July 3, 2025 • 30 mins
Bringing a historic wooden RNLI boat back to life using traditional skills at Cody Dock, Canning Town. Tom along with joiners Anthony and Lucia talk boats, life and community. "This is home, I've always grown up in the Docklands... I wouldn't want to leave this area having not made a difference, because I do love it and it's where I'm from". #otherlivesareavailable #podcast #eastlondon #boatbuilder
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Episode Transcript
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(00:05):
So where we are right now is Canning Town, that's in the
Docklands in East London. And this boat was a lifeboat
built for the RNLI. It was finished about 112 years
ago and it was built by a company called Thames Ironworks.
You were a huge company in the area.
They employed thousands of people and they built everything
from this size of wooden boat upto massive battleships and ocean
(00:27):
cruises. They had a huge impact on the
area. They their company football club
was rebranded as West Ham after they closed.
So that's their main legacy and that's interesting.
I never knew that link. Yeah, so that's what the hammers
in the West Ham logo are about. Those are riveters hammers.
So they did rivets on the big boats and that's why they're
called the irons as well. And the rivets are the kind of
(00:50):
for one of the better word nailsthat put the steel panels onto a
big boat. Yeah, it's for joining steel
panels together, and they're thethings you might see on old
bridges or ships, and they look like loads of little balls.
That's what the rivets are. But this is a wooden boat, so no
rivets in this. Well, actually it's got It's
held together with 10s of thousands of small copper rivets
called rovings. They're a completely different
(01:12):
sort of rivet. Let's go, let's go and have a
look at them. So it's AI mean, it's a
beautiful hull. It's been rubbed down so it's
bare wood, so everything which has got a mark and a bit of
putty on it is a ribbon. Exactly.
All handmade of copper 112 yearsago.
They're holding the structure ofthe boat together, which is
called a double diagonal planking.
(01:33):
It's very unusual hull type and the wood is all Honduran
mahogany, so it's super high quality timber that.
You just owned so from Honduras.Yeah, yeah.
And it's over 100 years old. This is over 112 years old and
also we think this was the last boat ever built in Canning Town,
so it's got quite a lot of historical significance.
(01:54):
And it left Canning Town. It hasn't been here all the
time. No, so it served as a lifeboat
from about 1914 to 45 in Anglesey in Wales for the RNLI.
So they all did this to be made.So it's sea, it's a proper sea
going vessel. It's got a deep prow so it can
cut through the waves. I'd say this is about as good as
wooden boats ever got. And then technology began to
(02:16):
change into mainly into steel and then later on into
fiberglass and stuff, so. Yeah, and this is made for for
rowing or for sailing. Sailing it had an early petrol
engine and you could also row itas well.
I think they would only ever rowit to get out of the harbour.
It's quite a big heavy boat. So yeah, when they were at sea
they had the option of engine orsail.
(02:37):
And it's on a big red sling, a canvas sling, and probably
there's another one at the back too, holding it up so you're
working. You're putting it up and down.
Basically you're. Working on the hull, you're
working on the outside first before you work on the inside.
I've got someone working on the inside now.
Basically the boat is built in stages and I've been trying to
restore it in roughly the same stages it was built in.
(02:58):
So if you imagine the boat is like a body, I've been starting
with the spine of the boat, which is called the stem.
And then I've had another guy working on the frames, which
things that look like ribs, so the ribs.
Of the boat. So it's almost like the the the
skeleton, yeah. Exactly.
And the skeleton is almost done,so now we're working on the
skin. All right.
(03:22):
I don't know if I mentioned but this boat is being turned upside
down and uses the roof for a museum dedicated to the area.
Yeah, I was going to get on to the questions like why are you
restoring this boat and what for?
So. So this is not to go to sea.
This isn't to go to sea. So this is going to be, it's had
a special building designed for it that it's going to be turned
around and sat on top of overlooking the river that it
(03:43):
was built on all those years ago, bringing attention to the
history of the area. It's a very sort of deprived
area. A lot of people don't know that
this area has a rich history or that things ever really happened
here, and so it's sort of to bring attention to that.
And we're we're in a place called Cody Dock.
I've never been to it before, but it's a dock where boats were
(04:05):
built or boats were unloaded. What?
What's the story of the SO? The industrial estate that we're
on was originally a gas works and what they called a coke
works. And yeah, they literally made
gas here and pumped it into the houses in Victorian Britain and
actually later than that. So this this would have had many
barges coming in loading and offloading coal.
(04:25):
Right, so, so access to the River Thames via the canal
system. We're not far from the Thames.
We're on the River Lee. So this is this is actually the
second biggest river in London. People don't know about it
because it was surrounded by industry and all that industry
disappeared pretty much. So there's not a lot of public
access until recently. It's a tidal river just like the
(04:46):
Thames. And if you go probably not even
a mile upstream from us, then itbecome you get to Bolox where it
becomes the the canal basic. Now, I I came through quite a
large industrial estate to get here.
Yeah, big warehouses, lorries, loading, unloading.
I didn't expect to come and finda boat building works.
(05:08):
Yeah. This is Is this the only one on
site? This is the only one on this
industrial estate. A couple of years from now,
we're going to be building a proper boat yards that will be a
dry dock, so we're going to be digging a big ditch at the end
of the dock here. The dock will be reopened by the
river and at high tides, boats will be able to float into the
(05:30):
dry dock. At low tides, the water will all
flow out, but the boat will still be there.
We'll put down the gate and the boat will be trapped in there
and it'll be in the workshop to work on and that will be quite
almost industrial scale things, serving mainly, hopefully, the
canal boats along the canals, aha.
Yeah, and the canal boats in London are now increasing in
number because they're generallyseen as a cheap way to live in
(05:54):
London. Well, as the cheap. 1000 people
living on boats in London now and the numbers 10,000.
Yeah, well over 10,000 and the numbers going up now that people
have started using the waterwaysagain, the infrastructure to
serve those boats, maintain them, survey them, etcetera,
that all disappeared. So there's a gap in the market
that we're looking to fill thereto serve all of these people
living on boats who are quite often having to leave London and
(06:17):
pay extortionate prices to use boatyards, for example.
Because all boats have to be, you know, you have to look
underneath them, look at the weed, check there's no cracks
because they're all metal holds.All boats should come out of the
water every five years with EMB surveys.
Yeah. Now you, you say we.
Who is we? So at the minute I'm working for
(06:39):
a charity called Gas Works Dock Partnership.
