Woman quits teaching job to build boats full-time

By Elizabeth Hunter

A woman quit teaching to build incredible, seaworthy replicas of historic wooden boats.

Gail McGarva spends up to nine months at a time constructing her historically accurate and functioning "daughterboats."

She has now built around 10 replica boats from scratch - thoroughly researching each type of boat before painstakingly constructing it from high-quality timber.

Gail is best known for her building of Cornish Pilot Gigs - 32-ft long racing rowing boats used in Cornwall.

Each of these boats is a replica of the 1838 Treffry, built by William Peters of St. Mawes.

Previously an acting teacher and sign language interpreter, Gail lived in boats on the River Avon for many years - before deciding to train in boat building in 2004.

"I had a calling, I think - I wanted to put boats at the very core of my life," said Gail, 60, who now lives in Galloway.

"I read about a boat building school in Dorset and went to visit. I knew instinctively then that I was going to take that leap of faith.

"I didn't have any formal skills, but a passion for timber and a passion for boats.

"I very quickly realised that I wanted to put traditional wooden boat building at the heart of my work.

"It's really lovely to be able to see the whole journey of the build from timber to sea."

The first boat Gail constructed was a replica of one of the oldest surviving Shetland boats, and the experience led her to become passionate about the history behind the craft.

"I built a replica during my training of the Gardie boat of 1882, and it was from that moment that my specialism in focusing on replicas - or as I prefer to call them, daughterboats, boats that are in danger of extinction - really began," said Gail.

"I do quite a lot of research for each boat to see just how threatened that type of boat is.

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"All working boats have different shapes depending on their geographical area and where they're launched from and their function at sea.

"Every boat has a different story to tell, held really in the very bones of its being, in the shape of the hull.

"One of the replicas I built was from a motherboat from the Chesil Beach in Dorset, called a Lerret.

"They were built specifically to be launched from the top of the Chesil Bank, which is steep, stony scree, quite challenging conditions.

"The whole shape of that boat has evolved over centuries of being launched from that shore - very flat-bottomed, very beamy, wide and buoyant in its hull shape."

Despite Gail's love of the craft, she worries that the art of traditional boat building may be lost over time.

The trade has been listed on Heritage Crafts' red list of endangered crafts - meaning it will die out unless effort is made to train new people.

To help get people interested, while building her boats, Gail often shows parts of the process to the local community, and explains how the design of the boat has been shaped by the environment.

She also runs workshops with young people to help get them involved in the craft.

"My ethos is to involve people from the local community within the construction," she said.

"I usually plank the boat and then involve people from the local community in the fit-out of the boat - putting in a lot of the internal components.

"Traditional wooden boat building is now classified as an endangered craft.

"I lament the fact that it is on the red list, but equally, it really helps to shine a light on the craft and the urgency to try and safeguard the skills.

"If you have a large ship of historical value, you need people to work on those vessels with the traditional skills to conserve the boat or restore it so it can return to sea.

"Each vessel has its own heritage, its own shape, its own evolution of form - there's maritime heritage embodied within every hull."