FAQ Boat Repair and Restoration

Riverboat restoration and new interior - storerboatplans.com

Design process from simple to complicated – Plywood Murray Riverboat

The problem with design is that it is relatively cheap. Sometimes fixed price. But it is not realised what successive design iterations are doing to the boat.

In the end Chris was unable to complete the boat. