day at Lady Min before lock-down 2020

Last day at Lady Min before lock-down 2020

Things were really starting to move along on Lady Min. The photo above is from the end of February 2020. Talk had started of a Summer launch. Alas it was not to be. I was working on getting the last of the cockpit details finished before the boat would be moved to the boatyard for the adding of the keel and final finishing. The windows in the cabin are a nod to the Herreshoff New York 30s. As…

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Ninigret 22' Almost ready to go.

Ninigret 22′ Almost ready to go.

Here she is almost ready for final fit out and engine installation. All of the painting is complete at this stage and now all the very careful installation of final trim and deck hardware is about to begin. Any mistakes at this stage can be very annoying and time consuming to fix. There are deep lockers either side of the engine well that are ideal for fenders and boat hooks etc. They also house…

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Painting starts, end in sight.

Painting starts, end in sight.

With most of the major elements of the boat built it is now time to move on to the internal fit out of the cockpit. Unfortunately due to Covid restrictions at the time of building, the client wasn’t able to attend the workshop to have a fitting to make sure it was totally comfortable. Luckily I had anticipated this and we were able to get everything perfect after a few months of use. Above you…

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Decks and cabin on 22' Motorboat

Decks and cabin on 22′ Motorboat

Here I’m making up the cabin sides after the deck has been laid and the interior of the boat painted. As usual the workshop is over full as evidenced by the pile of stuff in the foreground. Yhis in the cabin interior layout. There is access to all areas under the seat and the opening aft of the clamps in the picture is where the chemical toilet will. I was still waiting on delivery of the toilet…

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Interior and decks for 22' Motorboat

Interior and decks for 22′ Motorboat

Once the boat was back in the workshop the work of making and fitting the deck structure could begin, before the building spalls ( athwartship temporary crossbeams) could be removed. The deck was jointed together in the traditional manner with sliding dovetails that were backed up by epoxy glue. They took a bit of marking out but were pretty quick to cut out and produced a strong and long lasting…

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Planking finished and Roll over.

Planking finished and Roll over.

With the planking finished it was time to sand down the plywood in preparation for the application of epoxy and fibreglass cloth on the under water areas of the hull. I left the top edge, sheer , of the planking uncut so that I can fine tune once it’s the right side up. It’s very hard to do this standing upside down. I’m just about to pour on the epoxy in the photo above. The easy lines of the…

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Ninigret 22' planking continues.

Ninigret 22′ planking continues.

The planking of the hull is fairly straight forward once the forefoot panel is in place. There was a lot of scarfing and screwing and glueing the plywood to the framework. Once the bottom planking is done the edges are trimmed back and the corner between the keel and the planking was filleted with a generous radius fillet to take the fibreglass sheathing. You can also see in the photo above that…

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Another Ninigret 22' from Roeboats

Another Ninigret 22′ from Roeboats

Just as the first lock-down in March 2021 was starting I received a commission to build another of John Atkin’s brilliant Ninigret 22’s. I built a Ninigret as the first Roeboat in 2009 and it has been loved by its two owners since and has given them years of trouble free boating. Construction began in early June and started with making up the frames for the boat. I had kept the original lofting…

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Roeboats busier than ever.

Roeboats busier than ever.

After being shutdown for 3 months earlier in the year; it’s been busier than ever here at Roeboats. I’ll have more info about ongoing and upcoming projects in the future. While confined to the house for a few months saw a lot of garden and housework completed, I did get some time to build a new work punt.

As you can see it is a skin on frame pram that I made from bits and pieces I had in the…

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Deck done and Cabin Commenced

Deck done and Cabin Commenced

Above is a photo of the mock up we did for the cabin. It’s a quick and immediate way of developing the look and sizes for the boat layout. The client was able to view the proposed cabin from all angles. The piece of wood sticking up in front of the cabin is a crude stand in for the mast. The cabin is deliberately quite small as the boat will be mostly used for day sailing.

Once the the deck…

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Lady Min deck construction

Lady Min deck construction

Here’s some photos of the deck construction of Lady Min. The beams were dovetailed to the sheer clamp and the side decks were also dovetailed to the carlin.

The dovetails were cut before shaping the beams to their final curve of the deck. This allowed me to use a trammel to describe the required curve of each beam. To make the deck fair each curve is slightly different and using the trammel…

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Roeboats and Lady Min featured on RTE Seascapes.

Roeboats and Lady Min featured on RTE Seascapes.

For those of you who may have missed it Lady Min and Roeboats were featured on RTE radio’s maritime programmed Seascapes on the 1st of November. The section on Lady Min starts around 9:30 and my interview starts around 18.18.

If you would like to have your own boat restored, repaired or built don’t hesitate to contact me, Tiernan Roe, you can call me at +353 86 1586937 or by emailor…

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Planking Complete?

Is the planking finished? Well all the planks are now on, so I suppose you could say yes. Just the small matter of fairing and caulking to be done. As expected the shutter planks were slow to fit as they had to be tight which meant getting them in and out for final fitting was a bit of a palaver as there’s no real way to clamp them. I had to resort to a few judiciously placed bolts to get them…

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Planking almost done.

Planking almost done. Lady Min 1902 West Cork Gaff Fin Keeler

After many months of intermittent work the planking on Lady Min is nearly complete. I’m going to leave the shutter planks until I have a few items built into the interior, such as, the chainplate backers. I’m also  going to fit a keelson on top of the floors to help stop the boat hogging and better distribute the stresses of the mast and rudder along the the keel. There was one in her originally…