Powerboat fever spreads

Tillerman and Captain JP have spread alarm and despondency in the sailing world by announcing their conversion to (shock!) powerboats.
And I also feel the lure. One of my tenderest childhood memories is swanning elegantly up the Thames in my grandparents' Andrews launch Snarleyow (now you know where the name of my skiff comes from).

Mind you, we were never, never allowed to open the throttle, let the engine go PHWOAR and roar along drawing a monster wake to remind lower forms of river life such as rowers, sailors and canoeists who was boss. The boat had been bought from the American comedian Red Skelton who had been banned from the river for life for just that sort of behaviour. Even with the tedious speed limit, whenever I got behind the wheel they had to prise my hands off with a crowbar.
That's Pops driving when he got the boat in 1949. Behind him is the ruler of the family, the famous Staffordshire bull terrier Piggy.

Winter Morning Rows

The low slanting morning sun in December produces some lovely photos. And now the autumn gales have died down it is a fabulous time for getting out on the harbour. On Saturday I had a brisk row in Snarleyow from Itchenor to Dell Quay (the picture is at Itchenor) and on Sunday I went out in one of Langstone Cutters' Teifi skiffs with Mr and Mrs Rooke, who squabbled over where we were in the middle of the harbour just like my mum and dad trying to navigate round Watford on a wet Bank Holiday. The photo shows Gladys on the buoy as a seagull flies overhead.

HBBR at the Cotswold Water Park

Riverview45 has posted a rather jolly picture on the HBBR Yahoo! forum, showing me setting out in the newly refurbished Snarleyow at the HBBR meet. Dignity, style and baldness.

Search for a rubbing strip

My sliding seat skiff Snarleyow is finally being refurbished. I have stripped off several layers of paint and taken off the outer gunwales. They were perfectly sound but the little pine strips between them and the inner gunwales had rotted in several places.
So now I have to find some long (16ft) strips of thin (three-quarters of an inch square or so) meranti to replace them. This is proving more difficult than I had anticipated.
The problem seems to be that the equipment in local sawmills is so hefty that adjusting them down to such small dimensions take time and does not even guarantee the size. It would be easier for me to buy a plank and cut it down with a table saw, but as I don't have a workshop I don't want to invest in a table saw that will sit in a shed most of the time and rust.
So does anybody know of a timber merchant near Chichester, Sussex, that might have some long thin bits of meranti (or equivalent) hanging around?