Tag: building

Is anyone building the stitch-and-glue intheboatshed.net skiff?

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The intheboatshed.net post offering free plans for the Julie skiff has been the most popular individual element of this weblog for some time. It’s been viewed by thousands of people and, naturally, we’re delighted at all the attention it has been receiving.

But although we’ve heard that various people have planned to build it, we’re not aware of anyone starting a Julie skiff project, let along finishing one. Is there anyone out there building this boat? If you are building this spring, please let us know at gmatkin@gmail.com – We’d be especially grateful for reports of how the building goes, and for photos of both the building and the completed boat that we can post here at intheboatshed.net.

I’d also be very pleased to receive any photos of models anyone may have built. Both Ben Crawshaw (thanks Ben!) and the designer have had a go, and in any case it’s always good to build a model before building a boat like this.

In case you’re wondering, I do still intend to draw a couple of traditionally-inspired sailing rigs, a more traditional chine-log version, and also a 17ft version for two rowers. It’s just that I’ve been very busy organising both a small folk festival and a wedding. In addition the usual ups and downs of work, music making and family life, they’re more than enough to keep a chap busy, I can tell you!

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Chris Old and Chris Stone build a glued-clinker Whitehall at the Boat Building Academy

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As promised, Boat Building Academy principal Yvonne Green has sent us some more photos from the big student launch day at Lyme last month.

This is despite being frantically busy setting up a new eight-week course on  woodworking skills – the course needs a new workshop, and I gather the Academy’s short courses in particular are attracting huge numbers of enquiries.

Here’s what she has to say about the boat in these photos:

‘Chris Old, a doctor of oceanography from New Zealand, and Chris Stone, and aerospace industry computer engineer by background, built a very elegant glued-clinker Whitehall skiff. The offsets and lines were taken from a book by John Gardner, founder of the Mystic Seaport Museum’s boatbuilding courses.

‘White paintwork was highlighted by varnished khaya gunwales, thwarts and trim. Lyme Regis’ Mayor  Sally Holman was particularly taken with this boat, as am I.’

I gather the  boat was built to a set of offsets for a 14ft Whitehall included in the Gardner compendium volume Building Classic Small Craft: Complete Plans and Instructions for 47 Boats, which includes plans for an impressive 47 boats and is currently available for the knock-down price of £19.99 from Amazon. See more Gardner books at Amazon here.

For more posts relating to the Boat Building Academy, click here.

I think we may be seeing an increase in interest in Whitehalls in the UK. For more posts relating to these boats click here, and for posts relating to John Gardner click here.


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Building a birch bark canoe

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Traditionally-built 26ft North American birch bark canoe

I was very struck by this super post over at Duckworks explaining how Adam Wicks-Arshack became apprenticed to a birch bark canoe  builder. He learned his skills building this impressive 26-footer.