In 2021, when lockdowns were finally over, I decided to make some lifelong dreams a reality, get myself out onto the water more and learn to sail – first in the waters around Suffolk, and then Gibraltar, Spain and over to North Africa. In 2022 I bought myself a small sailing boat named Twingo, and although not strictly a build project, I’ve enjoyed the process of maintaining her and upgrading where I can – installing new solar panels and interior, and I’ve surprised myself making some decent new furnishings with a sewing machine – a sail cover and sheet (rope) bags, and bench cushions for the cockpit amongst other things. Not to mention, I’ve enjoyed sailing the around the solent – she’s currently moored near Chichester – and over to the Isle of Wight.

In the summer of 2021, as a birthday gift for my brother I built him a new board in his garage. Again it’s a mid length, but this time with chunkier rails and generally more volume – she’s a wave catching machine. We opted to glass it with some color and used a cut lap on the rails to transition to the simple white deck.

In 2020 my mum celebrated a major birthday. As a gift I planned a surprise party for her with my family and built an outdoor pizza oven for her in the garden. The project was loads of fun – from designing and building it with my dad – to enjoying all the pizza with the family! You can see some pics of the various stages of the build below.

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During the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, while we were all in lockdown and confined to our homes, I decided it was a good time to have a go at shaping my first surfboard. I built my own little workshop in the garage – with a custom workbench/stand and some custom callipers – and spent a week or so building the board you can see in the images below. I shaped the foam, set the fin boxes and leash plug, coated it in fibreglass and epoxy resin, and sanded it up to smooth finish. I’ve only managed to get out on it a couple of times so far as the pandemic is still restricting everybody’s fun, but those sessions were great and it rides well(!) and I’m already looking forward to getting back in the workshop to try out new ideas for future boards.

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At the end of 2017 I took a trip to Japan to celebrate the new year and then spend some time exploring the snow resorts of Hokkaido. Japan’s resorts are famous for receiving plentiful deep snow – conditions that benefit from specialised ski and snowboard shapes that float better on the soft surface of the snowpack.

In preparation for the trip, and with the help of a friend who had recently founded a ski construction business, I designed and built a snowboard to take along. I produced the graphics myself and constructed the board by (mostly) hand in the Nix Snowsports workshop. The board was put on display at the London Ski and Snowboard show that year, and performed perfectly out on the slopes. The whole project and trip was a great success and so much fun! You can checkout some highlights in the video below.

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During my time working with 4OC as a Business Analyst, we had been trying to polish up and re-sell a configuration of some Microsoft tools that we used internally to give analytical oversight of our deliverable programmes and projects – we called this product Viper. Although many clients saw the benefits and showed significant interest, we faced considerable challenges when seeking commitment – mostly due to the complexity of the product and the potential to break it without close support, which would lead to poor data and unclear business decisions. There was also the issue of branding – or lack-of it. Without our own branding on the product, our clients seemed reluctant to pay us money for it – some felt they could recreate something similar if they could find the expertise somewhere in their own team.

I decided to design and propose a concept mobile app solution that could simplify the process; remove unwanted tools/features; make internal usage more reliable and easily accessible; and increase likelihood of client purchase. The designs (you can see them here) replicated the core tools needed for our configuration in a mobile-friendly layout, with consideration of the workflows and project lifecycles we typically worked through.

I presented these designs to the board of Directors with some accompanying slides to give context and a rationale to the proposed project, as well as to discuss the necessary infrastructure elements of the product. A recording of the presentation slides, with embedded video of the storyboard designs being demoed on a device, can be seen below. The concept was very well received – not simply on account of the UI designs themselves, but for the analysis of the problem, high-level design of the end-to-end solution and approach to gain buy-in from the key stakeholders.