The Boat Kit

The kit for the St Ayles Skiff has been designed by Jordan Boats from the original boat design by Iain Oughtred.  Jordan Boats have been manufacturing boat kits since 2003.

The kit design for the St Ayles has been thought through from the outset to produce a beautiful and comparatively easy boat that can be built by people with little or boat building experience.  What is required is patience, and a reasonable degree of practical ability.

We do not want you to have to invest a fortune in tools, so for the most part, the tools required are those found in most keen DIYers toolbox.  If you have access to a friendly joiner sympathetic to the idea of building the boat, this will help considerably.

The basic kit from Jordan Boats comprises:

  • A set of plans
  • The planking, bulkheads, and seat tops, CNC cut in Lloyds Type Approved Marine Plywood
  • The moulds over which the boat is built, CNC cut from WBP Plywood
  • patterns for shaping the stems

Jordan Boats will also be offering Option kits containing the Epoxy and Polyurethane glues required, fixings and fittings, and other sundry items that will be needed to finish the boat.

The Timber for the gunwales, keel and seats will be available as packs separately from timber suppliers who will have the cutting list.  Jordan Boats will not be selling these directly.

The paint for the boat will also be purchased separately, as this will be required much later in the build.  We strongly recommend that Marine Paints are used – they are more expensive, but properly applied, they do the job they are designed to do.

The price of the kit from Jordan Boats at £1275 (based on pre-payment – for credit terms please contact Jordan Boats).  Please remember that this is only one part of the cost of the boat.   After feedback from the builders of the first few boats, some additions have been made to the kit moulds which have forced an increase in the price of the kit.  The number of moulds has been increased from 6 to 10, and the offcuts of ply are being utilised for 40 plank clamps.

Before committing yourself to this build, please be aware that though Jordan Boats and Iain Oughtred have done their best to simplify the build, it is not a model kit that can be put together in a few hours. We are estimating that it will take a team of four or five people five or six months to build in spare time after work and at weekends.  If you can dedicate more time to it, it can be built in less.  The prototype had roughly the equivalent of two people working on it full time and was complete in about a five weeks work.

Still interested?  Until we upload the build pictures for the St Ayles Skiff, you can find out more of the process by visiting www.jordanboats.co.uk/JB/clinker_ply.htm or by looking at the Ullapool 1 syndicate’s build.  Reading Iain Oughtred’s “Clinker Plywood Boatbuilding Manual” ISBN 0-937822-61-2 will also give you plenty more inspiration.

If you have any questions about the boat or the build, please call Alec Jordan on 01592 560162.

  1. No comments yet.

You must be logged in to post a comment.