It runs this land. They've got a 999 year lease on
this land. So they're community projects
that they're restoring the dock,but also getting people engaged
with their local ecology and history and that sort of thing.
There's a lot of school trips down here.
I I walk past at least two groups of volunteers.
Yeah. So there's a lot of.
(07:00):
How does that fit in? There's a lot of volunteering
that happens here, so they provide opportunities and then
maybe companies who want their workers to do that, they'll get
them involved, but we also get alot of local volunteers and that
sort of thing. What's the name of this book?
It's the Frederick kitchen. That's an odd name, The
Frederick. Kitchen name so.
Is that his original? Name.
That's his original name and we're trying to find a bit more
(07:24):
information about who Frederick Kitchen was.
But his wife, I think she donated to the RNLI to have this
boat made. She got to choose and he died,
so she chose to name it in his honour.
(07:45):
Standing with a piece of historylike this, so many stories, it's
a it's a lifeboat that's over 100 years old.
So many, you know, it's put to sea.
Dozens. Of times.
It's probably saved dozens if not hundreds of people.
It's seen huge storms. It's seen tragedy.
What an amazing what an amazing thing to.
Work on, yeah, no, it's an honour to work on this and it
(08:11):
it's very meaningful for the area as well.
Thames Island Works is, for me personally, I feel a bit of a
connection to it 'cause I grew up in a boat with my family in
the 1st, every place we were moored, it was on the old Thames
Island Works site where this boat was built.
So right, it's a bit of an honour to get to work on it.
Got ya. Now, you grew up on a boat.
Why did you grow up on a boat? Because my parents lived on a
(08:34):
boat, they moved onto a boat just before I was born.
They decided that that's how they wanted to live.
So yeah, me and my sister, we'vejust grown up that way.
Are you still on a boat now? Now I've moved into a caravan,
but I lived on a boat with my family since I was 18, and my
sister still lives on the boat with my parents.
Yeah. And is this a boat on a large
body of water, or is it a boat on the canal?
(08:55):
It's just down on the River Lee at Cody Dock.
We moved to Cody Dock when I wasabout 8 years old.
Before that we lived at a Marinain Barking called Fresh Wharf,
which has mostly been sort of disbanded.
There was a massive boat community there.
I think it's about 10, only about 10 boats left and they've
been building all apartments there and stuff now.
(09:16):
So basically flats which are going up all over London, yeah,
affected that area and they pushed out the boats.
Yeah, yeah, it, it, I guess it was sort of unsightly.
I think maybe it was a bit concerning to the authorities
having it. It was borderline the shanty
town. So.
So they've sort of cleaned it upand we, my dad's, he was looking
(09:39):
for somewhere else. He discovered Polydoc exploring
in the early 2000s. It was derelict and being used
illegally by a building firm that was squatting it and they
were dumping their construction waste here.
He went through a long a long process for years and years
trying to find out who owns the lands.
(10:00):
People who owned it didn't know they owned it and just trying to
see if you could set up this project here.
And he basically set up a charity and it was given to the
charity and. That's a lot of determination on
your dad's part. Hell.
Of a lot of determination but it's what it's what he wanted
and when the dock is eventually re flooded he's going to set up
a new boat community here where basically we're not going to be
(10:22):
able to be just shifted by developers essentially and.
Oh, that sounds great in terms of growing up on a boat.
For some of our listeners, that sounds brilliant and incredibly
romantic and exciting. For others.
Wild horses wouldn't drag them onto a boat to live.
Yeah. What's your experience of living
on a boat? Well, it's, it's all I knew when
(10:44):
I was a kid and I really liked it.
It is very different from what my school mates were going
through. I mean, at the dock here for the
first sort of eight or nine years, I think we lived fully
off grids. So the company, he was trying to
squat this land. They they cut off the water and
electricity supply and it it took years.
(11:05):
It's a bit of an aggressive. Act it's extremely aggressive
and it was a very long time before we could get the council
to dig up the roads and reconnect us.
It took years and years and years.
So I. Know it's been dicted.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we. Weren't they still your
neighbors? No, no, they're they're long
gone. But yeah, this place wasn't, it
was, this was a bit concerning to the council and authorities
(11:26):
when we turned up. But I think as years have gone
by, they've seen that we're not just a bunch of Cowboys.
We are actually doing something for the community and it's
become a bit of a jewel in that area.
So that involvement of volunteers, of community, that
involvement of a long term plan basically makes this place of
value. Yeah.
And the local council sees that,Yeah.
(11:46):
And it's your dad's dream. Yeah, yeah.
Essentially. So he's so one person's dream
has sort of pushed it into the state where it is now.
Also my mother as well, she was always there supporting him.
So I said she's definitely a Co founder of the place.
Yeah. You, you said earlier on, it's
not, it wasn't like your school friends, you know, it wasn't
like the other kids that were growing up.
(12:09):
What's that like? Because when you're a kid,
sometimes you just want to fit in.
And if you live on a boat which is not collected to water and
electricity, that's different. It is different.
I don't know, I, I sort of likedit, but I don't know at school
it was sort of embarrassing not having water and electricity
24/7. Like we, we had a generator
which wouldn't even be on at night.
(12:30):
It would, it would sort of turn on by just as I was leaving for
school and then get turned off in the evening.
And then we went, had to go and access a fire hydrant in the
street and fill up our tanks forwater and stuff.
And I don't know, looking back on it, I'm I'm quite glad that I
grew up that way, but at the time it's like I didn't really
want too many people knowing about all of that stuff.
And oh, that's. It was a bit weird to kind of.
(12:50):
That's interesting because I thought maybe all your mates
would love coming here after school because it's a such an
amazing place full of interesting bits and bobs and
nooks and crannies. I did bring a few people here.
It wasn't until near the end of school I started bringing people
down here and that's when peoplestarted to change their minds a
little bit. And yeah, then then this became
the local hangout basically for people that I was mates with and
(13:13):
stuff like that. So yeah.
It's kind of parking back to thepast, but it's kind of trying to
throw forward to the future to this place, isn't it?
Yeah. The the nature of this area is
it gets developed and it's constantly changing and it's
always been like that and you'vegot to go with it.
You can't try and preserve things the way they are too
(13:34):
much. And also this area did used to
be worse, like before they started developing it, it really
did need a redevelopment. But at the same time, a lot of
the redevelopment is, is done bybig players who often aren't
even from this country or down to earth with the area.
