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Boat Building for Jockeys

Published January 25, 2006

I, Bernie Harberts, did not use generative AI to write or illustrate this article. Spell check and grammar check, yes. AI, no.

It was 1991 and I was riding as a steeplechase jockey but what I was really dreaming about was running away to sea on a sailboat. Unlike these days, when small old sailboats are so cheap and common that they’re often sawn up and sent the landfill, used, entry-level cruising sailboats were scarce and expensive.

Riding Bob Kitson’s Jolie Princess in the Freezie Cup race in Camden, South Carolina (1992 – Catherine French photo)

The gap between me and my dream sailboat seemed too wide to bridge. I was earning $10 per race horse that I galloped and $100 per steepleehase that I rode in plus 10% of the winnings. At the time, a new Nimble 24 sailboat, what I considered my dream boat, cost around $15,000. That was depressingly large number of race horses to gallop so that pretty much killed my dream of sailing away from my job as a steeplechase jockey.

Clear as a Road Map to a Chimpanzee

Then, one day while leafing through Cruising World magazine, I came across a set of plans for a small boat that looked like she would fit the bill. The design was by Sam Devlin and was or an 18 1/2″ sailboat called Winter Wren. I sent off for the boat plans, they arrived and then it hit me. I didn’t have a clue how to build a boat.

The plans looked to me like I imagined a road map might appear to a chimpanzee; nothing more than a tangle of blue lines and numbers. There was also a sheet of something called a Table of Offsets which was nothing more than a grid full of numbers.

From this I was supposed to build a boat?

I called Sam Devlin, the designer, and explained that… ahem…I was completely lost. He was polite enough to explain to me that the Table of Offsets was sort of like machine code for building my hull. I won’t drag you through the discussion but suffice to say he explained to me how the numbers, when transferred to long sheets of plywood, described each of the four panels that composed the hull.

From there it was easy.

First I bought a dozen sheets of half-inch plywood and glued three of them together to make a sheet of wood twenty-four feet long.

A twenty-four foot sheet of plywood glued together for boat building — A twenty-four foot sheet of plywood. Note: It was Christmas time. You can spot Mel Wyatt’s rendition of Santa and his sleigh if you look closely.

Then I transferred the numbers on the Table of Offsets onto each sheet. This gave me the shape of each of the four panels that composed the hull. Once I had the shape drawn out on the plywood, it was just a matter of cutting it out with a jigsaw.

Hull panels cut from plywood before assembly — The hull pieces before assembly.

Next I wired the four panels together with bailing wire to form the boat shape. To lock it together, I mixed up container after container of thickened epoxy and glued the whole lot together.

The hull wired and epoxied together showing the stern — The hull wired and epoxied together. The dark lines where the panels are joined are the epoxy fillets that hold the hull together.

Finally, I was getting somewhere. I was three weeks into the project and had something that looked like it might turn into a boat.

Then I ran into two problems. The weather turned cold and I stepped on the bathroom scales.

Remember, I was building this sailboat, first, because I wanted to run away to sea, but more important, it kept my mind off the weight I needed to lose to be a jockey.

I had a delicious Christmas and when I finally weighed myself at the first of the year, that red pointer swung way too far to the right. I was up to 145 pounds. I had to lose another twenty pounds before the racing season kicked off in March.

So I quit eating.

The problem was that when I cut weight, I froze. It also drained me of energy.

So nights, while it froze outside, I rigged special heat lamps to keep the garage warm while I worked on the boat. One night, after I’d spread a lot of epoxy, I laid down for a quick nap inside the hull, just trying to forget that infernal churning in my belly. The heat lamp was cozy, the Carpenters were on the radio…

And when I woke up, I couldn’t move my head.

God! No! Had I suffered a stroke? No, couldn’t be. I was way too young for that!

I reached for my head to discover that in my exhausted state I’d laid it in the epoxy I’d just laid. Then I’d gone to sleep, the epoxy had hardened, and, well… now I couldn’t move my head.

Of course, the scissors that I used for cutting the fiberglass cloth were out of reach. And so was the razor knife. Hmmmmmmm. Some pickle….

Then I remembered Mel.

“Mel!!!!!” I bellowed.

And yes, she came out of the house and cut me free.

Bernie Harberts' homemade sailboat hull taking shape at the bow — The hull really taking shape now.

And so, by fits and starts and a bit of misadventure, my boat was coming together.

Post Script: How I Wound up With the Boat of my Jockey Dreams

Flash forward 34 years. I’ve long ago hung up my paper-thin racing boots, postage stamp saddle and racing googles. And somewhere in the magnificent churn of life and luck, I’ve ended up the proud owner of a 1992 Nimble 24. Her names is Grit and she was built the same year the photo of me riding as a steeplechase jockey at the top of this post.

*Grit* anchored off Shackleford Banks. She’s a 1992 Nimble 24.

Check out this page dedicated to our sailing adventures.

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