The Little Bird.

It’s high time I made a bloggette all about the single most influential member of the Wendy Ann reconstruction team so far. I’ve ummed and ahhed for weeks about this, considering it an impossible task- as here is a man who is bigger than blog can describe.
B and I first met Mr Robin F Twine just after the boat came out of the water from an introduction by Di Roberts, and he was more or less hired on the basis that ‘everything’s possible’. I remember being really scared about the state of the steel and not having a single sniff of a clue about what to do with it, yet here was this tiny man who seemed to take the whole ghastly sight in his stride, significantly did not say one single negative word about our predicament, and after a quiet moments thought announced- yes, everything is indeed possible.
I guess in following our guts we got lucky, Robin has proved himself to be a constant source of strength, encouragement and inspiration, a font of knowledge and means by which we are learning so much that I would happily apprentice under him- I suppose that in a way that’s what I’m doing. All this is not at all bad for a guy who humbly insists that he’s not a welder at all. I know what he means but it got quite an interesting reaction from Becky the first time he said it (about six months and a few grand in). Also for a supposedly ‘not a welder’ his work is really, really neat. I am amazed at the skill, care and attention to detail that has gone into all our new hull plates, matching new welded plate to a very old compound curved riveted hull is no mean achievement, and now, sighting down the newly completed forward third of Wendy Ann’s hull, all the curves match pretty beautifully. Flat plates were bent up to frames in situ by means of hydraulic jacks and chain hoists, and over the months a remarkably huge amount of our hull has been replaced, as well as a massive chunk of keelson and every other frame up forward. It’s been an adventure, and an education, and now I find myself tentatively thinking that we might be almost halfway through the welding work. The pointy end is just about done, and all three of us are looking pensively at Wendy Ann’s fat arse (sorry- stern) knowing that it will be the proving ground for what we’ve learned so far. Slowly, with the help of our man, Wendy is being hauled back from the brink of shipwreck- but she’s already a thing that I know we are all becoming very proud of.
oh and ps.. sorry (only a bit) about the portrait R!