Hands: Shannon Boat Builder

[Music] the Jimmy Fury has a great affection for love the doors for us he says himself loudly those are good all around dogs both lung and water nor did we ever hear any expert to save other ones Julie who lives on the lands of man trumpet on the Roscommon shore of Locke three houses feet firmly are not learned as had his father before him forty acres worth of akin to the Furies on the division of the old estate in the late 1940s [Music] like most men who live on the edge of white waters Jimmy Fury lives in two worlds that of farmer and Eagle fishermen that he once was which has given him a respect and sympathetic understanding for great bodies of water Jimmy Fury's father also had a second world at his command for he did the carpentry and the maintenance and repairs and the big house Lunt Plunkett long since abandoned but Jimmy lives in a snug little house built for his grandfather who sealed a rich ship for an earlier mount Plunkett landlord patty Greene who required grandfather fury to keep a weather eye on his pride and joy more dirt on the be boots and Shannon waters are the central song with Jimmy Fury's life but how did he come to booth building we always had a board and and did be time when you'd have to do repairs of them so bit by bit you get more here and every day at the site that it was time to build board so that's how it happened a fisherman they'd build a better boat in the nikeyra front row because he knows you know he knows what he wants you know the ships he should be all right a carpenter full of straight lines it's our core was in a boat but this is no ordinary boat this is a thoroughbred in the making a Shannon one design she came by her name in a successful attempt to standardize open sailing boats of eighteen feet on the Shannon waters the one design for the Shannon or Shannon one design but first the keel made from finest Irish arch is brought to the stocks to be held in an unyielding embrace until all is complete now the Kelson has addressed to the keel the slot cut through its center will allow the center board to be raised and lowered the stem post is the curved piece that forms the bow of the boot as this is a transport it is built to very exact measurements and specifications a wooden guide in the roof running the length of the boat is marked off in feet and will give the precise position as to where the mast will be stepped or in this instance where the wooden frames used as guides for the planking will be fixed boat building is full of ancient and strange naval terminology the planks are called streaks the seats dwarfs and so on the pairs of streaks are cooked and tacked together temporarily to be worked as one creating identical twins [Music] [Applause] [Music] the Kelson the strip of wood nailed to the key is there to give a solid run for the first pair of streaks temporarily held in place by a simple but effective wooden clamp an extra inanimate pair of hounds though a bachelor Jimmy is not without a family I have two brothers and two sisters the two sisters are married for five one brother is in England and paddy is retired out of the Navy he's living you you know and help him we'll go to bob pender v gardens and does the cocoa it takes six weeks for Jimmy to build a shown but that six weeks can stretch when there's a making or chapel to be attended to it was to check from England the Graham Goodwin and Bri amperes I built robots for him so they were thinking thinking of buying a sailboat there's a family over there beside him by the name of millions they had the shine of one design so the mains influenced them together to get a Shannon so they came across here and asked me would I been build a Shannon I never built one before so I said I would so I didn't know what it was letting himself in for at the time so I didn't but that's how I happened to get into building shed that was in 1970 so it was so I Matheson's water living was the first builder of Shannon's water revenge he was the one that used to build all the Shannons up to then and I had to get the chain plates and and the pantry so Jack make up patterns for them and Walter oblige me by by get enough for me so watery I he was very helpful any advice you and he helped you needed water wouldn't wouldn't wouldn't wouldn't keep it from you so I I have a lot to be grateful to him for he was a lovely gentleman so he was the first Shannon number 32 was built by Walter levy in the winter of 1921 to 22 Walter was to go on building Shannon's for the rest of his working life 60 boots or more until his death in October 1982 the sheer strake completes the 11th plank on each side of the home [Music] Jimmy has been soaking laughs of oak in the lake for a few days to make them supple her party a decent man has been dragged away from his leeks and cabbages to lend a hand of the stage of the boot building the turf is from her own bog it's amazing what Jimmy can achieve single-handed but there are some aspects of boot building that call for two pairs of hands an old metal pipe acts as a steam pipe to boiler oak laths for the boots ribs the boiling water and steam will make the wood flexible and easily managed the okhla this must be true and strict of Greene the slightest cross screening and they snap like a matchstick advanced preparation was vital for this job [Music] now over against the border yeah the tannin in the oak combines with the water to stay in the timber and make a pleasing contrast clinker or clencher built boots where the streaks overlap each other and are held and placed by rivets are a very great antiquity the method as far as we know arrived in Ireland with the Vikings as early as the 9th century when completed the book will be examined by the measurers appointed by the governing body she must conform to the specifications laid down for the class one extra rib or a two inch discrepancy in the beam could mean rejection Jimmy must constantly check the position of the hull on the stocks so it does not shift out of alignment and taken a reversible set to one side or the other the width of the beam at 4 foot 10 inches is also checked and wooden props hold this position for without the thwarts or seats in place the hull can easily distort the gun will add strength to the garbled streak and completes the hull the mighty