And so it's also trying to make sure that that development is
respectful of the people that live here, the wildlife, the
(13:54):
history, that they're not just coming in, just flattening
areas, building housing that's really poor quality.
And, you know, just just making a profit that no one around here
is actually going to see and that that is going to keep
happening as well. But there are things that local
places like this can do to make sure that it's somewhat stays
for the local people. All right, so we're walking out
(14:35):
of the boatyard now. It's a rainy day, rainy grey day
here in East London. There's puddles of water.
This area is full of old machinery, old bits and bobs,
wagon wheels, cranes, excavators.
It's just a feast for the eyes, but it's it's on every side is a
(15:01):
large warehouse, a large commercial warehouse with like
dozens of trucks. It's kind of an anomaly in the
area. Isn't it?
Yeah, well, next door to us, that's the scrap metal yards
that I guess has a similar appearance.
But around us on this industrialestate, it's mostly distribution
centres, so for like Amazon or parcel companies like BPD, and
(15:22):
that's where all the parcels come and then they get
distributed into vans to be delivered to people's houses and
stuff like that. Now what's this, the sound we
can hear behind us? There's some old, is it railway
girders being sanded down? Tell me what's going on.
Here, volunteers, they're sanding down those olds.
They look like railway sleepers.Yeah, and they're going to be
used somehow in one of the gardens that's being built down
(15:45):
by the river. I'm not personally involved in
this though, so I'm not not entirely sure.
But this is all part of the sameproject which has many different
elements. Yeah, yeah.
And then in front of us there's lots of stacked up machinery and
old bits and bobs and what lookslike an old footbridge stranded
by the dock. If you just go to the dock
(16:07):
itself, it's kind of like 50 yards across, 100 yards across,
50 yards across and about 200 yards long.
How would you? Describe it, I think, Well, I
think in metres. So I know that it's about 32
metres wide and about 110 metreslong at the minute.
Back in the past it used to be almost double the length at
(16:27):
about 200 meters, but they demolished the original
industrial estate and used it tofill in about half the dock and
then they built the new industrial estate on top.
Right. So it used to be much bigger it.
Used to be much. Yeah, but now it has got water
in it. Yeah, and it's got wildlife at
one end. I'm assuming that these Reed
beds are a purposeful thing to try and cleanse the.
Water or kind of established. They established themselves.
(16:51):
Their seats must have just come in the the river can still get
in here to an extent, but it never truly fills up.
But they seeded themselves. Oh, you can hear somebody's,
somebody's nesting down there. Yeah, that's why they love the
Warbler. It's definitely warbling.
When you look at the skyline, there's cranes, Oh yeah,
(17:13):
everywhere because there's there's hundreds of flats going
up in this area. Yeah, there are lots of
different pieces of land. It's a continuous process.
Why bother trying to hold the space here?
Why not just move out somewhere easier, like a dock on a river
outside of London or somewhere like that where where you
(17:34):
wouldn't be bothered by what's encroaching around you?
Well, I think for me anyway, this is this is home is East
London. I've always grown up in the
Docklands. For my parents who really began
this project, I think they sort of wanted to make a difference.
They wanted to live in London, they wanted to establish this
(17:56):
community that they're dreaming of.
And I don't know, I can't reallyspeak for them too much, it'd be
better to ask them. But for me personally, I
wouldn't. I wouldn't want to leave this
area having not made a difference because I do love it
and it's where I'm from. I've seen it change massively
since I was younger. When I when I was about 8 years
old and we first moved here, notone of these tall buildings that
(18:16):
you can see was there. It was just flat as far as the
eye could see, apart from the O2which you can just see peeking
out. Just the tip there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. At high tides, you could see
ships on the Thames from here, when they did have ships on the
Thames, that is. But yeah, no, no chance anymore.
And it's been creeping closer and closer and closer.
And they're just about to put upanother load of flats.
You can see these cranes here, huge cranes.
(18:38):
And in front of these new red buildings, there's going to be
another lot over a third higher than those this side.
Yeah, they they just keep finding space somehow to build
more high rises, but. But your dedication to the area,
you feel it's a cause worthy, even though you, you, you're a
young bloke, you could be off anywhere, you know, building
(19:00):
boats or, or or using your otherskills that you've got.
What keeps you, what keeps you here?
I'm still trying to work out what keeps you here, What drives
you to stay here. I don't know, I just love the
Docklands really. And this area and boats are my
passion. I've trained in in maintaining
and building boats. So that's what.
(19:21):
I want to do so. You're a trained boat.
Builder Yeah, yeah, I. Was where did you train?
I trained in Lowestoft at the International Boat Building
College, which no longer exists.They shut down a few months ago
permanently. Oh.
What a shame. Yeah, so, so Lowestoft is on the
East Coast of England. Yeah.
In which county? It's right on the border of
Suffolk and Norfolk, so yeah. And where you try no longer
(19:47):
exist. Is that because it was teaching
traditional boat building and there's no need for that or
there's no desire for that anymore?
Why? Did why did it close?
So I think for one year they just didn't get any intakes.
And then after that the owners, Mike and Lynn, who I really like
and respect, they went all out. They went every woodworking and
boat building show in the country advertising they managed
(20:09):
to secure a bursary for. 50% offfor young students, I guess they
got that from the government or something, but at the end of it,
I think it just wasn't enough and the the people who were
supporting them financially decided to pull out and it sort
of just had to end. So they put everything into it.
They went all out. But they just couldn't keep it
going. They, yeah, the people
(20:31):
supporting them just decided to stop supporting them.
And that was sort of it really. And it was a shame because that
year they had actually managed to get a full group of intakes
and they didn't get to complete the course.
So things were looking on the upfor them again.
But it was just too late. And so I think there's one,
there's like one place left in the country, perhaps 2.
(20:53):
I still no disrespect to the other grudge, but I still think
Lowestoft was a slightly better facility.
It was massive and there was just so many boats to work on
in. There.
So that was a great. Place to trade, it was a great
place and that's gone. And The thing is the big issue
with this is that these you can only learn so much about boat
building from a book. You have to learn from people
(21:14):
who've lived it. And once though these kinds of
places go, that's it. It's taken 10s of thousands of
years for humans to get this level of carpentry skill.
It's it's all through trial and error.
It's passed down from master to apprentice.
And yeah, so once that's gone, it's gone.
