Category: Modern boatbuilding

Modern and plywood boatbuilding and plans

Well known US boat building instructor David Nichols to give online boatbuilding courses in association with Fyne Boats

Fyne Boats wooden-canoe-building-2

Chuck Leinweber has been in touch to say that his friend David Nichols has decided to concentrate on offering real-time interactive internet boat building instruction – this is instead of travelling long distances to teach at places like the WoodenBoat school and the Great Lakes School of Boat Building. (Chuck is a Texan pal who runs the excellent and long-established online Duckworks Magazine and Duckworks Boatbuilders Supply.)

David is to work with the Lake District-based boat and surfboard kit supplier Fyne Boats – the students are expected to be mostly in the UK, while he webcasts from his home in Texas.

Students have a computer with a webcam next to their boat so that David can give one-on-one help when needed, just as in a real classroom.

David brings decades of boat building experience to bear and will guide and instruct boat builders as they work on their boats in their own home or other premises – many people in the USA have learnt to build boats from David Nichols, both online and offline, and from his range of books.

Chuck tells me he thinks the advantages of the approach are tremendous and probably not fully understood yet.

The first boatbuilding course will be for stitch-and-glue boats only (most of our kits use the stitch-and-glue construction method). The 9-day course will run from Saturday 10th to Sunday 18th May 2014.

Read all about the new courses here.

 

BBA student builts Ted Moores’ Prospector Ranger stripper canoe

Keith Bowers launched his 15ft Prospector Ranger into the water at the Boat Building Academy’s latest launch day in Dedcember.

He used plans published in Moores’ book ‘Canoecraft’, but added a breasthook of his own design and a yoke. He also created two kneeling seats which can be placed anywhere within the canoe to suit the paddler.

Originally from Wales, Keith named the canoe is named Y Ddraig, the Welsh for dragon.

Keith worked in a variety of roles before joining the BBA, including working as a labourer, a bar supervisor and most recently a support officer for Worcestershire County Council – he has a BSc in computer studies.

Now, however, he is to take his new skills to the Underfall Boatyard in Bristol, which is named after a set of underfall sluices created by Isambard Kingdom Brunel to control water levels in Bristol Harbour in 1832.

The yard is a scheduled monument and includes several listed buildings.

In his spare time Keith will work on projects at his home workshop – initially building a traditional clinker dinghy and taking Y Ddraig on the river Avon and Chew Valley lake, which is a site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and a national centre for bird watching, and is near where he lives.

Boat Building Academy December 2013 launch – post no 1, a modified Hiawatha canoe

Hiawatha 15' Cedar Strip Planked Canoe © Derek Thompson (4) Hiawatha 15' Cedar Strip Planked Canoe ©Jenny Steer Photography Dec 2013 (69) (1)

The Boat Building Academy’s class of March 2013 have been good all year so the sun shone brightly when they launched their eight newly built boats built during their course into Lyme Regis harbour on 9 December.

About two hundred people cheered as the champagne corks popped and each boat floated. ITV cameras were there, as were Dick Phillips for Water Craft magazine, and Nigel Sharp for Yachting World.

Colin Henwood watched as his newest employee, Brian Reford, sped across the bay in his new speedboat.

Students started work at dawn, making final preparations for the 10 o’clock launch. The boats went out of the workshops at 9, marshalled by former marine sergeant and boat builder Roy Gollop, before being processed the short walk down to the harbour.

Tim Gedge, Director of the Academy, said a few words, as did Sally Holman, Mayor of Lyme Regis. Then the real business of the day started…

Toby Williamson’s 15ft modified Hiawatha canoe is strip planked in western red cedar, sheathed with glass fibre and epoxy. Toby came across the plans in Ted Moores’ book Canoecraft. He modified the sheer line slightly and changed the design of the thwarts and ribs in line with a similar canoe built by Luke Browne.

Toby, the youngest member of the class, decided that sixth form and A levels weren’t for him. He had seen a feature on the Academy in Coast magazine, visited and decided he should go to the BBA instead. Now the course has finished his is working for two months in Holland for a boat builder before going for a season on a game fishing boat in Madeira.

The BBA folks report that Toby says he has loved every minute of the course, and that it is a shame to have to leave – but he is looking forward to taking his new skills around the world.