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Corribee Mk1

Nathan Whitworth writes:

Just as I reached for a refreshing bottle of fine Kentish ale I realised a loud splash was caused by none other than the stern locker lid. The cord that attached it not so firmly to the boat must have broken and down it went – in 4 knots of spring tide. It wasn’t ever coming back.

I estimated that the stern locker of the Corribee will hold about 2 tons of water, which wouldn’t be of great benefit to her buoyancy. This was a fairly major problem and I racked my brains for a solution, “hmm”, I gave up racking and sprinted into the boat yard, where I told one of the lads what had happened, and promptly got laughed at.

“It is quite funny though mate, innit” he teased as he took me over to one of the workshops. I was inclined to agree, although not enough to raise a chuckle since I was still worried about being on a sinking boat if it rained or the very low stern of the Corribee got pooped by some rogue wave.

At 17:10 on a Friday afternoon I explained the problem to a guy in the workshop, who was fitting out a massive Fairline motorboat. By 17:15 I was sprinting back to Kudu with tape measure in hand to measure up the void of the locker lid. Back in the work shop, the guy, Martin I believe was his name, grabbed an off cut of half million pound motorboat quality marine ply and wizzed out a circle with his jigsaw.

Kudu now has a marine ply locker lid attached with gaffer tape. If it’s good enough for Apollo 13, then it’s good enough for my Corribee!

A few months later, I started work on finishing my stern locker lid. I had made a new one out of GRP, but never finished it. I gave it a good clean with a cup full of acetone that a nearby workman offered me, then laid up some fresh woven fibre. The newly finished and installed stern locker lid securing system can be seen below. Note the securing method; a length of bungie in a larks foot around a u-bolt and a small cleat at the other end. It works well, although the fit of the lid itself is what you’d call an engineers fit – tight and secure in it’s own right.

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