The Fyfes of Bute

 

On the front at Rothesay in June 2003 during the Fife Regatta I made the acquaintance of a delightful and well-informed lady, who turned out to be Miss Jean M Fife, perhaps the last surviving member of the Bute Fyfe family still in Scotland. I arranged to keep in touch with her and she later supplied me with much more information, with permission to publish it as I saw fit.

While she was doing this I researched the old Census records in order to trace the family and their connections with the other Fifes on the mainland, not helped by their habit of changing the spelling of their surname from time to time. There was also a Scottish tradition of favouring just one or two first names, in this case John and William, also of reusing names for later children after earlier ones had died, which doesn't help the researcher.

What follows is based on Miss Fife’s work in local libraries, conversations with local residents and so on, but not least her own memories of her family and a lifetime of holidays on Bute, plus my own efforts on Scotlands People

The starting point for any Fife research is always "Fast and Bonnie", May Fife McCallum’s masterwork. She records that a John Fyfe was born in Kilbirnie in 1743 and moved to the Earl of Glasgow's Kelburn Estate to work as a wright in 1770. He and his wife Janet, nee Fyfe and probably a cousin, had at least six children of whom four sons, John, James, William and Allan followed their father's trade, William becoming the famous William Fife I. She goes on to record:-

"It appears that John Fyfe Junior, the eldest son of John the wright on Kelburn estate was building fishing boats at the beginning of the 19th century. Old customs records list fishing boats built by him at Fairlie and registered at Irvine, the local port of registration at that time. As a youth William Fife, born in 1785, may have been attracted to his older brother John's business, and thus began his introduction to boat building."

Later, relevant to our story, she narrates:-

"A cousin [of William Fife I] John, who was a carpenter in Ardrossan, and his wife, both died about the same time, and an uncle in Ardrossan took care of their three sons. Apparently these orphaned boys were not happy in this household and walked from Ardrossan to Fairlie, a distance of about ten miles, to throw themselves on the mercy of their father's cousin. He took them under his wing and employed them as apprentices. On completion of their apprenticeship they crossed to the island of Bute where they set up a successful boat building business at Ardmaleish."

Nothing more is said of this carpenter cousin John and I was intrigued to confirm that he was indeed the father of the three orphans, whose names I already knew, courtesy of Miss Fife, were John, James and Thomas. I discovered from the 1841 Census for Ardrossan, the following:

This John is almost certainly the father, but we can see that he was an established shipbuilder, not simply a carpenter. A further search showed that he died from jaundice on 14 May 1848. I couldn't find his wife's date of death and it seems the youngest, Daniel, died in childhood. Note that John's brother James is living in the house, so he is “the uncle in Ardrossan”.

A look at the 1851 Census, confirms that they’re still in Ardrossan, John a ship carpenter lodging at number 5 Harbour Street and James with his uncle James next door, still an apprentice. I haven't managed to trace younger brother Thomas, but it’s likely he was also lodging nearby.

This seems to confirm that far from being helpless young orphans the brothers were useful, fully or at least partly trained ship carpenters by the time they moved back to their place of birth in Fairlie, sometime after 1851, and joined the workforce of William Fife I. Nor did they stay there long, for by 1856 a large wooden building had gone up on the shore at Rothesay, the Red Shed, probably not actually red in colour but named for the red rocks on which it stood. See Alexander Wilson's depiction of it:

It seems that there were two James Fyfes building boats in Rothesay in the mid 1850s, described as Senior and Junior, but with only half a generation between them. This suggests that Uncle James (born about 1816) had moved from Ardrossan and nephews James (born 1832), John (born 1833) and Thomas (born 1838) had crossed from Fairlie to join him.

These Bute Fyfes were an industrious bunch and built almost anything that could float, apart from yachts. In his "History of Rothesay and its People" Dr Lawson records:-

"The Red Shed was below the level of the road. What is now the [New Rothesay, later St John's] manse garden was the ground on which the larger keels were laid of smacks of a goodly size. Smacks, fishing skiffs and rowing boats (also small boats with round sterns and one sail) were the craft built by Messrs Fyfe. There would be a number of new boats lined up on the ground on the margin of the roadway extending to the ladies' bathing place (now Isle of Bute Sailing Club). Behind the ladies' and gents' bathing places (the old bathing station) the land was lower than the roadway. This depression was used in winter time for the laying up and storing of small rowing boats."

