David Craine – Float Tubes With A Mysterious History

It was Sunday, February 25 2024 and we were on a short break, staying in a holiday cottage on the beautiful Llyn Peninsula in Wales. It might have been cool and overcast, occasionally rainy, and certainly breezy but there were lots of walks to be conquered and fresh sea air by the lung-full to be savoured. That day we decided to have a walk along the beach at Porth Neigwl or, in English, called Hell’s Mouth.

The beach is about four miles long and historically it was a mariner’s grave; any ship that had the misfortune to be caught in ‘Hell’s Mouth’ in a storm had little chance of escaping as the weather and sea funnel into a long beach. Many ships have seen their last day there and the area is littered with shipwrecks. That day we were walking along the beach and there was nobody else around. The tide was going out and there were the odd bits of flotsam scattered around on the pebbles and sand from a recent big sea.

After walking about two miles in glorious solitude along the beach, I came across this, just lying on the sand and obviously dumped by the receding tide.

Now most people will think I am a bit of a ‘Steptoe’ but I am always on the lookout for anything that can be repurposed and that once again be made useful. This split, smashed up and bashed about piece of flotsam, a six-foot length of bamboo,must have had a tale to tell. Where did it come from? Was it a marker pole from some local crabber’s pot line? It looked a bit thick for that to my eyes. Was it from some exotic location thousands of miles away and had it floated at the whims of the tides, winds, storms and ocean currents to finally end up here?

It was impossible to say but I saw that at least two potential bamboo tube-lengths lay between the otherwise split nodes and were whole and, more or less, undamaged. I straight away saw a possibility of one, or maybe two, rather unique, or at least different, slim float tubes.

Much to my long suffering wife’s amusement, I picked up the split bamboo pole and carted it along the beach and eventually back to the car. Along the way I had some funny looks from a couple who had appeared and were out for a brisk walk with their dog. Back at the cottage, the ever faithful Leatherman Wave multi-tool was pressed into service and after a bit of sawing I had two hopefully serviceable lengths of bamboo tubing, just the right material for a pair of float tubes.

I smiled to myself and thought I could even make a gudgeon-measure or two from the unwanted bits of split bamboo, so I put a couple of the split tubes aside for that as well. The rest of the split pole was dried and made a nice, crackling addition to the cheerfully burning logs on the cottage fire.

I had already decided more or less what style the tubes would be. I wanted the tubes to show the adventures they had enjoyed before being repurposed; the bangs and scrapes, maybe a bit of patina as they dried. In fact, in my mind’s eye,I pictured them just more or less as they had been found but with snugly fitting end-caps. Obviously they would have to be cut to final length and a cap of sorts made for them, the ends sanded to a smooth finish and the body of the tube may just have a coat or three of Danish oil. That would be all it needed. I had also decided to inscribe the tubes with the date and location they had been found. Maybe I could even print off a photo of the pole on the beach and slip it inside the tubes? All these were things to be considered…

Fast forward and we are now back at home with the tubes dried enough to start a bit of work on them. Firstly they needed to be cut to length and I thought that the inner nodes on both tubes were maybe intact so, hopefully, no water would have got inside. The first cut was made and, oh dear, the larger of the two tubes had drops of water within. Its inner nodes had become soft and spongy; in fact they were perished and had several small tears in them. No matter, I would cut away the damaged parts and just have a bamboo tube; it should dry out nicely. The second, thinner tube was intact and its nodes were solid, with water having ingressed, so I had one tube with its original nodes that could be utilised at the base.

 

I left the now trimmed tubes to further thoroughly dry and then decided one day to commence the ‘makings’… 

First thing was to get the tubes to length and give them a good examination to see if any repairs were needed. The larger of the two tubes now had a couple of hairline cracks along the whole length but these were on the surface only, requiring a bit of work. I mixed up a paste of resin and cork dust which was rubbed into the cracks to fill and seal them up. I knew this would work as I had made identical repairs to a couple of my own tubes a couple of years ago. Whilst the resin was drying, I took a hand-full of corks from my wine cork ‘stash’ and selected a couple for the tube-caps and one for the base of the larger tube.

When the resin had dried the tubes were ‘topped and tailed’, that is, the ends were sanded down and the bottom cork fitted to the hollow larger tube. At this point the tubes were set aside and my Heath Robinson lathe (well, let’s say, my battered and abused drill) was brought out. I needed it to make the tube-caps. In keeping with the scavenged bamboo, I wanted the caps to be sourced cheaply, in fact for free if possible. To this end I had put a short length of cut log from the Welsh holiday cottage firewood pile aside and had to cut it to shape back at home.

The wood was marked up, further cut to shape, drilled and a bolt placed through the wood to fit into the drill-chuck and I was then ready to shape the tube-caps. I like this part of any construction as I can really make the caps any shape I wish. I do not have any specific wood-turning tools but just make do with my bevel-edged chisels, junior hacksaw and sandpaper in order to form the caps.

I suppose any craftsman with an eye to safety reading this will have their toes curl at my set-up. However, I am of the ‘Health & Safety, please stay outside my door’ school and so far I have managed to stay in relatively one piece. Once the caps had been turned to whatever shape came to my mind, I cut a couple of short bits of salvaged split cane rod sections to length and fitted them into the centre of the shaped caps.

These were glued in place and a couple of corks were drilled and fitted to the bamboo centre. The caps were then returned to the drill and the cork was sanded to fit the tubes snugly and cut to size. Job done…

Both tubes were now in a position where they could be finished and Danish oil/woodstain or varnish applied. The tubes were given a final bit of sanding but nothing too fine, as I wanted the bangs and scrapes of their ‘life at sea’ to show through. I also marked the tubes with my initials and date.The tubes were given a coat of Danish oil and were set aside to dry. The tube-caps were both also given a final sanding and stained with mahogany spirit stain and also set aside to dry. The tubes were also inscribed with a bit of their history. 

Once the tube-caps were dry, they were given several coats of yacht-varnish and the tubes were given several more coats of Danish Oil and ‘buffed up’ a bit. Now they were ready for use…They seem to compliment my old Speedia and creel well enough; vintage by design but maybe also vintage by nature.

Writing – David Craine, Images Ruth Craine, April 2024