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Boat building

PJ and Cliff show how to build a plywood Quick Canoe in one week

Cliff and PJ live in Warm Queensland and Wintry Tasmania. However they both like to go the the yearly (June) wooden boat festival in tropical Far North Queensland.

This year they decided to build one of my Quick Canoes. They started on Saturday and finished including putting the canoe on the car roof by the following thursday.

They are experienced woodworkers so added some very nice details.

Minimal repairs to keep an old Mirror plywood sailing dinghy going

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.

First Goat Island Skiff Kit sold in the USA

Clinton Chase in Portland Maine has just delivered a precut kit for the Goat Island Skiff to John in Texas who is building the boat.

The kit arrived in a big box.

This little article tells how his kids are involved in the boatbuilding starting with attaching the framing to the accurately cut plywood. He knows the rule that it is more important what the kids learn and experience than it is to minimise the use of wood!

Sail Boat Tobogganing in the Snow

Winter has been really harsh in North America.

It has even been snowing in Texas – and not just a little bit.

Kenny and family (more north than Texas) are really active on the PDRacer front but like many others are getting cabin fever from being icebound inside their houses.

So during one of the better days … there was boating to be done – but not boating as we know it, Jim.

Quick Canoe assembly – Woodworker builds in 4.5 hours (I took 2 weekends)

Fast building was part of the aim of this plan! Also to keep the expense down. Rick surprised me – I was thinking it would take a couple of weekends. The Quick canoe is very simple to build and comes out of three plywood sheets. A very simple plywood canoe 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.

MSD Rowboat in Brisbane. Built by Tom

Tom has built his MSD Rowboat in Brisbane.

I met up with him recently and we drove down to the coast towing the rowboat to the river at Nudgee. A bit of wind and a lot of current because of all the rain.

Tom has trimmed down the skeg to get the boat to balance nicely in all directions. Before the modification the bow used to blow around – now it behaves nicely.

I took quite a few pictures.

Launching after the build – Handy Punt – Stable for Fishing

Fiona Harbison and friends have just launched their new Handy Punt for fishing and family outings.

Fiona is the sister of Helen (hope I have that right) who built a Nutshell pram in a number of the Duck Flat spring or autumn boatbuilding schools.

It is called Farnark, which will strike a chord with Australians and New Zealanders through the work of John Clarke. There is a picture of the boat and a clip of John Clarke reprising his farnarkling spiel.