A Shed Load Of Work

The characterful yard that will restore anything – so long as it is a woodie with soul

- Jan Hein

Nestled on Vancouver Island’s Brentwood Bay is a narrow, worn structure perched over the sea. It’s a quirky little boatyard, with giant doors, a set of old rails reaching seaward and a dock full of floating characters. Each vessel there came for rehab and repair by the talented crew of Abernethy and Gaudin Boatbuilders Ltd.

Rob Abernethy and Jean Gaudin teamed up in 1999. Their first shop was housed inland in North Sannich on an old pig farm. With extreme effort, they morphed an odorous barn into a bustling shop building components for offsite projects. In their first year of business, they built a 40ft (12.1m) Bill Garden trawler and landed the contract for the interior of a Pacific pilot boat. Rent at the farm had some escalating issues. “We paid the owner a bottle of gin a week,” Abernethy joked, “but when she wanted more gin...then more gin, it was time to move on.”

The waterside shop isn’t perfect; land access is limited and getting to the rails can be a squeeze but it doesn’t impede a steady flow of work that keeps the nine-strong crew hopping.

Inside the building, everything wears a patina of age. An old logging winch runs the rails. “It’s a three-phase motor,” Abernethy explained with pride. “Four gears and reverse!” The work room walls are lined with necessary collections of sharp implements along with altars of trophies, toys and kitsch, decoupaged masterpieces. Cabinets hold an arsenal of power tools; a tiny office accommodates a few desks and a photographic resumé of finished work; hefty hunks of wood wait outside every door until called to duty.