On 13 June 1857 The Buteman announced:-

"On Wednesday last there was launched form the boat-building yard of Messrs. Fyfe a beautiful craft of the gigger rig, c. 20 tons, property of Mr Thorburn, Farmer, Isle of Muck. She was named "The Islander's Bride" by Miss Richmond, daughter of Mr Richmond, Temperance Hotel-keeper, Rothesay and is intended to carry produce of the isle of Muck to Tobermory, the nearest market port in that district, the owner being the lessee of that isle. She has a very faviurable appearance and, considering the cost she is built for, promises to be a swift sailing craft and a credit to her young and enterprising builders."

This would have been one of the first larger vessels built by the family, but they went on to greater things. In April 1858 the Buteman again:-

"Launch! On Tuesday afternoon there was launched form the building yard of Messrs Fyfe a sloop of c. 70 tons burden, the property of Mr Kelso of Arran. The vessel was name "Catherine Kelso." The launch was conducted with systematic accuracy and the vessel glided down the ways gracefully. We hope soon again to witness the launch of as large, if not larger craft form the same yard."

By 1861 the Census described James as a Master Ship carpenter, John as a ship carpenter and Thomas as a mere journeyman. One can see that they all knew their station.

With the coming of the railways and the Clyde steamers Rothesay entered its heighday as a holiday destination for all classes of society. Wealthier families could afford to build or rent villas along the front, while more ordinary ones went into lodgings for the annual Glasgow Fair. There was terrific business for boat hirers well into the Twentieth century, in fact right up to the arrival of cheap package holidays in the 1960s.

After many years the road along the front at Rothesay was improved and the Red Shed was taken down. The Fyfes moved round to Ardmaleish, where they established their second yard on the site where there now stands a sea-food factory. Thomas (Miss Fife's great-grandfather) didn't join his brothers. Instead he concentrated on building rowing skiffs and in the 1881 Census is described as "boat-builder/hirer (17 boats)."

The remaining Fyfes eventually concentrated on building fishing skiffs and three of James Fyfe's sons were working at Ardmaleish until the 1930s, by which time the boats were getting much bigger and designs were changing fast. Two of John Fyfe's sons were trained there, but George was drowned aged twenty in 1898 and John emigrated to Canada in 1906. Most of Miss Fyfe's surviving relatives are now in Canada and the United States.

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The Pierce Bracket

My original intention in providing the Mariota with auxiliary power was to build a conventional outboard well at the aft end of the cockpit and use a nice, quite light, 3hp Mariner outboard I had bought twenty or so years earlier and never used. After I had built the well, which included the painful exercise of cutting a hole in the bottom planks, I learned that two strokes don’t like operating in enclosed spaces; they misfire if not provided with plenty of air.

I wasn’t willing to finish the build and take a chance on this, so I decided to look for an alternative motor. Four strokes being heavy, expensive and very bulky, this led me to researching electric power and the purchase of a Torqeedo outboard, also expensive but very light. I’m comfortable with that decision and convinced that a nice clean unit is the way to go, but being slow revving the propellor is 12 inches diameter and would have required that dreadful hole to be much enlarged.

I spent a week or two surgically removing the well and filling in the hole, leaving myself with a nice little storage space to keep a radio or binoculars out of harm’s way, meanwhile thinking about an external bracket.

Freeboard on the Kotik design, an extended Wee Seal, is too high for even a long shaft to bury the propellor adequately. The motor has to be dropped nine inches or so, which means that there is enormous torque. My first attempt at a wooden bracket failed miserably, but with no injury of loss of life. What I thought was quite robust broke apart as soon as the motor’s full thrust came on and showed that any replacement would need to be a metal fabrication, probably with an extra fastening low down on the hull for security.

The guru from An Cala then arrived, examined the state of affairs and came up a with a solution that is simple and strong. It’s a sliding beam that travels within a strong wooden box behind the aft bulkhead, easily pushed out when required and unnoticeable when it’s not. The box is bolted to the bulkhead, but for additional security I’ve added an oak bar. The beam itself is oak. At the outboard end I’ve added a plate, so that we know it’s fully home when not required.

