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Wooden Boat School Days 1 & 2

Sep 6, 2016 | By: Handmade North Carolina Baskets

We are building our boat at last.  We tried to get into a class at the Wooden Boat School last year, but the classes that we could attend were already full.  The Wooden Boat School is located in Brooklin, Maine, right at the bottom tip of the road to no-where, or heaven, depending on the way you look at it! They teach classes in everything from boat construction, boat building theory, sailing, lofting, marine photography, sketching and watercolors and boat design.  We are in the Build Your Own Dory Class.

Our boat is made with Stitch and Glue construction.   Stitch and glue construction is comprised of 3/8" plywood sides and bottom, stitched together with copper wire, then epoxied together. The copper wire is pulled out and a fillet of epoxy/wood flour is pressed into all the inside joints.  Then a sheet of fiberglass is epoxied into the bottom and first side lap on the inside and outside of the hull.  Two additional layers of epoxy cover the entire boat. It will be very light, only about 105 lbs for a 17 foot boat, but with a payload capacity of 800 lbs.  Our Dory will have oars for rowing and will be fitted out with a mast, dagger board, and rudder to handle a slope sailing rig.  We are at the end of Day 2, and we already have something that looks a lot like a boat!

I will post more photos as we go along.  Sorry, but we are too tired to write too much more this evening!

Remember, it is a beautiful day, don't let it slip away.

David

Okay, let's get started!

What are all these pieces for?

We thought we were going to make a boat!

Oh, this is going to be a boat?

But there is a lot of sanding first....

and more sanding....

Gluing up the bulkheads

Gluing up the bulkheads

You can never have too many clamps

Applying epoxy to the bulkheads

Bulkheads drying

The guy on the right is George Krewson, our Expert Instructor

In his day job, George is a real life rocket scientist at Kennedy Space Center in Florida!

Glued-up transom.

A room full of boat builders.

Stitching in the first two side laps

The first two side laps are in place

Meanwhile, I'm just watching Joni work....

View of the first 2 side laps from astern

View of stitching in the bow

Pulling and twisting copper wire to stitch together the boat

These will be the thwarts....

....those are seats for all you landlubbers....

Fitting in the bulkheads

Time to stitch in the rest of the side laps

Stitch and tug, stitch and tug....

Stich and tug, stitch and tug...

Yes, I am having a good time...

Wow, its starting to look boat-ish!

All four sets of side laps are in place and it is time to turn the hull over.

I already love my boat...

Flipped (for the first time)

Applying epoxy under the hull

End of day 2. It looks like a boat at last!

Epoxy has been forced into all the laps on the underside of the hull. And you know that with us, it is well-sanded and as level as any good Nantucket would be!

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