The air is heavy with the unmistakable smell of sawn timber and Stockholm tar and jangles gently to the sound of a distant bandsaw as I watch a boatbuilder ease a plank into place around the gaunt frames of an 18ft launch under construction. Somewhere nearby a mallet makes contact with a caulking iron and not far away stands a log of hardwood, sawn into wide planks and separated by small spacers while the timber dries naturally in the air.

I'm watching something that I last saw thirty years ago - skilled shipwrights creating a living, almost breathing boat from nature's raw materials. The fact that I'm watching an RNLI boat being built in this way casts some doubt on my certainty that this is 1995, and it is only when a whiff of epoxy resin from further along the shed reaches my nostrils that the feeling that somehow I've stepped into a time warp disappears.

For the truth is that although this is 1995, and that all RNLI lifeboats are now formulated, mixed and moulded from the very latest materials the Institution does still have a use for boats which are first grown, then sawn and lovingly assembled piece by natural piece.

Lifeboats need to be as light as possible for their strength in order to achieve the speeds we now demand, but there is a perverse pleasure in discovering that to get the crew out to some of those technological marvels there is nothing better than a traditional, wooden boarding boat.

Here at the International Boatbuilding Training College inOulton Broad, Suffolk there are usually two or three RNLI boarding boats in various stages of construction, built to several different designs to suit conditions at various lifeboat stations.

The shipwright I'm watching is easing a plank into the bilges of an 18ft, carvel launch (carvel planking is laid edgeto- edge, giving a smooth hull), while across the shed - behind an exquisite, almost-complete, teak and iroka steam launch - lies a 16-footer having the final touches put to her clinker (overlapping plank) hull.

In another corner two men carefully persuade part of the second skin of a 20ft RNLI launch into place. This 20-footer is of cold moulded construction, where three thin skins of timber are laid around the framework - first diagonally in one direction, then diagonally again at 9Q° to the first and finally fore and aft. It is from this corner of the shed that the smell of epoxy resin emanates, as a layer of this powerful modern adhesive is used to bond the three skins together. This is a true blending of traditional skills and modern materials, for although old lifeboats were built in a similar way (then just termed 'diagonal') the best material available at the time to hold their multiple skins together and to exclude water was calico, linseed oil, white lead paint and copper fastenings. Good enough in their time, but not able to hold a candle tomodern adhesives! The RNLI's mix of modern high-tech lifeboats and traditional wood boarding boats holds the same fascination - the best material for the job wherever it's needed. Fibrereinforced composite has many virtues; it is immensely strong for its weight, and can be designed to be strongest both where it's needed, and in the direction of the greatest stresses. Yet it is expensive and does not have the give, the flexibility and the 'life' which enables a traditional wood boarding boat to cope with the slings and arrows of its knockabout life alongside quaysides, checking moorings and being a general jack-of-all trades. Experience has shown that wood boats have a longer life than their plastics sisters - and are more economical as a result.

The Institution takes around six boats a year from thisbuilder, and has done so for some 15 years. There are 10,13 and 16ft clinker built boats, inboard engined 18 footers with carvel and cold moulded hulls, plus the 20-footer now under construction - the first to this design and destined for St Mary's on the Isles of Scilly. There has even been a high speed cold moulded 18-footer, specially designed for Humber lifeboat station and powered by a pair of 40hp outboard | engines.

But where can one find the skills to build these boats, and I at a competitive price? There is an international resurgence in traditional construction, but the RNLI is fortunate in that it has a symbiotic relationship with the International | Boatbuilding Training Centre.

Students come to the centre to learn and practice I boatbuilding skills - and to do that they need to build boats.

This means that the college needs to maintain a constant supply of orders for the types of boat it needs to build, and to ] have them at the right stage of construction to suit the students needs.

It can hardly charge its paying students' labour out by the hour, so the college sets its prices for finished boats on a materials cost-plus-percentage basis. This leads to very competitive pricing which, together with the College's extremely high standards, ensures there are always more orders than capacity. The college can therefore choose which customers it deals with - and the RNLI is fortunate in that it is considered a very suitable one! The College's teaching method means that each student moves from boat to boat, adding to his or her repertoire of skills at the required time. This makes it almost impossible for the college to give a firm completion date. Again the Institution is a more than suitable customer - there is a continuing need for replacement boarding boats and so the RNLI always has orders placed at the College for future work. The Institution knows it will receive boats of extremely high standard, at an unbeatable price, and the actual date of completion is immaterial as some six RNLI boats emerge through the doors each year to meet the demand across the country.

The relationship works well - the RNLI gets excellent quality and prices, and at the same time is able to help build up shipwright skills for future generations. In return the College is able to help the Institution and build a variety of boats without too much pressure for completion dates.

Flexibility helps too - one 18-footer was intended to be carvel built, but the college needed a cold moulded order to fit their training programme... Could they build her this way instead? Sail training vessels in for repair and refurbishment, steam launches in teak and iroko, 8ft pram dinghies, a 55ft replica's of Joshua Slocum's world-girdling Spray and several other cruising yachts crowd the building shed. Bandsaws whine, chisels clunk, planers whir. This may be a step back in time in some respects - but it is to a past with an assured future.The International Boatbuilding College The International Boatbuilding College's origins can be traced back more than 20 years, when local boatbuilders became aware that general traditional skills were in danger of disappearing as yards began to specialise in certain aspects of construction. Soon 16 boatbuilders in East Anglia were involved and the centre began its training, essentially as a replacement for apprentiships and with the yards funding their students.

However each of the yards had a need for specific skills.

and obviously preferred the centre to concentrate on these. Predictably the requirements were different for each company, and so the centre found itself being pulled in many directions as it tried to meet these needs.

Eventually the current managing director, John Elliot, took over the operation as a commercial concern, setting up as an independent centre of excellence for the marine trade and with the students funding their courses themselves.

So far some 1,200 students have taken the one-year course, with 98% of them achieving passes at City and Guilds and 58% of Distinctions. More than 15% of students have gone on to set up their own boatbuilding businesses..