Boats as Art

Years ago at an art show I got in conversation with a very well known major Scottish artist famous for her countryside paintings. who asked me if I painted and when I said I didn't terminated our conversation pretty quickly. Later I realised that if people like me didn't build boats people like her wouldn't have them to paint.

Fife famously liked his boats to be "fast and bonnie" and I think most of us who make them would agree. It's difficult to imagine how one could be motivated to spend a year or two building something plain ugly, but then, I hear you say, there could be some functional beauty? Did Fife's lovely long overhangs really contribute anything other than weight where you don't want it and corners of damp rot?

Above is my wee Christmas Wherry, designed by Walt Simmons of Duck Trap Boatbuilding, which I think is pretty as well as functional. She is seen in her present configuration and colour scheme and has arrived here by quite a tortuous route.

In the early days she had a centreboard, set fairly far aft, and no jib. As a result she tracked along nicely but made a lot of leeway and was a pest to put about. This led to the centreboard being removed and replaced by a dagger board a couple of feet forward, which cured the tacking problem at the expense of introducing quite severe weather helm. In turn this led finally to the jib and bowsprit, resulting in pretty good balance.

The forward dagger board has cleared the internal space, which is better for the crew, but in turn produces the constant problem that one of Argyll's travelling rocks will spring up unexpectedly. When the current season is finished the centreboard is going back in, positioned somewhere between its original place and where the dagger now sits. Here you can see the remains of the original centreboard slot, and the daggerboard box forward.

This image shows another truth about the boats we build, which distinguishes them from artworks. Once they're done we lose interest in maintaining them. The inside is an utter disgrace and will be totally repainted when the centreboard is done.

From the outside the good ship Kelpie still looks ok and the sprit-sail, made by Gayle Heard twentyfive years ago is still setting well.

The sprit is both lovely and functional and an excuse for nice things like rope grommets.

And with a little boat like this you can enjoy extravagances such as the tiny blocks that Harry Spencer made for me in 1990, with farthings for keepers.

Come to think of it, they're also functional as well as pretty.

Sonas, an idyllic state with occasional panic

Twenty five years ago I was busily engaged in building this slippery little daysailer in a disused industrial unit I had rented for the purpose. I decided to call her Sonas, a gaelic name for a state of happiness, which has graced a number of yachts over the years.

By 1992 I had built three boats, a Joel White Nutshell and two of John Gardner's designs, the Quincy skiff and the Swampscott Dory. I was looking for something to venture farther afield and had bought plans for the Joel White Haven Class when Don Costanzo asked me why I didn't build something designed locally and mentioned David Ryder-Turner as someone who might be interested.

A few weeks later David clumped up the drive at our house in Argyll very early one Saturday morning and we met for the first time. He must have left the Clyde before dawn. He had under his arm a loaf of bread which he had baked, a bottle of wine and a set of drawings. Number 41 was a little centreboard canoe yawl, very long and slender. The lines and sail plan were pinned on the sitting room wall and studied in great detail over the next few weeks. After the visit we kept in touch by phone. The new design became number 42.

David's idea was that we would build two identical boats, one for each of us, with me providing the labour and much of the materials in exchange for his design input. After I had committed to the unit and purchased enough timber for two hulls he decided not to proceed with his own yacht, which certainly saved a lot of effort, but left me with a hefty overhead. David was an utterly lovely, inspirational and funny man, but one of life's perpetual dreamers.

Over the winter of 1992 moulds were made, the stems laminated and David got on with the drawings. I started working out the building schedule and wondered how to build a boat while keeping on top of a demanding day job. Eventually this led to shifts of 8.00am to 4.00pm in the office followed by 5.00pm to 11.30pm in the workshop a couple of days per week and two full shifts at weekends. David would turn up from time to time, exert some quality control and advice and leave me with a list of instructions for the next stage.

The build was to consume about two thousand hours of work, from me mainly but also my dear friend the late Duncan McKay, who had returned from life at sea rather unsettled and got himself a taxi, which left him free to attend almost daily.

