’I’m really excited - I’ve looked up some of the stuff you’ve built,’ is how beer can boat builder Jimmy Whittle greets world famous sailor Nick Keig.

He is practically jumping up and down with excitement and you don’t have to spend long in his company to realise that this is not an unusual condition for Jimmy. He is excited, enthusiastic and passionate all at once, and almost all of the time, when it comes to his current project to build a boat out of empty beer cans and row it across the English Channel to promote alcohol awareness.

To say he is a novice when it comes to anything to do with boats, though, would be putting it mildly.

He said: ’I’ve never built a boat before, I’m terrible in the sea - I don’t know why I’m doing this but I’m hoping it’s going to bring a lot more light to the problem of drinking.’

In order to help Jimmy, the Manx Independent has brought Nick to see Jimmy’s beer can boat to give his opinion on it and offer advice because Nick has an unparalleled record in this area.

For anyone under 35 who is too young to remember Nick’s exploits, he spent most of the 1970s and 1980s building racing yachts which proved capable of taking on the world.

Nick also had to run the family business, Keig’s Photography, at this time so the boat building was ostensibly a hobby and one for which he didn’t have an endless budget.

It was usually carried out in barns and various other buildings and assisted by a gang of enthusiastic friends.

Nick turned down numerous offers of sponsorship because it would have meant changing the name from Three Legs of Man and his pride in his Manx heritage wouldn’t allow him to do that.

Despite all this, Nick still managed to win prestigious races such as Round the Isle of Wight and the race to the Azores and back. In 1980 he came a very close second in the single handed Transatlantic race in his 53’ trimaran, Three Legs of Mann III.

These achievements alone earned him the honour of being the only living Manxman to have his head pictured on a set of Isle of Man postage stamps.

But Nick didn’t stop at that. He was also a RIB enthusiast and he had learned that when these boats are used by elite military forces, the impact of them hitting waves in heavy seas travelling at speed can soon cause kidney damage. He set about building a boat that would overcome this problem.

The Very Slender Vessel, which he build in a shed in his back garden in Union Mills, went on to be adopted by military forces around the world including the US Navy Seals.

Jimmy, in contrast, is constructing his boat alone in his garage, primarily from the hundreds of beer cans he emptied down his throat when his drinking was, in his own words, ’borderline suicidal’.

Once it is finished Jimmy hopes to row his boat across the English Channel, to raise awareness of the risks of drinking to much alcohol.

He said: ’People keep saying to me: "Why would you pick the busiest shipping lane in the world to row across?" - and I say: "Because people will pay attention".’

He primarily wants to show young people that excess alcohol ’really isn’t cool’ and he has a very good reason for this.

He said: ’It killed my partner, Lorna, and it almost killed me. She didn’t drink a lot but we didn’t know she had a weak liver and it took her.

’I want to help people who are drinking too much and I want to help people who have lost people they love because all that has happened to me.’

Jimmy reckons that 80 per cent of the beer cans he has used on the boat were his own and, when he was drinking heavily, he also added vodka to the mix.

’Are you teetotal now?’ Nick asks him.

Yes, Jimmy tells him, adding: ’I’m free of it and I’m loving it.’

’You look like you’re high on life now,’ Nick tells him and it’s a pretty accurate description.

Jimmy is not too far off finishing his boat and he was keen to hear Nick’s opinion on what he had done so far. What, he wondered, was the likelihood of it capsizing?

’It’s really good - it’s a fabulous shape - and it’s going to be stable enough, there’s no doubt,’ Nick tells him.

Jimmy hopes to do his channel row in a couple of months’ time and he hopes his beer can boat will capture the imagination.

He says: ’I just want to put out a sensible message: don’t tease the person who doesn’t want another drink - don’t tease the person who’s teetotal coz they’re a taxi service for you all.’

Nick is able to give Jimmy plenty of useful advice, including on the construction of oars - ’very easy things to make, you’d make them in a day - and don’t forget you’ll need a spare one!’ - where to put a bilge pump, and how to give the boat the best waterproof finish.

As we make to leave, Jimmy stops Nick and says: ’One last question - I saw a film about you building a boat in a barn and then it outgrew it - did that really happen?’

Yes it did, Nick tells him: ’I built my first boat at Ellerslie Farm in Crosby and when it was finished we had to take the wall down to get it out!’

’Awesome,’ breathes Jimmy, ’I love the passion of that!’