Tag: boatbuilding

Panels drawings and coordinates for the 12ft flat-bottomed Ella rowing skiff

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panels-plotting-1

Ella skiff, panel plotting, sheet 1

Tonight, I’ve finally managed to find some time to make a little more progress on the plans for the stitch and glue flat bottomed Ella rowing skiff. We now have four drawings to show where the panels that make up this stitch and glue-built boat fit on three 8 by 4ft sheets and one 4ft by 4ft sheet of ply; and we have four tables of coordinates to enable builders to markout and finally cut out their material, create the necessary taped or butt-strapped joints  before beginning assembly.

I won’t explain how stitch and glue works here as there’s a lot of material available on this both on the Internet and in books such as my Ultrasimple Boatbuilding – the only thing I’d say is please don’t try the process without reading about it properly first. That way lies sticky madness, strange-shaped boats and epoxy glop that won’t go off, as at least some people have found in the past. Just check the forums…

Here are the drawings files you’ll need: Ella skiff plans.

A few warnings are required here.

Prospective builders should be aware that I am not a qualified naval architect and that my plans are amateur and experimental. I accept no responsibility for any injury or loss arising from building or using this boat and I urge builders and users of this boat to do so with care.

This boat is not for use on the sea or in any hazardous conditions. It is a small boat suitable for rowing on small lakes and slow-flowing rivers. It may be rowed but should not be used with an outboard of any kind unless the stern is doubled and otherwise reinforced. Even if that were done, it would be dangerous to use an outboard of more than 1hp. This boat is not designed to hydroplane and should not be made to do so – far too many fatal accidents occur each year beause some bozo thought it was fun or safe to put a large engine on a boat for which it was not designed.

I would also ask builders that if any coordinate creates a line that does not appear as it does in the drawings to contact me immediately. You may have found an error, and will need corrected measurements to be able to go forward. Also, I will want to correct anything that is wrong for the sake of future builders. In general, if you build this boat, please contact me at gmatkin@gmail.com. Especially with the first few boats built, I will want to be in close touch in order to ensure the boats are successful and the plans cause no problems.

These plans aren’t entirely complete – for example, they don’t show where the oarlocks need to go, or specify the gunwales or inwales – and I haven’t written my usual short essay yet. All of that will come.

Finally, if after all this you are still interested in building this small, simple and perhaps elegant little boat, I would strongly suggest that you build a model first! Read all about making a model here and here. There is also more on the Ella skiff design including the preliminary drawings here.

PS – It’s become clear that depending on your build, some folks will find the thwart a little high – if that could be you, it will be a very simple job to make the seat lower if you do so at an early stage.

Complete plans will follow, so why not subscribe to intheboatshed.net?

Why use wood to build boats?

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Rowing boat built from wood in the traditional way – and isn’t
it so much more attractive than plastic? Photo from Flickr
Creative Commons, taken by Rick Rowland

Several times now I’ve been promised short articles that answer this question, but as yet no-one has sent me any clear answers – not even those who really should have the information at the top of their heads and have an obvious interest in making the case.

So I was intrigued to find some answers to this question about wooden boatbuilding laid out in a recent post at Tiernan Roe’s weblog Roeboats.  Here are his key points (some are slightly paraphrased):

•Where light weight and strength are needed wood is the best material to use.

•Pound for pound, wood is stronger than than steel, most fiberglass and aluminium.

•On the same basis, wood is stiffer than fiberglass, kevlar or steel.

•Wood absorbs vibrations and this includes sound, so wooden boats are quieter.

•Wood does not fatigue with repeated loading.

•Wood is a renewable resource and the growing of wood removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

•Wood is eco friendly in that it can be recycled, fiberglass cannot.

•Wood looks good.

•Wood allows economical, in both materials and cost, custom production of boats.

•Wooden boats require similar maintenance to fiberglass boats. Gel coat is not the wonder material it was thought to be.

Tiernan adds that the reason most boats for sale today are made of fiberglass is that they can be made by semiskilled and unskilled workers who are cheaper to hire than the skilled craftspeople needed to build a wooden boat.

I’d add a couple of points to Tiernan’s list. One is that traditional wooden boats bring so much to the landscape – there are many precious places in the UK that would be utterly changed without their characteristic wooden boats – including The Broads, the River Thames, the creeks of the East Coast, and the beaches at Cromer and Hastings.

Another is that when we build in wood or commission others to do so, we are helping to maintain an important tradition. Boatbuilders teach each other, and the skills have long been conveyed by oral transmission. To my mind, this makes boatbuilding a culturally important tradition.

But although I’m obviously an enthusiast for wooden boats and boatbuilding, I’m sure the cause of the wooden boat is best served by a realistic view of the issues, and that many readers of this weblog will have different perspectives based on their own exeriences.