We won't ever get it back again because it took all that time to
learn. And that puts an extra weight on
(21:35):
your shoulders because you're representing.
Yeah, I hope to like pass on my skills to people one day.
At the minute I've got this job to be working on.
But yeah, one day I think it's absolutely my responsibility to
teach some boat building to somepeople so they can keep keep the
knowledge alive. Yeah.
So it's a specialist carpentry skill.
(21:56):
A Carpenter can't build boats. You have to be a boat builder,
Carpenter. So the thing with boat building
is that there's no right angles and no straight lines.
And builders in buildings, they always use right angles and
straight lines. That's how you work off
everything. So you've got to learn to work
with, because boats are curved in two directions.
It's, it's a compound curve and you've got to learn how to make
(22:17):
stuff fit into that curve, basically.
That sounds mathematically very complicated.
What is it an art form you'd. Think I I kind of think it's
more of an art form. You could drive yourself Mads
doing maths, but there's a lot of techniques of scribing shapes
and making patterns. And there's a saying that I'm
probably not going to say this right, but it goes an engineer
works to the nearest thousandth of a millimetre, a Carpenter
(22:41):
works to the nearest millimetre and a boat builder works to the
nearest boat. So.
You just. Kind of got to find a way to
make it work. Yeah.
(23:04):
Anthony in there might be a goodone to talk to.
He's here on his half term breakand he normally teaches kids
carpentry at the Building Grass College in Stratford.
So. So I'm here with Anthony.
Anthony, you've got noise headphones on, orange headphones
(23:25):
on your head. You're bent over diamond shaped
piece of wood. What are you doing?
Well, these things are called graving pieces.
So what I'm doing is walking around the hall of this old boat
and I'm looking for the damaged parts of the timber.
And then essentially I need to cut away the rotten piece and
(23:46):
replace it with these little diamond patches.
Now you've got quite complex curves, you've got 2 curves
meeting. So I'm trying to create the
curve on the back of this piece of timber so it marries up
perfectly to the inner skin of the.
Of course, because Tom said there's no right angles on a
boat. No, there isn't.
Absolutely no. But he also said you're a
joiner, I am a joiner, and a joiner is all about right
(24:09):
angles. Not necessarily.
You think about it. Curved staircases and hand
rails. Oh yeah.
Yeah, yeah. You know, if you start looking
back, it's only kind of a more modern perception of joinery.
I've done since post brutalist and mid century modern that
everything's become right angles.
If you start looking at old classical buildings and old
(24:29):
classical churches, there's plenty of birds in there.
And why are you here today? And in general, why are you
here? How did you get involved?
How did I get involved? Well, I believe in what they're
doing down here. It's a really, really good
community project. So they're helping so many
different people within the community and it's amazing they
(24:49):
can turn this around. And everything's built on
sustainable values as well. So there's just many strands
that, you know, appeal to me. You know, it's the old concept
of the genius Lopi where, you know, there's an energy of a
place built by the people that contribute.
And I think this just encapsulates a bit of East
London's past that's missing, you know?
(25:11):
So if you introduce this and make people aware of what was
here before, people might start to get that connection and have
a bit more pride and bit more love and a bit more joy in the
sense of place. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it does. Tom said that you are somehow
connected to a local college. You you teach a skill.
(25:32):
Yeah, I'm actually a bench joinery tutor.
I'm the head of department of Building Crafts College in
Stratford. And Stratford is quite close to
here. Yes, it is.
So yeah, I was a bench joinery tutor for nearly ten years now.
And what does that mean? OK, so essentially there's a few
strings. We're teacher apprentices, we
(25:55):
run deployment courses for school leavers and what we're
doing is equipping them with industrial skills so they can go
and find employment, you know? But that's it.
And that's in the everyday that's not building very old
RNLI. No, this is normal architectural
carpentry and joinery. So we teach people how to build
roofs all the way down to staircases to cabinets.
(26:18):
And that's a skill that's never going to go short.
Everyone's always going to need buildings.
Definitely 100%. And in terms of the teaching,
what does the teaching give you,as you know, as a Craftsman?
What does it mean to pass on what you're doing?
Because you could just work as asole trader?
(26:38):
Yeah, but I'm basically equipping people, giving them
passports for a better life, especially the lads from and
lattice from poorer background. I'm giving them a passport to
achieve something, you know, something to break their
circumstances. That's where the real budget is
for me. My name's Lithia and I am a
(27:03):
joiner. I'm just helping Tom out when I
can. And can you describe what you're
doing on this, on this piece of boat here?
I'm scraping all the paint off, so I've put a paint stripper and
just let it kind of corrode the paint and now I'm just taking
(27:26):
all the layers off. You're covered in overalls.
Yeah. It looks like a very tedious job
that you're doing. Did you volunteer to do this
particular job, or was this is this, are you the only one who's
capable of doing it? No, I don't think so.
Well I just came yesterday because I'm I'm studying so I am
(27:49):
on half term. So I came yesterday and Tom
asked me if I was OK to do this and I said yeah and then yeah.
Live to regret it. So we're now underneath the hull
of the boats. Tom, you're here with a mask on.
(28:10):
You've got a little implement inyour hand.
It's got sharp think what are you doing?
I'm literally just scraping awayloose material.
So something that something thatthis finding you here under the
whole shows is that your jobs are not always pleasant as it
were. You know, you got to do that.
You got to do the mucky stuff, you got to do the dusty stuff,
you got to get your hands. To I spent months cleaning out
(28:33):
this boat, so like I said, it's 112 years old.
But there's this is this is a, this is a, this is a skill, this
is a trader craft for a patient person.
You can't be impatient. You can't get jobs like this
done. Quickly, you can't rush it.
And if you rush it, you'll be found out.
Like we want this, we want this to, when I'm done with this, I'd
(28:54):
like to think that with proper maintenance, this could last
another 112 years. And if I rushed certain things,
it just wouldn't, it would startcoming apart within years.
So yeah, everything's got to have time taken.
It's quality over quantity, and it sort of is what it is, the
amount of time it's going to take.
But we're trying to get it done as quickly as possible at the
same time. Is this your life?
(29:14):
At this stage, this boat is everything.
Yeah, this is everything I'm. I'm working on this full time
quite often doing 11 to even 16 hour days.
