I believe that I was that boy!
The poor boat was in a sorry state. The hull near the transom was rotten and the day before I went to look at her the trailer had damaged and seriously weakend the hull on the port side. This meant that landing her was always a scarey prospect because if she came onto the trailer wrong I'd have holed and sunk her.
I was young and didn't know much about woodwork but I treated the transom and glued and screwed (I cringe now thinking about it) the hull and sailed it with my friends in the Solent for a couple of years.
She was beautiful and planed nicely but her age and condition meant things kept going wrong. There was the memorable sail when I capsized and the rudder clip snapped off and I ended up rudderless. Then there was the time when the fitting holding the front shroud to the bow broke to the extent that it only had two screws holding it in. My mate and I managed to let off the tension and fortunately, due to an onshore wind, managed to get her ashore without the mast coming down.
One winter I did my best for her and stripped the decks down and revarnished them (actually did a pretty good job), put non-slip paint in the cockpit so the crew wouldn't slide around so much, re-roped her, and painted the hull a dark red and put a gold strip along her. I put a logo on the transom too with airfix paints which looked pretty good to my teenage eyes.
I don't hold out much hope that she's still afloat unless someone put an awful lot of work into her and knew what they were doing.
I sold her on to a couple who must have been in their twenties.
She was definitely the best looking boat I owned.
The poor boat was in a sorry state. The hull near the transom was rotten and the day before I went to look at her the trailer had damaged and seriously weakend the hull on the port side. This meant that landing her was always a scarey prospect because if she came onto the trailer wrong I'd have holed and sunk her.
I was young and didn't know much about woodwork but I treated the transom and glued and screwed (I cringe now thinking about it) the hull and sailed it with my friends in the Solent for a couple of years.
She was beautiful and planed nicely but her age and condition meant things kept going wrong. There was the memorable sail when I capsized and the rudder clip snapped off and I ended up rudderless. Then there was the time when the fitting holding the front shroud to the bow broke to the extent that it only had two screws holding it in. My mate and I managed to let off the tension and fortunately, due to an onshore wind, managed to get her ashore without the mast coming down.
One winter I did my best for her and stripped the decks down and revarnished them (actually did a pretty good job), put non-slip paint in the cockpit so the crew wouldn't slide around so much, re-roped her, and painted the hull a dark red and put a gold strip along her. I put a logo on the transom too with airfix paints which looked pretty good to my teenage eyes.
I don't hold out much hope that she's still afloat unless someone put an awful lot of work into her and knew what they were doing.
I sold her on to a couple who must have been in their twenties.
She was definitely the best looking boat I owned.