b'Colin Henwood and 30 years of Henwood & DeanThe history of my family is a complicated one, a happyAt the boatyard in Lymington I began to work on thethe wall of a derelict farm building and so began the first of story that is not for this book except to include two people:wooden components that were fitted to the yachts. I startedmany makeshift expansions at Greenlands Farm that would Chick Henwood and Vernon Gifford, both responsibleto collect a toolkit and learnt, through trial and error, tobecome my shanty town boatyard.for introducing me to boats. Neither are alive today; sadlysharpen my chisels and planes. I really wanted to be involvedWith one boat restoration completed more boat work started Vernon died before the boatyard became established butwith wooden boats. to arrive, and when a large steam launch project came along Chick visited and watched a progression that he had startedIn the early 1980s the artist David Addey, knowing my desireI needed help.Robert Dean volunteered to help with this with Vernon many years before. Their ashes rest at theto find a foothold in wooden boatbuilding, showed me ajob that was beyond my capacity to complete on my own, mouth of the Helford River in Cornwall, an estuary where Iseries of his Thames watercolours that led me to Freebodysand in 1985 Robert and I formed a partnership of Henwood learnt to muck about in boats with my family (and still do). boatyard at Hurley. I moved to the Thames and started& Dean Boatbuilders based at Greenlands Farm. I left school in 1973 having failed my woodwork O-levelto discover the complexities of the Thames boatbuildingAround this time Cliveden, the Astors stately pile at Taplow, exam, and headed straight for Falmouth to start work intradition. At Hurley I met Richard Way who showed me thewas being converted to a grand hotel. Robert and I suggested a boatyard building 71ft sail training ketches in fibreglass.standard that I had to strive for because, for any apprentice,they needed a launch to take their guests out on the beautiful The industrial unrest of 1974 and an oil crisis put paid tothe ability to understand the level that can be obtained isCliveden reach. Our marketing skills paid off and we rebuilt any ideas I had of moving up the skills ladder and highercrucial even if it seems, and is, unattainable at the beginning! a teak pinnace hull with an Edwardian cabin. This was our education and a full grant seemed like a good place toTo be surrounded by craftsmanship is a great way to learn -first major high quality project and it really set the ball rolling weather the storm for a few years. perhaps I should have stayed at Hurley a bit longer but theas work started to arrive at our door. Many of the people By 1978 I was working in Lymington for Contessa Yachtsurge to establish my own workshop was too strong. who trusted us with their beautiful boats in those early days building a range of cruising and racing yachts in GRP. MyOnce out on my own, and with all the naivety of an upstartare still with us and some of their boats are featured in this approach to woodworking up to this point had been to justwith only minimal experience, the learning curve reallybook.have a go. As a schoolboy I had built two plywood sailingsteepened. The winter of 1982 was fairly harsh. I had set upRoberts design flair was a great asset, and he designed dinghies from kits. The first one, the ubiquitous Mirrora tiny workshop in Greenlands Farm, Hambleden, occupyingand built the electric motor punt Voltaire, a traditional dinghy, had been constructed in my parents back room. a lock-up garage containing my bench, a few woodworkingThames craft adapted to suit the emerging interest in electric When it came to launch day the planned exit route, via themachines and the hope that someone would come along andpropulsion.window, proved too small. My father had to take out theask me to make something. The first boat job finally arrived: whole window frame back to the masonry before my boatRichard Sandford trusted me enough to restore his ThamesIn the early 1990s Robert returned to his previous life as a could see the light of day.double skiff Chambertin. The workshop was too shortprofessional photographer and my wife Lucie became the for a 24ft skiff so I rigged up a temporary shelter againstcatalyst that would establish the stability in the business that 16'