Bill Colley - The last of the great wooden racing boat builders

When I arrived at Richmond I had the idea of asking whether I could use a pontoon mooring at Richmond Bridge Boat Hire. However, it was clear that this would not work.

The pontoons were festooned with wooden rowing boats, despite being out of season. The stream had set against me and very flowing rapidly against the moored boats. If I approached the pontoons there was a real danger of my riggers gouging holes in the side of the boats.

The Richmond Boat Hire pontoons  on a summer's day - from Tim Koch - 'Hear the Boat Sing' 2016
https://heartheboatsing.com/2016/11/01/richmond-upon-thames-part-ii-64-years-with-bill-colley/

So I went beyond the bridge and found a ferry wharf, a large structure, with two ferries winter moored. At the end of the wharf was a fixed iron ladder which stretched down to the river. I gingerly transferred to the ladder to get on to wharf with my painter, realising that with the very strong tide and river speed, slipping could be fatal. At the top of the ladder I clambered over the metal railings, again with great care.

St Helena's Pier, Richmond - one of the many chefs in Richmond takes a break

Having secured PicoMicroYacht with a rope to allow for tidal drop, I went over to the workshops situated by the river under bridge arches.

Richmond river scenes 

These contain businesses that follow on from the historical boat building that has occurred in Richmond for centuries. Two legends of boat building exist in the workshops, Bill Colley and Mark Edwards.

Bill Colley began building boats in 1952

Mark Edwards built the famous barge, Gloriana

The boat building businesses from Tim Koch - Bill Colley's workshop is in the middle and Mark Edward's one is on the right

I had the pleasure of meeting up briefly with Bill Colley who, as I posted in 2014, built the wooden frame that converted a Laser Pico dinghy into PicoMicroYacht. Bill has been building wooden racing boats since the 1950s and is still building aged 80 years, the last remaining builder of this type in the UK.

My Laser Pico was taken to Richmond and stored his is workshop whilst he created the  rowing frame about ten years ago. I thanks Bill profusely for his work, since he had made measurements perfectly so that the rowing system was well balanced and this meant  that PicoMicroyacht has been a pleasure to row over the years.

Bill looking our from his workshop

We chatted briefly about boat building. He told me that he had kept going with boat building in retirement because it stopped him getting under the feet of his 'missus.' He reflected on the arguments for wooden versus plastic racing boats. The latter were made more accurately but he mentioned a University of London boat engineering study that the precise shape of a boat made no difference to speed.  Despite this, the plastic boats were viewed as faster.

I reflect on the irony that racing shells are both works of art and built for speed, but perceived speed had trumped art in this case.

As the last in the line of traditional wooden racing boat builders he was hoping for a revival in the future as people realised what they were missing.

I went away inspired to have another boat, but then reality set in as I realised I had I already had Bill Colley's PicoMicroYacht and this was all I needed for rowing.

The BBC catches up with Bill Colley