Shannon and the great lakes of Ireland dictated and shipped the development of the traditional open rowing book for 18 feet it seems is the perfect length to come but they're steep short lives but if the turn of the century saw the decline of the larger sailing boats the Jimmy's grandfather captained it welcomed the increase in popularity of the centreboard opened the ceiling races were organized timed competitions took place and cups were won but the vexing problem of conformity raised its watery head and the complex and unsatisfactory system of handicapping ensured the inevitable rancor and argument it was decided to introduce the one design for open 18-foot sailing boats for Shannon sailing with a Gunther rig and carrying a single log sale of not more than 140 square feet the first world war delayed any plans for establishing a standard and it was not until 1920 that F C Morgan James a leading English yacht designer of the day was asked by a joint committee representing the Shannon Yacht Club's to design an open sailing boat based on their specifications this was to be the Shannon one design [Music] but I've never been out of Ireland I've I have always lived here I've never been to Dublin a few times that's all so I've never had the England to move to fair except to moved along the Shannon that's roughly as far as I went it's a bit late now to start staff traveling if you got the taste of life away now it might mean trying to come back so you might the first model I made was the model of a Shannon one designed an inch and a half to the force yeah I love Martin Macon it's something you wouldn't get to continue actually like making bigger boats but it's it's it's very satisfying when you have when you have something made after after a long time usually I use you for plankton and bog oak for some of the finishing inside and boxwood I'm making a model of a Swedish iron age board I don't know whatever get finished so I don't want it she's a strange boss this risers Hugh knows each plank on the reach frame which is very difficult to do so I don't know otherwise I'd be able to get it or not but if it's very hard enough I suppose we'll work our way out to do it [Music] you have a lot of trouble just go timber today with the Shannon it's a large scale both simples and all ribs quite Eve sanction and mahogany seats roti and mahogany Center for Jason so you have a variety of Timbers the mahogany it's easy enough to get but the vital yeah we have trouble indigenous and large is not easy to come by either good quality large so you have you have a business traveler to do for us and Jimmy's travels have taken him to corns timber yard and Tullamore to select timber suitable for the centreboard casing amongst other things Howdy's experience with things mechanical gain from a lifetime of see me it has helped particularly welcome when akin to setting up this old cleaner he run away from home when still a teenager and joined the Merchant Service if it was a venture he was seeking he surely found of sailing before the mast during the Second World War [Music] Jimmy cups at the centreboard kissing the two sides have also to be worked as a pair Peter Coyle a neighbor gives a hand to use if it feels the was it kind no they're getting that bit higher and the hills are getting that pitch deeper and boats are begin get that bit heavier and you know you know well a fellow matter the long gone and the sights on to reach the arm is catching up so he is me father used to always say this when you're ready look after yourself possess you were better Oh God you know that you wouldn't be a a portion than anybody he always industries he that's the way a Depot you know he was just a few days in bed before the disease somewhere are fortunate enough in that line so they are nature's kinda some sources Jimmy makes use of a smaller steam pipe to steam a piece of hook that will form a camping over the top of the centreboard the steel centreboard will be supplied to him as well as the bronze fittings for the boot which are sand cast in Dublin chin plates for the two beams days and for stay the fittings for the rudder and the claw for the extension to the mast a Jimmy made this brass concave plane himself especially to match the curvature of the mast [Music] [Applause] [Applause] and then one day there's no more work to be done the boat is completed and Archie comes six weeks have elapsed and domhnall gleeson arrives to take away his very own Shanon one design donor will varnish for himself a job that Jimmy normally does and as Jim has told us a fisherman would build a better book than a carpenter because he knows what he wants ships and the sea there's nothing finer made John a beautiful little boat in every detail suite of line and made by a true craftsman Jamaica they're in the person of Jimmy himself is fisherman farmer carpenter but above all and like Noah himself and many another since then a builder of boobs I loved the Shannon and they love Ceylon so I had to build one for myself after building them to be an iterative or they would have dissatisfaction assail in them that's why you have one from yourself the Jimmy had his 50th birthday before he took to sealing he is a member of the lawfully Yacht Club which is the second oldest in the world after Court and was founded in 1770 they have a week's regatta every year in August a very enjoyable week so Jimmy says when he can meet his friends and do plenty of sailing and maybe one eraser - isn't that what it's all about [Music] [Music] you [Music] you

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Views: 134,905

Rating: 4.9030304 out of 5

Keywords: Hands, RTÉ, documentary, Ireland, Irish, Shannon, The Shannon, river, boat, sailing, sailing boat, rowing, boat building, boat builder, boat making, boat maker, clinker, Shannon-One-Design, Lough Ree, yacht, sailing club, boating, yacht club, craft, craftsman, tradition, Longford, Roscommon

Id: 0meQiENR4zA

Length: 23min 43sec (1423 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 29 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Takeiitaway]

Enjoyed watching that.

[u/d8sconz]

Boats and Shannon Water are the central song of Jimmy Fury's life.

Damn, they don't make commentaries like that any more. I've seen it before and I watched it again. Great shows.