Things are hotting up at 199 Henderson Road and not just because the shipwright team are striving to get Boleh back into the water as soon as possible. Steam has been needed to help bend and shape the heavy teak capping planks along the top of the bulwarks. In 1949 the Malay shipwrights building Boleh in Singapore faced similar challenges and, as described on page 25 of Robin Kilroy’s book, the timber was ” . . boiled in an old hollow iron telegraph pole and with wedges, clamps, pegs and brute force bent, still steaming, to fit . . . . there were many failures.”