The hull was constructed upside down over MDF moulds from Western Red Cedar strips, fastened to a Douglas Fir skeleton, a great way to turn out a lovely hull quickly and accurately, then given an outer shell of epoxy saturated woven glass roving. (Originally the hull was to be covered with mahogany veneer and I bought enough for two hulls from McGruers, another of David's dreams that evaporated, as it would have been a dreadful, messy task.) WRC is rot-resistant, very light and strong, but the stuff I got from a well known supplier was very mixed in quality. A lot had been machined with no regard for the grain and was discarded. It is poisonous and if you get a little skelf you really feel it a few days later. It had been machined with concave and convex profiles, which made it very difficult to ensure that the spaces were truly full of glue. Doing the job again I would use Douglas Fir or Honduras cedar and get it specially milled with straight edges. Of course this would also be heavier, but you would reduce the dimensions to compensate.

Once the hull was turned, at a special party organised by David, the job became more fun.

I found a single log of ancient yellow pine, which I got machined for deck planking. It was epoxied in strips on top of 7mm ply giving a finished deck thickness of about 16mm.

Covering-boards and kingplanks were made from mahogany, as were seats and other internal furniture, all hand-sanded to David's exacting standards.

The keel was cast in Cornwall by Henry Irons from a piece of lead saved from Kentra’s old one. William Fife’s wonderful creation of 1923 was losing a little weight to balance the installation of modern equipment. The new keel was delivered to Scotland on the back of a Cornish cream lorry.

Sonas got the very best of rig and equipment, spars from Collars, sails from Gayle Heard, blocks from Harry Spencer, and Classic marine and rigged by Iain Gillies.

Construction was finished in Argyll and she was duly launched in 1994, the late Duncan on the left and me in pink teeshirt on the day.This photograph, taken by David, carries the caption on the Classic Marine website:

"Designed and built by David Ryder-Turner. Words fail me, just look at it. Photo: Owner" 

I immediately discovered that Sonas was seriously over-canvassed in all but the lightest conditions. I found that the hull was basically a scaled-down model of Fife's Latifa, a yacht that David had long admired, but he hadn't appreciated the need to re-engineer it by increasing the displacement as the size went down. I generally sailed her with one reef, as can be seen from the photographs below. When I eventually parted with her the new owner was fully aware of this and that he should consider having the sail plan remodelled.

Sonas looked absolutely stunning and attracted quite a bit of interest, some of which looked like producing requests for the plans. I suggested to David that he should significantly widen the hull, add more lead and include a centreboard, which I felt would make her easier to handle ashore.

David's original design no 41 had the yawl rig and I had rejected it, because I considered it fussy in such a small boat. This would have been better, with Bermuda rig, as it would enable you to sail home comfortably under foresail and mizzen when the wind got up.

Overall the project was highly educational in more ways than one. The UK yachting press showed no interest in the finished yacht, probably because there would have been nothing in it for the commercial interests that dominate the glossies. Oddly she was written up in Classic Boat in June 1993 before she was built, but they showed no interest at all when offered a follow-up article. Wooden Boat later ran an article on the modified design, based on my suggestions.

Working with Epoxy

Only the bowsprit to varnish

I’ve been involved with epoxy resin, rather too closely for my liking, for about thirty years and have developed something of a love/hate relationship with it. Fortunately it hasn’t caused any other issues, which is a little surprising, because before I became as fully aware as I now am of the risks a fair amount of it found its way onto my skin. There is currently a surging interest in working with it, not just for boatbuilding, but also making cabinets, musical instruments and so on. I thought it would be helpful to offer some tips and advice from an experienced but lay perspective.

The advantages

The curing process involves the coming together of the two components without requiring a third factors, such as moisture or air. This means that it does not shrink during curing and can thus, subject to the addition of suitable fillers, be perfectly gap-filling. In fact joints can be made a little loose and still be strong, something that infuriates traditionally trained craftsmen and women.

Over the years I've tried various other glues that were said to be gap filling, but it seems that none truly was. But I have at least one boatbuilder friend who will disagree with this.

The main advantage is simply that a joint made with epoxy, if properly protected (see below) will be far stronger than the wood it is joining. 

