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 workshop. I lashed the frame work together and covered it in natural cotton. I needed a new punt for getting around on the water for work. A light boat was essential as I would be carrying it on top of the van and sometimes I would have to carry the old punt quite a ways to launch it.

After first lofting up the punt from the plans for a Herreshoff punt in John Gardners book. I made up some molds and sprang the stringers over them and fastened them to the transoms.

The frames were then steam bent and lashed to the stringers. The boat is quite flexible which is good. She’ll hopefully bend instead of breaking.

Above and below the boat is ready for skinning. It’s very light at this stage.

I used 15oz cotton for the skin and on reflection this was probably too heavy. It will hopefully be extra strong. It took a lot of stretching to get a good fit and I needed to sew a dart in the forward section to get it to fit properly.

I got a lot of help from my son with this boat, he made the floor boards and helped steaming in the frames. He was also brave enough to go in it on launch day.

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 email or use  the contact page.

Roeboats, Ballydehob, Co. Cork, t:+353 (0)28 38973 m: +353 (0)86 158 69 37 e:tiernan@roeboats.com