Tag: skiff

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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Free Scandinavian-style skiff boatbuilding plans

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Mark Wallace’s elegant Black Skiff

Boatbuilding plans for the Black Skiff have been designed and made available for free by Mark Wallace – he says all he asks for is to be given the credit for designing the boat.

I think it’s an elegant design. The plans are not likely to be the easiest for first-time boatbuilders to follow, but it would be well worth picking the required skills up by reading one of the classic books on this kind of boatbuilding. See the Intheboatshed.net Amazon bookshop for something suitable.

Mark ways she’s a strong light-weight boat loosely with strong links to Scandinavian types. She proven to be an excellent rower, has a capacity of four adults and has a flat bottom for easy beaching.

Go to Mark’s website for more information and plans in pdf format: http://www.markwallaceshipwright.com/plans.html

By the way, don’t miss Mark’s impressive collection of testimonials.

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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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