The disadvantages

The main one is the risk to health. We are told that epoxy resins and the relative hardeners are not carcinogenic but I'm not anxious to be the person who proves that wrong.

Demonstrable os the fact that exposure to the components, probably the hardener rather than the resin, results in people becoming sensitised, so that any time they are newer to epoxy they come out in red blotches and feel weak. I once knew an old retired boatbuilder who could not even sit in the cabin of a boat built years earlier with epoxy without this happening. 

Less important is that it's one of the most unpleasant substances to work with, sticky of course but in a rather special, nasty way.

It's also very sensitive to ultra-violet degradation and must not be used as an unprotected external coating, however née it looks when fresh. This is a very good reason for avoiding brightwork altogether, just giving the cured surfaces several good coats of gloss paint to keep the light out, saving heaps of future maintenance work in the process.

Finally, it's usually more expensive than other glues.

Next I'm going to describe briefly how I use epoxy and in the process explain how to capitalise on the advantages and minimise the downside and save money.

Gloves or no gloves?

Personally I prefer not to wear gloves, because I believe it's better not to get my fingers sticky in the first place.

When building a community skiff a few years ago we had to adopt the industry standard of providing boxes of surgical gloves and requiring people to wear them. In fact two pairs must be worn, as it's almost impossible to get them off without getting glue on one's skin. I suspect that wearing gloves gave some people a false sense of security and made them careless, because most of the glove could not be used a second time. If you get a hole in the end of a finger you're in real trouble.

When you get glue on your hands, which of course I do, wash immediately in warm water with conventional soap. In no circumstances use acetone - it removes the natural protective oil in the skin and facilitates the passage of toxins into the body. Doing this forced a career change on a man I used to know, from modern boatbuilding to the manufacture of fake antiques, the latter more profitable but not without risks, only judicial ones rather than to his health.

Use weighting scales rather than pumps

I've yet to find pumps that were accurate ad have given up using them, since portable digital scales and so cheap. Protect the scales with plastic film.

This enables very small quantities to be mixed accurately and saves money and mess. By the way I've been told the correct West mix is 100:17, not 5:1!

Use disposable containers

Washing out and hoarding the pastil cartons that supermarkets insist in using is a sure sign to one's partner that another boat will be along on a year or two, if he or she hangs around that long.

I like the wee yogurt ones, because the corner suits my thumb and ensures that I pick it up the same way each time. The bigger soup and cream ones are great for larger mixes.

Read the Instructions (as Mother always said)

The best companies provide instruction manuals and sell ranges of mixers and fillers for all purposes to produce the best joints, coatings, space fillers etc. Buy those and use them. Using sawdust to bulk out joints may seem to save money, but may result in a glue starved joint.

Use Clingfilm

For example, laminating inwales from long strips of softwood involved mixing ore glue than I like to work with and unavoidable handling of these bendy, slippery strips.To cope with this I got a big commercial roll of plastic film  and covered the bench with it, then a second layer on which the strips were placed. Once they were coated (leaving a couple of inches at each end dry, to enable them to be lifted and cut off later) I flipped the glued faces together and folded the film over to enclose the workpiece totally. It was then easily transferred to the outside of the hull and left to cure. Later it would be lifted off, cleaned and fitted permanently to the inside.

Use heat

I read a lot about jobs being halted during periods of cold weather, but think a lot of this can be avoided if the glue starts out reasonably warm. I keep mine (in an old feed box, to avoid mess) in the boiler room in the house. Heat guns are handy, too.

To Pre-wet or not to pre-wet?

This is one of the new religions taking over the World. The Gospel according to the Gougeon Brothers says to do it, but it doubles the spreading time. There's no doubt the first coat of epoxy disappears into the dry timber by the time you apply the second coat with the fillers. Adding some filler with colloidal silica renders the mix less runny and so less inclined to sink in, so just use one coat? On the face of things this should save both tie and glue.

I won't disclose my preference, my beliefs in this field are personal, but just say that I've yet to have a joint that failed and the basic trick is to use plenty of glue.

As Captain Pete said, the time to worry about whether you used enough glue is not when you're five miles offshore in a gale!

In her cowshed

An early trip