Donald Young on Boatbuilding
Lisa So, your father, did he teach you how to make repairs to the boats and how to build a boat?
Donald Well, you’ve got to learn as you goes along. I mean I must have learnt from him.
So, can you tell me about some of those boats in the early days when you were young, that you worked on?
Donald I can’t really remember the names of them. They were mostly under 30-foot-long, so they weren’t very big boats. ‘Proud Maisie’ was one. She was a nice little boat, ‘Proud Maisie’. I managed to, being as I was looking after her, I could use her, and I used to take friends out on her, and she was great.
She didn’t have any … well, she had two bunks inside you could sleep on at a pinch but it really a day boat, but that’s where I really learnt navigation and sailing I suppose, but navigation was sort of beginning to change.
All the new technology was coming in slowly and although you had to know how to take sights and one thing and another, it gradually faded out and nowadays they don’t need any navigation to go anywhere. They just tunes into the satellite up above.