Ian Lallow on Boatbuilding

Tracy: So, were there any Health and Safety Regulations or Health and Safety clothes and that sort of thing?

Umm, it’s the same with any Health and Safety, even today, it’s common sense, and in those days common sense prevailed, and all the lads were sensible, and you know, you didn’t do anything stupid.

OK, yes, we all had accidents and we’ve all had boats fall over, but it’s just one of the hazards of the trade I’m afraid. We had one fall over. We’d hauled the boat up. It wasn’t one that we’d built, it was one we used to look after, on a Monday lunchtime.

We were just going home at a quarter to five what ever it was we used to knock off. I’m talking now about 19 … late ‘70’s, and one of my chaps came running up and he said, “Ian” he said, “’Marionette’ just fallen over.” I said, “You’re joking?” “No.”

So I go down and of course the boat, it’s a 40 some odd foot boat, was on its side. It was built of aluminum so all that happened in fact was that it put a big dent in the side of it.

I got some chaps back and we worked through the night, got it back upright, and then we’d phoned the owner and told him what the problem was, and he said, “Well, you’d better get the builders on to come and have a look at it before you do anything”, so fair enough, I said, “But bear in mind sir you’re going to want to race this at the weekend.”

“Oh yeah, yeah” he said, “of course we do.”

Well, it took two days for the builders to send a Representative, and when he turned up he was the Accountant.

Knew bugger all about bloody boats.

So, we got in there with some acro jacks and some big hammers and pushed the dent up, put some filler in, touched it up, launched it on the Friday and the owner said, “Well you can make up for this, you’d better come and drive it for me.”

There was a big Regatta on the Saturday, it was just before Cowes Week, so I drove it in the end, and we had a good race and he won the race, and all was forgiven.