Tag: julie

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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The boatbuilding bug bites another victim

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Ed’s 10ft Maine Skiff, built from plans and instructions
supplied by Duck Trap Woodworking

Ed Engarto in New York State is one of the many people who build a boat, only to discover that it can be a life-changing experience.

This seems to happen a lot. I know there’s a lot of satisfaction to be gained from building even the smallest boat and then using your creation on the water, but I think there’s more to this phenomenon: perhaps it’s the fact of slowly over time creating a tangible object, the quality of which the maker can judge and come to terms with as they proceed, perhaps it’s the discovery that, after all, one can learn new skills and complete a new category of projects, or maybe it’s the result of all those quiet hours the boatbuilder spends working alone in quiet contemplation.

Ed seems to me to be a typical convert to amatuer boatbuilding. I hope he enjoys his second project as much as he did his first.

He writes:

‘I built this little ten foot, lapstrake row boat over a period of three plus years, ending in July of 2008. The design comes from Duck Trap Woodworking and is known to those fine folks as their Maine Skiff. I started out journaling every working session and before the molds were even finished, the entries began to touch on life experiences, the trials of a large project, the virtue of commitment, and some thoughts about events that took place during the skiff’s construction. It actually became a mechanism through which I shared the most influential events in my life and therefore is much more than a sequence of construction steps explained. I learned so many boatbuilding skills and enjoyed the project so much, that I have become a lover of wood and water and am already looking towards my next boat.’

See the Duck Trap Woodworking website.

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Complete free plans package for the intheboatshed.net flat-bottomed 15ft 6in skiff



STOP PRESS – THE FIRST JULIE SKIFF HAS BEEN BUILT AND LAUNCHED BY BILL GAY- CLICK HERE FOR PICTURES

STOP PRESS AGAIN – INITIAL SKETCHES FOR A SAILING VERSION OF THIS BOAT CAN BE FOUND HERE.

ALSO – IF YOU BUILD THIS BOAT OR A MODEL OF IT, PLEASE CONTACT ME AT GMATKIN@GMAIL.COM . I’M HAPPY TO OFFER HELP AND ADVICE, AND VERY MUCH WANT TO KNOW HOW THE PROJECT GOES!

After gardening for much of the day, this evening I’ve spent a couple of happy hours tidying up and sorting out the plans for the intheboatshed.net Julie skiff. (NB – See the bottom of this post if you need plans for a similar but smaller boat.)

So tan-tara! With an imaginary fanfare, tonight for the first time I offer you – a download of the finalised plans for the rowing-only version of the Julie 15ft 7in flat bottomed skiff for plywood stitch and glue construction, including my explanatory essay on her design and purpose, and notes on her construction.

She swallows up five sheets of ply, and for those those who like to think about these things, at her design displacement and trimmed so that the water just kisses the transom, her wetted area is about 38sqft, with a prismatic coefficient of 0.55. Neither figure would be outstanding for a round-bottomed boat, but the wetted area in particular is not at all bad for a simple rowing boat like this. With a flat-bottomed skiff there’s no easy way to improve on either without making the boat much narrower on the bottom, with all that would entail.

Like this boat? Send your comments to gmatkin@gmail.com.

I think she’s a sweet little boat and I’m very much looking forward to seeing some examples afloat. I still plan to develop a sailing rig, plans for a more traditional chine-log style construction, and I’m thinking also of both longer and shorter versions – the shorter will be aimed at creating a small easy to build skiff capable of being built in a British-style garage.

If you do build the Julie skiff, please send me photos and reports at gmatkin@gmail.com, and also please let me know how the project goes. At least while the numbers being built are small, if you hit problems I will be very happy to provide advice to make sure your boat is a success.

Download: intheboatshed.net Julie skiff plans

See all posts so far on this boat:

Complete free plans package for the intheboatshed.net flat-bottomed 15ft 6in skiff
intheboatshed.net skiff – drawings and coordinates for stitch and glue
intheboatshed.net skiff – photos of our model, and maybe yours too?
Intheboatshed.net skiff – now we can make a model
Intheboatshed.net skiff progress
Early drawings for a 15ft 5in lightweight flat-bottomed American-style skiff

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.

More free boat plans at intheboatshed.net

If you’d prefer a smaller project of this kind, check the 12ft Ella skiff and the 14ft Sunny skiff.

This boat is designed to be built using the stitch and glue technique – if you haven’t done this before you might be interested in my book Ultrasimple Boat Building: 17 Plywood Boats Anyone Can Build or one of the other books on this topic available from Amazon.