I built the Quick Canoe in a day and a half. This is way slower than some of my customers.

It is the first time I have been disappointed building a complete boat this quick.

The risk of high expectations!

But a day and a half with the problems I had is pretty good.

Melanie in the UK wrote to me. She has just bought an old Mirror dinghy and started sailing for the first time.

Problem is that the boat leaks and she doesn’t want to stop using the boat until the end of the season.

I have a philosophy of keeping older boats on the water and not pulling them off for months on end until you have the time to do the job.

So the article here is useful to see what can be done with an old leaky plywood sailing dinghy to keep it going.

It is perfect sailing weather at the moment in the UK and it is better she is out there learning but with the worst of the leaks gone.

With a disciplined approach she should be able to get all of this done in a week or so. The general leaks fixed permanently and the rotted area reinforced so that the boat won’t break.

The plywood “disposable” canoe (see here) has been renamed the more salubrious “Quick Canoe”. I quite liked the name of “Disposable Canoe” but I agreed with the critique that it hinted at something that was poor quality rather than simple and Easy.

It has been designed to be as easy to build as possible while keeping some of the qualities of a good paddling canoe – in particular the ability to track.

This podcast/mp3 talks about why Australian (and New Zealand) wooden boatbuilding is different from the rest of the world..

Click to listen to the talk. This is the third of three.

This is the second of my talks in the USA. It focuses a bit more on construction and some of the methods that can be used to keep a boat light and simple, but very strong and stiff.

It also discusses how there is a “creep” in boatbuilding and design that increases the weight of boats way over what is really needed for a strong structure.

From Clinton Chase’s blog clintchaseboatbuilder.blogspot.com

On November 1st I was pleased and honored to introduce Michael Storer, an Australian Boat Designer reputed for his simple, elegant, and approachable boats, to a group of 21 members from the wooden boat community in Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Some knew of Storer’s work, others have built his boats, and many knew him as an important name and wanted to learn more about the man and his message.

It is a bit hard finding information on my forum as the list is not very ordered, so I have attempted to fix this.There is a general building section then each boat is in alphabetical order.To see all the images you may need to become a member, however, they are a good bunch and will [...]

Six detailed DIY repair methods with discussion. Fast Bottom Replacement Fixing a hole Getting an old boat back on the water quickly Getting an old boat back into good racing trim Fixing lots of minor stone damage and repainting Nonskid non-slip paint or varnish I seem to have written a lot about repairing older plywood [...]

INDEX FOR THIS MONSTER EUREKA CANOE THREAD – MILESTONESEven more info at Peter Hyndman’s Eureka Pages Marking out the plywood and cutting Joining up the Prefabricated panels and starting stitching Filleting on the inside of the Eureka Canoethe tidy way Marking out the canoe bulkheads Getting ready to put the decks in place – I [...]

Furled Sails – They call themselves the “World’s First Sailing Podcast” based in North America. Anyway, last week Christy and Noel called me up chatted to me for a couple of hours. So they have an interview with me on their site followed by a part 2 next week. This looks like the permanent linkhttp://www.furledsails.com/article.php3?article=760 [...]

I seem to have written a lot about repairing older plywood (and other types of timber construction) boats over the years so I would like to bookmark some resources here. All of them go into some degree of detail about all the processes and decisions involved and some have a significant number of photos as [...]

There are huge advantages in keeping the epoxy at a slightly raised temperature. * It flows out better onto the work * It mixes easier * The curing kicks off faster in cold weather (and the box can easily only be turned on when needed. There are huge advantages in keeping the epoxy at a [...]

There  was the suggestion that very coarse sandpaper was the best to use on a timber surface to ensure good bonding when gluing or fiberglassing the surface. This is not recommended – the following explains why. There  was the suggestion that very coarse sandpaper was the best to use on a timber surface to ensure [...]

This is a problem most of use come up against at least once. However it is unlikely to happen a second time. Richard wrote to me asking why his epoxy was still soft 3 days later.  He suggested it might be because of one of: 1. The immediate guess is that it’s been too cold [...]

There are a number of labour and materials saving techniques that are applicable when using epoxy. Contents of this section Wet-on-Wet Coating and Dewaxing Cured Epoxy. Building strong lightweight boats – a note on the use of epoxy One Hit coating and gluing Wet-on-Wet Coating and Dewaxing Cured Epoxy. As epoxy cures some of the [...]

Fiberglassing larger areas is done differently from small. Large areas require that the glass be draped dry over the surface then the epoxy is applied over the glass and worked through the surface. The example here is glassing a centreboard but the principle is the same for much bigger areas like the bottoms, sides and [...]

Where a seam has to be glassed and it is difficult to make the glass sit flat because of a complex curve then a double bias tape is used. It is also useful for complex 3D curves like the tips of centreboards and rudders. Commercial double bias tapes can be bought but you can make [...]

This is the normal method for fibreglassing small areas – typically using fibreglass tape to hull seams. Here I document the process of coating the hull and glasstaping the chines in one hit. Integration of different steps in this way is one of the major efficiencies of modern epoxy boatbuilding. However if simply glass taping [...]