I try and usually do a nine hourday, but it just requires you to
spend long amounts of time. So I've given up some hobbies
that I do in my spare time and. But no, I love it and it's worth
it. And I'm learning so much as I
(29:37):
go. And it will be an advert for the
quality of the work that we'll be able to do in the dry dock
one day as well. So yeah, yeah, it's well worth
it, I think. Yeah, a good way to spend my
time.
So where we are right now is Canning Town, that's in the
Docklands in East London. And this boat was a lifeboat
built for the RNLI. It was finished about 112 years
ago and it was built by a company called Thames Ironworks.
You were a huge company in the area.
They employed thousands of people and they built everything
from this size of wooden boat upto massive battleships and ocean
(00:27):
cruises. They had a huge impact on the
area. They their company football club
was rebranded as West Ham after they closed.
So that's their main legacy and that's interesting.
I never knew that link. Yeah, so that's what the hammers
in the West Ham logo are about. Those are riveters hammers.
So they did rivets on the big boats and that's why they're
called the irons as well. And the rivets are the kind of
(00:50):
for one of the better word nailsthat put the steel panels onto a
big boat. Yeah, it's for joining steel
panels together, and they're thethings you might see on old
bridges or ships, and they look like loads of little balls.
That's what the rivets are. But this is a wooden boat, so no
rivets in this. Well, actually it's got It's
held together with 10s of thousands of small copper rivets
called rovings. They're a completely different
(01:12):
sort of rivet. Let's go, let's go and have a
look at them. So it's AI mean, it's a
beautiful hull. It's been rubbed down so it's
bare wood, so everything which has got a mark and a bit of
putty on it is a ribbon. Exactly.
All handmade of copper 112 yearsago.
They're holding the structure ofthe boat together, which is
called a double diagonal planking.
(01:33):
It's very unusual hull type and the wood is all Honduran
mahogany, so it's super high quality timber that.
You just owned so from Honduras.Yeah, yeah.
And it's over 100 years old. This is over 112 years old and
also we think this was the last boat ever built in Canning Town,
so it's got quite a lot of historical significance.
(01:54):
And it left Canning Town. It hasn't been here all the
time. No, so it served as a lifeboat
from about 1914 to 45 in Anglesey in Wales for the RNLI.
So they all did this to be made.So it's sea, it's a proper sea
going vessel. It's got a deep prow so it can
cut through the waves. I'd say this is about as good as
wooden boats ever got. And then technology began to
(02:16):
change into mainly into steel and then later on into
fiberglass and stuff, so. Yeah, and this is made for for
rowing or for sailing. Sailing it had an early petrol
engine and you could also row itas well.
I think they would only ever rowit to get out of the harbour.
It's quite a big heavy boat. So yeah, when they were at sea
they had the option of engine orsail.
(02:37):
And it's on a big red sling, a canvas sling, and probably
there's another one at the back too, holding it up so you're
working. You're putting it up and down.
Basically you're. Working on the hull, you're
working on the outside first before you work on the inside.
I've got someone working on the inside now.
Basically the boat is built in stages and I've been trying to
restore it in roughly the same stages it was built in.
(02:58):
So if you imagine the boat is like a body, I've been starting
with the spine of the boat, which is called the stem.
And then I've had another guy working on the frames, which
things that look like ribs, so the ribs.
Of the boat. So it's almost like the the the
skeleton, yeah. Exactly.
And the skeleton is almost done,so now we're working on the
skin. All right.
(03:22):
I don't know if I mentioned but this boat is being turned upside
down and uses the roof for a museum dedicated to the area.
Yeah, I was going to get on to the questions like why are you
restoring this boat and what for?
So. So this is not to go to sea.
This isn't to go to sea. So this is going to be, it's had
a special building designed for it that it's going to be turned
around and sat on top of overlooking the river that it
(03:43):
was built on all those years ago, bringing attention to the
history of the area. It's a very sort of deprived
area. A lot of people don't know that
this area has a rich history or that things ever really happened
here, and so it's sort of to bring attention to that.
And we're we're in a place called Cody Dock.
I've never been to it before, but it's a dock where boats were
(04:05):
built or boats were unloaded. What?
What's the story of the SO? The industrial estate that we're
on was originally a gas works and what they called a coke
works. And yeah, they literally made
gas here and pumped it into the houses in Victorian Britain and
actually later than that. So this this would have had many
barges coming in loading and offloading coal.
(04:25):
Right, so, so access to the River Thames via the canal
system. We're not far from the Thames.
We're on the River Lee. So this is this is actually the
second biggest river in London. People don't know about it
because it was surrounded by industry and all that industry
disappeared pretty much. So there's not a lot of public
access until recently. It's a tidal river just like the
(04:46):
Thames. And if you go probably not even
a mile upstream from us, then itbecome you get to Bolox where it
becomes the the canal basic. Now, I I came through quite a
large industrial estate to get here.
Yeah, big warehouses, lorries, loading, unloading.
I didn't expect to come and finda boat building works.
(05:08):
Yeah. This is Is this the only one on
site? This is the only one on this
industrial estate. A couple of years from now,
we're going to be building a proper boat yards that will be a
dry dock, so we're going to be digging a big ditch at the end
of the dock here. The dock will be reopened by the
river and at high tides, boats will be able to float into the
(05:30):
dry dock. At low tides, the water will all
flow out, but the boat will still be there.
We'll put down the gate and the boat will be trapped in there
and it'll be in the workshop to work on and that will be quite
almost industrial scale things, serving mainly, hopefully, the
canal boats along the canals, aha.
Yeah, and the canal boats in London are now increasing in
number because they're generallyseen as a cheap way to live in
(05:54):
London. Well, as the cheap. 1000 people
living on boats in London now and the numbers 10,000.
Yeah, well over 10,000 and the numbers going up now that people
have started using the waterwaysagain, the infrastructure to
serve those boats, maintain them, survey them, etcetera,
that all disappeared. So there's a gap in the market
that we're looking to fill thereto serve all of these people
living on boats who are quite often having to leave London and
(06:17):
pay extortionate prices to use boatyards, for example.
Because all boats have to be, you know, you have to look
underneath them, look at the weed, check there's no cracks
because they're all metal holds.All boats should come out of the
water every five years with EMB surveys.
Yeah. Now you, you say we.
Who is we? So at the minute I'm working for
(06:39):
a charity called Gas Works Dock Partnership.
It runs this land. They've got a 999 year lease on
this land. So they're community projects
that they're restoring the dock,but also getting people engaged
with their local ecology and history and that sort of thing.
There's a lot of school trips down here.
