Simple to build boarding ladder for small boats from wood, fastenings and glue. Timber ladder mounted on transom for safety & convenience. Woodworking project for sailors
Teo’s Weekly Video series building a plywood sailing dinghy – the performance oriented Goat Island Skiff. Domonstration of building methods. He is currently up to week 18 (March 2020)
Sandpaper – don’t use COARSER THAN 100grit ON TIMBER TO BE GLUED (or Painted/Varnished). We provide reasons.
The goat island Skiff calendar 2018 is out now for christmas
How do I get nice looking intervals for the inwale spacers on my boat? Photos. How many expensive clamps do I need for the job?
Peter McKenzie and his sons from Queensland Sunshine Coast built a standard Eureka paddling canoe.
Weight was the standard 44lbs. Peter’s email gives some nice tips.
They are very happy campers.
A 12lb canoe. The idea was to build a Rushton Wee Lassie in balsa strip with very light glass. The boat ended up being fairly durable despite not being interested in durability. As far as I was concerned I was going to be happy if it lasted a couple of years before being chucked into a dumpster somewhere. But five years later it was still beautiful despite good use.
A whole bunch of strategies for lightweighting a plywood stitch and glue canoe. In this case a Storer Boat Plans Eureka Canoe. Standard build is around 44lbs. Ten lbs were saved to bring the weight down to 34 or 15k
A birdsmouth mast is a nice way to make a simple tapered hollow round mast. But what is the best way to join the wood. We show you how and why.
Building boats from older plans often adds a lot of labour and materials cost. Some old plans are great. But many are utter rubbish. Having a living designer or other people building the same boat is really useful for most builders.
We first started to see Paulownia becoming available from Plantations in Australia around 2004. Well before the current boom in its use for framing and hulls of dinghies, yachts and other boats. Paulownia is a very lightweight timber from China that provides one way of building lightweight boards and boats. How to overcome its weaknesses and make use of its strengths.
Never join boat decks the way you join up panels in a house. Cracks and big failures will result.
Torture boards are used for the highest grade of smoothing for visual smoothness of the whole structure. Fairing a strip planked hull.
Fairing a join between adjacent plywood sheets in a hull or deck.
Fairing a composite structure
Fairing deck substructure. Deckframes and deck stringers ready to take plywood.
Ultralight strip planked boats using Paulownia, Balsa and Western Red Cedar. Superlight Eureka Canoe and Goat Island Skiff and the amazing 12lb balsa canoe
The dominant source of timber sizings or scantlings for traditionally built workboats in Australia is the USL Code. It would probably be OK for traditionally built workboats in other parts of the world. It has information for both traditionally planked or semi traditional plywood boats of larger sizes
pointless, timewasting activities in boat repair and maintenance
Oil or diesel fuel have soaked into some of the areas you want to work on. There are no easy solutions. But this one might work.
OK … I decided to keep the old racing dinghy and fix it up. How do I put my effort in the right places to get the maximum results? A grab bag of methods for joining plywood, working out sizes, making centreboards and rudders and more.
All the best material on boat repairs. From restoring old sailing dinghies for racing, fixing holes in canoe, replacing whole hull panels or the neatest and easiest way of doing a really nice texture of nonskid using sugar. And the non skid can be done in paint or varnish
Mark Milam has done an amazing job of overseeing a project combining his work with that of a boatbuilder friend. Also the best method I have seen of supporting a windsurfer mast in a sailing dinghy.
Wonderful woods, some great detail design and the very best fitting of a windsurfer rig to a dinghy that I have ever seen.