Talk: Boat Building

Mon, Dec 11th 2017 at 7:30 pm - 10:00 pm

Speaker: Alan Staley, Faversham Boat Builder.
The meeting is held at Boughton Golf Club.


Alan Staley – Faversham Boat Builder. He was educated at the Sir William Nottage school in Whitstable and sat the entrance exam to Canterbury Art School, but following a visit to the boatyard of Anderson, Rigden, & Perkins, arranged by his wood work teacher Mr Clarke, he decided that what he wanted was to become a shipwright and boatbuilder. Alan started boat building as an apprentice after leaving school in 1961. The apprenticeship was for five years and by 1972 he was shop foreman on dinghy building and yacht work. The last job he did for the company was to loft and build the wooden plug for the new Anderson 22 class yacht, their first GRP vessel.

He did not want to build plastic boats so in 1974 he left the yard to set up his own business as a freelance boat builder. It became clear that he needed a base, so he rented some land on the bank of Oare creek . By 1983 he needed more space so rented at Iron Wharf in Faversham, where he was based until 1991 when he was able to purchase the freehold of Chambers Wharf and the old Bax Chambers saw mill on the bank of Faversham Creek. The first job was to rebuild the wharf and build a slipway and install a winch, so that boats could be pulled up into the 1500sq foot workshop. They usually have about 6 vessels in the workshop at any one time, with a maximum length of about 45 feet and a maximum weight of 22 tons. The building is quite interesting as it is a De Haviland  aircraft hangar  that was put there at the end of WW2. Alan employs 3 full time boat builders, all of who trained under him at Chambers Wharf. In 2013 he won the craft skills award for training in the work place, having started 25 young people as apprentices, 12 of whom remain in boatbuilding, 2 running their own yards, 1 working for the Sultan of Oman and the rest being either employed or working freelance.

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