I I walk past at least two groups of volunteers.
Yeah. So there's a lot of.
(07:00):
How does that fit in? There's a lot of volunteering
that happens here, so they provide opportunities and then
maybe companies who want their workers to do that, they'll get
them involved, but we also get alot of local volunteers and that
sort of thing. What's the name of this book?
It's the Frederick kitchen. That's an odd name, The
Frederick. Kitchen name so.
Is that his original? Name.
That's his original name and we're trying to find a bit more
(07:24):
information about who Frederick Kitchen was.
But his wife, I think she donated to the RNLI to have this
boat made. She got to choose and he died,
so she chose to name it in his honour.
(07:45):
Standing with a piece of historylike this, so many stories, it's
a it's a lifeboat that's over 100 years old.
So many, you know, it's put to sea.
Dozens. Of times.
It's probably saved dozens if not hundreds of people.
It's seen huge storms. It's seen tragedy.
What an amazing what an amazing thing to.
Work on, yeah, no, it's an honour to work on this and it
(08:11):
it's very meaningful for the area as well.
Thames Island Works is, for me personally, I feel a bit of a
connection to it 'cause I grew up in a boat with my family in
the 1st, every place we were moored, it was on the old Thames
Island Works site where this boat was built.
So right, it's a bit of an honour to get to work on it.
Got ya. Now, you grew up on a boat.
Why did you grow up on a boat? Because my parents lived on a
(08:34):
boat, they moved onto a boat just before I was born.
They decided that that's how they wanted to live.
So yeah, me and my sister, we'vejust grown up that way.
Are you still on a boat now? Now I've moved into a caravan,
but I lived on a boat with my family since I was 18, and my
sister still lives on the boat with my parents.
Yeah. And is this a boat on a large
body of water, or is it a boat on the canal?
(08:55):
It's just down on the River Lee at Cody Dock.
We moved to Cody Dock when I wasabout 8 years old.
Before that we lived at a Marinain Barking called Fresh Wharf,
which has mostly been sort of disbanded.
There was a massive boat community there.
I think it's about 10, only about 10 boats left and they've
been building all apartments there and stuff now.
(09:16):
So basically flats which are going up all over London, yeah,
affected that area and they pushed out the boats.
Yeah, yeah, it, it, I guess it was sort of unsightly.
I think maybe it was a bit concerning to the authorities
having it. It was borderline the shanty
town. So.
So they've sort of cleaned it upand we, my dad's, he was looking
(09:39):
for somewhere else. He discovered Polydoc exploring
in the early 2000s. It was derelict and being used
illegally by a building firm that was squatting it and they
were dumping their construction waste here.
He went through a long a long process for years and years
trying to find out who owns the lands.
(10:00):
People who owned it didn't know they owned it and just trying to
see if you could set up this project here.
And he basically set up a charity and it was given to the
charity and. That's a lot of determination on
your dad's part. Hell.
Of a lot of determination but it's what it's what he wanted
and when the dock is eventually re flooded he's going to set up
a new boat community here where basically we're not going to be
(10:22):
able to be just shifted by developers essentially and.
Oh, that sounds great in terms of growing up on a boat.
For some of our listeners, that sounds brilliant and incredibly
romantic and exciting. For others.
Wild horses wouldn't drag them onto a boat to live.
Yeah. What's your experience of living
on a boat? Well, it's, it's all I knew when
(10:44):
I was a kid and I really liked it.
It is very different from what my school mates were going
through. I mean, at the dock here for the
first sort of eight or nine years, I think we lived fully
off grids. So the company, he was trying to
squat this land. They they cut off the water and
electricity supply and it it took years.
(11:05):
It's a bit of an aggressive. Act it's extremely aggressive
and it was a very long time before we could get the council
to dig up the roads and reconnect us.
It took years and years and years.
So I. Know it's been dicted.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we. Weren't they still your
neighbors? No, no, they're they're long
gone. But yeah, this place wasn't, it
was, this was a bit concerning to the council and authorities
(11:26):
when we turned up. But I think as years have gone
by, they've seen that we're not just a bunch of Cowboys.
We are actually doing something for the community and it's
become a bit of a jewel in that area.
So that involvement of volunteers, of community, that
involvement of a long term plan basically makes this place of
value. Yeah.
And the local council sees that,Yeah.
(11:46):
And it's your dad's dream. Yeah, yeah.
Essentially. So he's so one person's dream
has sort of pushed it into the state where it is now.
Also my mother as well, she was always there supporting him.
So I said she's definitely a Co founder of the place.
Yeah. You, you said earlier on, it's
not, it wasn't like your school friends, you know, it wasn't
like the other kids that were growing up.
(12:09):
What's that like? Because when you're a kid,
sometimes you just want to fit in.
And if you live on a boat which is not collected to water and
electricity, that's different. It is different.
I don't know, I, I sort of likedit, but I don't know at school
it was sort of embarrassing not having water and electricity
24/7. Like we, we had a generator
which wouldn't even be on at night.
(12:30):
It would, it would sort of turn on by just as I was leaving for
school and then get turned off in the evening.
And then we went, had to go and access a fire hydrant in the
street and fill up our tanks forwater and stuff.
And I don't know, looking back on it, I'm I'm quite glad that I
grew up that way, but at the time it's like I didn't really
want too many people knowing about all of that stuff.
And oh, that's. It was a bit weird to kind of.
(12:50):
That's interesting because I thought maybe all your mates
would love coming here after school because it's a such an
amazing place full of interesting bits and bobs and
nooks and crannies. I did bring a few people here.
It wasn't until near the end of school I started bringing people
down here and that's when peoplestarted to change their minds a
little bit. And yeah, then then this became
the local hangout basically for people that I was mates with and
(13:13):
stuff like that. So yeah.
It's kind of parking back to thepast, but it's kind of trying to
throw forward to the future to this place, isn't it?
Yeah. The the nature of this area is
it gets developed and it's constantly changing and it's
always been like that and you'vegot to go with it.
You can't try and preserve things the way they are too
(13:34):
much. And also this area did used to
be worse, like before they started developing it, it really
did need a redevelopment. But at the same time, a lot of
the redevelopment is, is done bybig players who often aren't
even from this country or down to earth with the area.
And so it's also trying to make sure that that development is
respectful of the people that live here, the wildlife, the
(13:54):
history, that they're not just coming in, just flattening
areas, building housing that's really poor quality.
