Agustín Jordan, from Arrecife, Lanzarote, spent his childhood among boats, fishing and playing at building small wooden craft with his brother. His origins on the island of Lanzarote, steeped in nautical culture, led him to a first job in a shipyard at the age of… 16. Since then he has been devoted to traditional shipwrighting with wood and the restoration of classic vessels and fishing boats. He has designed and built at least 35 new boats, from dinghies and launches to large vessels of up to 15 metres.

In the past four years Agustín has plied his trade in the Barcelonan municipality of Arenys de Mar, where together with associates, apprentices and volunteers he builds boats and delivers training.

The many traditional techniques he employs include the making of templates, formation of rib frames, fitting of planks, fasquiado plank-sizing, planing, caulking, gauging, etc.

The woods he uses most today are French oak, laurel, iroko and local pine. In Lanzarote he would make boat frames of mulberry and acacia, now protected species, and Indian laurel, which can still be sourced. He would also use palm pine and Canary pine for all boat parts. In Catalonia the most widely used boat-building woods used to be oak, holm oak and olive, the latter for certain parts only. For rib frames, French oak and Basque larch.

Some of the tools he uses are adzes, axes, wood planes, iron hand tools of all sizes, rebate planes, angle bevels, escupicebre spokeshaves (in Lanzarote called cuernamuza), cold chisels and fine chisels, caulking irons, wooden mallets, etc. Agustín works mostly with tools he makes himself as well as using some electrical devices, such as a power planer, drill, angle grinder or sander.

Agustín believes that his trade should be passed on, and has written a handbook entitled El secreto del trazo tradicional en el barco (The secret of traditional drawing and modelling in boat-building).