For example, I’m not sure the maintenance argument is entirely justified. I’ve learned that anything in the open air that is covered with gelcoat or a epoxy and a two-part paint requires far less maintenance than anything wooden that’s covered with alkyd paints, varnish or even teak oils. With our busy working and family lives I have no hesitation in saying that we own and use at least one boat that we wouldn’t be able to keep up it on a DIY basis if it was made from wood.

I wonder also whether the argument that building from wood is environmentally friendly has really been made. I’m inclined to believe in global warming and the trouble it is bringing, but I feel also that the arithmetic we presume when we’re making judgements about environmental issues is often overly simplistic. For example, when wood eventually rots its breakdown must release carbon dioxide and the much worse global warming gas methane. So what is the lifetime cost of a wooden boat to the environment compared with a plastic one? I haven’t a clue, but I don’t think the answer should be taken as obvious until someone clever works it through and provides us with the result of their calculations. Just to add a factor that seems relevant, what is the contribution to global warming made by the drying of spirit-based paints and varnish?

These are just a few thoughts of mine.What do you think? Are there any points here you’d argue with? Are there any arguments to add? Comments via the comment link below and at Tiernan’s weblog please!

PS Fans of the US designer John Atkin will be interested to know that Tiernan is currently weblogging the build of a clinker-built Atkin Ninigret.

PPS I’d draw your attention to some of the comments below, particularly those of West Country boat designer, occasional building and general sailing man John Hesp.

Food for thought from the WBTA survey traditional boat enthusiasts’ buying habits

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Nick Smith traditional boatbuilder at Beale Park Thames Boat Show 2008 Rowing gig Young Bristol sees some action
The launch of the John Nash skiff dscf5402

Boat builders’ projects featured at intheboatshed.net. From left to bottom left: Nick Smith,  Win Cnoops and the Slipway Collective, Will Stirling and Fabian Bush

Traditional-style boat buyers are life-time enthusiasts who seem to buy a ‘fresh’ boat every three to five years.

This maybe because their life circumstances change often enough to require a different boat, because they like novelty of trying something different – or it may be that they are searching for the perfect boat they never quite manage to find.

Does this any of this describe you? If not, I imagine it describes quite a few people you know!

It’s just one key finding from a survey commissioned by the Wooden Boatbuilders’ Trade Association, which intheboatshed.net has been sent in return for helping to recruit a significant number of people to fill out the survey questionnaire.

The survey was carried out and written up by Alison Kidd and Peter Williams of www.prospectory.co.uk.

It turns out that some 11 per cent of traditional-style boat buyers’ purchases are new boats, most of which are built using modern rather than traditional techniques, and the vast majority buy second-hand boats that may be either ready to sail or in need some repair or restoration. These are often found via the Internet.

It also seems that second-hand boat buyers are as likely to buy plans as they are to buy boats.

What concerns me more is that just 10 per cent of the survey group who had bought boats since 2000 were first-time buyers. Taken together with the fact that boat buyers tend to be an older group this rather suggests that boatbuilders, magazines and suppliers in this area are failing to make headway in appealing to new, probably younger customer groups.

I think that’s a frightening thought.

However, it’s nice to be able to report that those who do buy new traditional-style boats are heavily influenced by exhibitions in general but particularly by the Beale Park Thames Boat Show, which is a tremendous annual exhibition of fine boat building. However, it’s striking that the Internet isn’t much used as a means of finding new boats, even though it is a popular route to buying older boats.

The survey’s authors therefore suggest that a better gateway site or even a means of searching for and comparing different options, features and prices online would be helpful. I couldn’t agree more, for while the second-hand boat sales sites are well organised and effective, when you’re looking for a newly built boaqt the picture is very different. As the survey authors put it: ‘unless you know the name of the new boat you’d like to buy or the name of its builder, you are unlikely to stumble across it in the Internet. Many of the WBTA boats are not widely known classes of boat’.

Clearly it would be helpful if the WBTA or someone else were to establish a gateway site that would list traditional style boat vendors’ new boats – but we haven’t got that yet. In the meantime, however, we do have intheboatshed.net. For more than two years, we’re been offering to publish stories about boatbuilding and boat restoration projects, and even for sale notices about particularly interesting traditional old boats, and to do this for free.

All we ask for is photos and some information – some sense of the story, of the people and as appropriate about history behind the boat, and its use now and in times past. We’re also interested in technical issues that impact on these things, even down to discussing lines, boatbuilding methods etc. Follow this link and this link to see how it works – these aren’t lectures but in addition to the pictures, there’s usually a little to learn from each post.

In fact, there is a short roll-call of traditional boatbuilders who have made good use of intheboatshed.net’s offer, and their names will be familiar to regular readers of this weblog. With their help, intheboatshed.net has become popular and has reached a point where it gets around 500 visitors and a thousand hits a day, by conservative measures.

I’d say thank you to those boatbuilders – and I’d encourage other traditional boatbuilders to get involved.

What’s more, it seems to make sense to set up a page here offering a good list of boat types and specialist types of restoration, together with the boatbuilders contact details and weblinks where possible.

What do you say? Contact me at gmatkin@gmail.com.