And, you know, just just making a profit that no one around here
is actually going to see and that that is going to keep
happening as well. But there are things that local
places like this can do to make sure that it's somewhat stays
for the local people. All right, so we're walking out
(14:35):
of the boatyard now. It's a rainy day, rainy grey day
here in East London. There's puddles of water.
This area is full of old machinery, old bits and bobs,
wagon wheels, cranes, excavators.
It's just a feast for the eyes, but it's it's on every side is a
(15:01):
large warehouse, a large commercial warehouse with like
dozens of trucks. It's kind of an anomaly in the
area. Isn't it?
Yeah, well, next door to us, that's the scrap metal yards
that I guess has a similar appearance.
But around us on this industrialestate, it's mostly distribution
centres, so for like Amazon or parcel companies like BPD, and
(15:22):
that's where all the parcels come and then they get
distributed into vans to be delivered to people's houses and
stuff like that. Now what's this, the sound we
can hear behind us? There's some old, is it railway
girders being sanded down? Tell me what's going on.
Here, volunteers, they're sanding down those olds.
They look like railway sleepers.Yeah, and they're going to be
used somehow in one of the gardens that's being built down
(15:45):
by the river. I'm not personally involved in
this though, so I'm not not entirely sure.
But this is all part of the sameproject which has many different
elements. Yeah, yeah.
And then in front of us there's lots of stacked up machinery and
old bits and bobs and what lookslike an old footbridge stranded
by the dock. If you just go to the dock
(16:07):
itself, it's kind of like 50 yards across, 100 yards across,
50 yards across and about 200 yards long.
How would you? Describe it, I think, Well, I
think in metres. So I know that it's about 32
metres wide and about 110 metreslong at the minute.
Back in the past it used to be almost double the length at
(16:27):
about 200 meters, but they demolished the original
industrial estate and used it tofill in about half the dock and
then they built the new industrial estate on top.
Right. So it used to be much bigger it.
Used to be much. Yeah, but now it has got water
in it. Yeah, and it's got wildlife at
one end. I'm assuming that these Reed
beds are a purposeful thing to try and cleanse the.
Water or kind of established. They established themselves.
(16:51):
Their seats must have just come in the the river can still get
in here to an extent, but it never truly fills up.
But they seeded themselves. Oh, you can hear somebody's,
somebody's nesting down there. Yeah, that's why they love the
Warbler. It's definitely warbling.
When you look at the skyline, there's cranes, Oh yeah,
(17:13):
everywhere because there's there's hundreds of flats going
up in this area. Yeah, there are lots of
different pieces of land. It's a continuous process.
Why bother trying to hold the space here?
Why not just move out somewhere easier, like a dock on a river
outside of London or somewhere like that where where you
(17:34):
wouldn't be bothered by what's encroaching around you?
Well, I think for me anyway, this is this is home is East
London. I've always grown up in the
Docklands. For my parents who really began
this project, I think they sort of wanted to make a difference.
They wanted to live in London, they wanted to establish this
(17:56):
community that they're dreaming of.
And I don't know, I can't reallyspeak for them too much, it'd be
better to ask them. But for me personally, I
wouldn't. I wouldn't want to leave this
area having not made a difference because I do love it
and it's where I'm from. I've seen it change massively
since I was younger. When I when I was about 8 years
old and we first moved here, notone of these tall buildings that
(18:16):
you can see was there. It was just flat as far as the
eye could see, apart from the O2which you can just see peeking
out. Just the tip there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. At high tides, you could see
ships on the Thames from here, when they did have ships on the
Thames, that is. But yeah, no, no chance anymore.
And it's been creeping closer and closer and closer.
And they're just about to put upanother load of flats.
You can see these cranes here, huge cranes.
(18:38):
And in front of these new red buildings, there's going to be
another lot over a third higher than those this side.
Yeah, they they just keep finding space somehow to build
more high rises, but. But your dedication to the area,
you feel it's a cause worthy, even though you, you, you're a
young bloke, you could be off anywhere, you know, building
(19:00):
boats or, or or using your otherskills that you've got.
What keeps you, what keeps you here?
I'm still trying to work out what keeps you here, What drives
you to stay here. I don't know, I just love the
Docklands really. And this area and boats are my
passion. I've trained in in maintaining
and building boats. So that's what.
(19:21):
I want to do so. You're a trained boat.
Builder Yeah, yeah, I. Was where did you train?
I trained in Lowestoft at the International Boat Building
College, which no longer exists.They shut down a few months ago
permanently. Oh.
What a shame. Yeah, so, so Lowestoft is on the
East Coast of England. Yeah.
In which county? It's right on the border of
Suffolk and Norfolk, so yeah. And where you try no longer
(19:47):
exist. Is that because it was teaching
traditional boat building and there's no need for that or
there's no desire for that anymore?
Why? Did why did it close?
So I think for one year they just didn't get any intakes.
And then after that the owners, Mike and Lynn, who I really like
and respect, they went all out. They went every woodworking and
boat building show in the country advertising they managed
(20:09):
to secure a bursary for. 50% offfor young students, I guess they
got that from the government or something, but at the end of it,
I think it just wasn't enough and the the people who were
supporting them financially decided to pull out and it sort
of just had to end. So they put everything into it.
They went all out. But they just couldn't keep it
going. They, yeah, the people
(20:31):
supporting them just decided to stop supporting them.
And that was sort of it really. And it was a shame because that
year they had actually managed to get a full group of intakes
and they didn't get to complete the course.
So things were looking on the upfor them again.
But it was just too late. And so I think there's one,
there's like one place left in the country, perhaps 2.
(20:53):
I still no disrespect to the other grudge, but I still think
Lowestoft was a slightly better facility.
It was massive and there was just so many boats to work on
in. There.
So that was a great. Place to trade, it was a great
place and that's gone. And The thing is the big issue
with this is that these you can only learn so much about boat
building from a book. You have to learn from people
(21:14):
who've lived it. And once though these kinds of
places go, that's it. It's taken 10s of thousands of
years for humans to get this level of carpentry skill.
It's it's all through trial and error.
It's passed down from master to apprentice.
And yeah, so once that's gone, it's gone.
We won't ever get it back again because it took all that time to
learn. And that puts an extra weight on
(21:35):
your shoulders because you're representing.
Yeah, I hope to like pass on my skills to people one day.
At the minute I've got this job to be working on.
