Nigel Gray
Nigel belongs to: The Coble and Keelboat Society
Nigel was born near Hexham. He has always been interested in traditional boats and has operated a variety of wooden boats for commercial and recreational purposes. He has recently built his own boat in his garage using traditional tools and techniques.
Nigel was interviewed by Carl Greenwood on 13 November 2005. The interview took place at the Interviewee's living room and lasted 34 minutes and 25 seconds.
Interest in traditional boats
"I’ve always been interested in boats, ever since a child and we had a small boat in the family"
I’ve always been interested in boats, ever since a child and we had a small boat in the family and I think probably going on holiday to Holy Island is when I first saw traditional boats being used in a sort of commercial manner by the fishermen there and it was there that I sort of learnt about boats and how boats can be used and why traditional boats were going to be better than fibreglass in certain instances.
It went from there in a fairly sort of stable period until I became interested in boats and became a professional boatman on the river and the first choice of a boat was to have it built, to have one built from wood by a local boat builder. And over the years I became more heavily involved in that and eventually got another fishing boat built, and once again the first choice was wood and tradition. Not just because the sentimental reasons but also because it actually was a better commercial deal than the fibreglass ones, and of course with a wooden boat you get exactly what you want whereas fibreglass you’re rather restricted to a, a design, which is difficult to change.
Nigel has 22 memories in the memorynet:
Nigel's memories with a Skills theme:
Interest in traditional boats
- Process of building a wooden boat
- Sourcing traditional boat building tools
- The adze and caulking irons
- Sound of the adze
- Sound of the augur
- Sound of caulking
- Sound of a jack plane
Caulking irons- Cotton
- Hand brace and augurs
- Wooden caulking mallet
- Jack plane
- Half model and plans
- Nigel at work in his workshop
Nigel's other memories:
This memory has these themes:
Leisure | Skills | The North East | Traditions
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