One of the tasks to be undertaken each winter is to sand and varnish the woodwork on the fleet of angling boats for the Glenisland Coop. The way we manage this work is to identify the scruffiest boats and leaving those ones inside the boathouse to dry out over the winter. The rest of boats are overturned and left outside, propped up to prevent them getting too wet. The boathouse can accommodate 4 boats so that is the size of the task for the committee members to attack. Four boats doesn’t sound like much but that equates to a fair old bit of rubbing down and painting!
Over the past two weeks we have been hard at it in the evenings tidying up the boats in readiness for the coming season. Even just getting into the car park proved a challenge as the rains had lifted the level in the lake to the point where the water was in the car park itself.
None of the boats required any structural maintenance, just a thorough sanding and a couple of coats of varnish. The point of keeping them inside the boathouse is to let the woodwork dry out completely over the winter. Damp wood is useless and any varnish you apply to wet timber will peel off in no time at all.
The next time you hire a club boat for a day on the lake remember the hours of sanding and painting that went into keeping these boats in good condition. As with all angling clubs, there is a lot of work which goes on behind the scenes by a small group of dedicated individuals. I think I have said before in this blog that I am not really a ‘club fishermen’. I prefer to just get up and go fishing at the drop of a hat, selecting the times which I feel are going to be the most rewarding. Organised days, set fishing times and competition rules are not really my thing. But the Glenisland Coop is an excellent club run by genuinely good people with only the best interests of Lough Beltra at heart. A few hours here and there of my free time to help out on jobs like this are no loss. And of course there is always plenty of craik and banter going on too.
Later…………Some more pics here from the Beltra FB page:
Claretbumbler 
As one who has built many boats and repaired them over more years than I care to remember I would like to share my experience with you. We hire out boats on Lough Arrow and the situation as described by you is a very familiar one. Having tried all the various finishes down the years, the one we have found best is one called Woodoc 50. It doesn’t appear to degrade with time like other finishes but abrades away leaving you with a fresh looking finish all the time. As a consequence of this it follows that the more coats you apply the longer it lasts. The makers recommend at least three coats, we usually apply five so that we get a few years between coats.
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Thanks for that Finian. To be honest we have been looking around for a better alternative as the endless cycle of sanding and varnishing gets a bit boring when you have 10 boats to look after. I will talk to the committee about getting a tin of Woodoc 50 to try out. Thanks again.
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