But yeah, one day I think it's absolutely my responsibility to
teach some boat building to somepeople so they can keep keep the
knowledge alive. Yeah.
So it's a specialist carpentry skill.
(21:56):
A Carpenter can't build boats. You have to be a boat builder,
Carpenter. So the thing with boat building
is that there's no right angles and no straight lines.
And builders in buildings, they always use right angles and
straight lines. That's how you work off
everything. So you've got to learn to work
with, because boats are curved in two directions.
It's, it's a compound curve and you've got to learn how to make
(22:17):
stuff fit into that curve, basically.
That sounds mathematically very complicated.
What is it an art form you'd. Think I I kind of think it's
more of an art form. You could drive yourself Mads
doing maths, but there's a lot of techniques of scribing shapes
and making patterns. And there's a saying that I'm
probably not going to say this right, but it goes an engineer
works to the nearest thousandth of a millimetre, a Carpenter
(22:41):
works to the nearest millimetre and a boat builder works to the
nearest boat. So.
You just. Kind of got to find a way to
make it work. Yeah.
(23:04):
Anthony in there might be a goodone to talk to.
He's here on his half term breakand he normally teaches kids
carpentry at the Building Grass College in Stratford.
So. So I'm here with Anthony.
Anthony, you've got noise headphones on, orange headphones
(23:25):
on your head. You're bent over diamond shaped
piece of wood. What are you doing?
Well, these things are called graving pieces.
So what I'm doing is walking around the hall of this old boat
and I'm looking for the damaged parts of the timber.
And then essentially I need to cut away the rotten piece and
(23:46):
replace it with these little diamond patches.
Now you've got quite complex curves, you've got 2 curves
meeting. So I'm trying to create the
curve on the back of this piece of timber so it marries up
perfectly to the inner skin of the.
Of course, because Tom said there's no right angles on a
boat. No, there isn't.
Absolutely no. But he also said you're a
joiner, I am a joiner, and a joiner is all about right
(24:09):
angles. Not necessarily.
You think about it. Curved staircases and hand
rails. Oh yeah.
Yeah, yeah. You know, if you start looking
back, it's only kind of a more modern perception of joinery.
I've done since post brutalist and mid century modern that
everything's become right angles.
If you start looking at old classical buildings and old
(24:29):
classical churches, there's plenty of birds in there.
And why are you here today? And in general, why are you
here? How did you get involved?
How did I get involved? Well, I believe in what they're
doing down here. It's a really, really good
community project. So they're helping so many
different people within the community and it's amazing they
(24:49):
can turn this around. And everything's built on
sustainable values as well. So there's just many strands
that, you know, appeal to me. You know, it's the old concept
of the genius Lopi where, you know, there's an energy of a
place built by the people that contribute.
And I think this just encapsulates a bit of East
London's past that's missing, you know?
(25:11):
So if you introduce this and make people aware of what was
here before, people might start to get that connection and have
a bit more pride and bit more love and a bit more joy in the
sense of place. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it does. Tom said that you are somehow
connected to a local college. You you teach a skill.
(25:32):
Yeah, I'm actually a bench joinery tutor.
I'm the head of department of Building Crafts College in
Stratford. And Stratford is quite close to
here. Yes, it is.
So yeah, I was a bench joinery tutor for nearly ten years now.
And what does that mean? OK, so essentially there's a few
strings. We're teacher apprentices, we
(25:55):
run deployment courses for school leavers and what we're
doing is equipping them with industrial skills so they can go
and find employment, you know? But that's it.
And that's in the everyday that's not building very old
RNLI. No, this is normal architectural
carpentry and joinery. So we teach people how to build
roofs all the way down to staircases to cabinets.
(26:18):
And that's a skill that's never going to go short.
Everyone's always going to need buildings.
Definitely 100%. And in terms of the teaching,
what does the teaching give you,as you know, as a Craftsman?
What does it mean to pass on what you're doing?
Because you could just work as asole trader?
(26:38):
Yeah, but I'm basically equipping people, giving them
passports for a better life, especially the lads from and
lattice from poorer background. I'm giving them a passport to
achieve something, you know, something to break their
circumstances. That's where the real budget is
for me. My name's Lithia and I am a
(27:03):
joiner. I'm just helping Tom out when I
can. And can you describe what you're
doing on this, on this piece of boat here?
I'm scraping all the paint off, so I've put a paint stripper and
just let it kind of corrode the paint and now I'm just taking
(27:26):
all the layers off. You're covered in overalls.
Yeah. It looks like a very tedious job
that you're doing. Did you volunteer to do this
particular job, or was this is this, are you the only one who's
capable of doing it? No, I don't think so.
Well I just came yesterday because I'm I'm studying so I am
(27:49):
on half term. So I came yesterday and Tom
asked me if I was OK to do this and I said yeah and then yeah.
Live to regret it. So we're now underneath the hull
of the boats. Tom, you're here with a mask on.
(28:10):
You've got a little implement inyour hand.
It's got sharp think what are you doing?
I'm literally just scraping awayloose material.
So something that something thatthis finding you here under the
whole shows is that your jobs are not always pleasant as it
were. You know, you got to do that.
You got to do the mucky stuff, you got to do the dusty stuff,
you got to get your hands. To I spent months cleaning out
(28:33):
this boat, so like I said, it's 112 years old.
But there's this is this is a, this is a, this is a skill, this
is a trader craft for a patient person.
You can't be impatient. You can't get jobs like this
done. Quickly, you can't rush it.
And if you rush it, you'll be found out.
Like we want this, we want this to, when I'm done with this, I'd
(28:54):
like to think that with proper maintenance, this could last
another 112 years. And if I rushed certain things,
it just wouldn't, it would startcoming apart within years.
So yeah, everything's got to have time taken.
It's quality over quantity, and it sort of is what it is, the
amount of time it's going to take.
But we're trying to get it done as quickly as possible at the
same time. Is this your life?
(29:14):
At this stage, this boat is everything.
Yeah, this is everything I'm. I'm working on this full time
quite often doing 11 to even 16 hour days.
I try and usually do a nine hourday, but it just requires you to
spend long amounts of time. So I've given up some hobbies
that I do in my spare time and. But no, I love it and it's worth
it. And I'm learning so much as I
(29:37):
go. And it will be an advert for the
quality of the work that we'll be able to do in the dry dock
one day as well. So yeah, yeah, it's well worth
it, I think. Yeah, a good way to spend my
time.
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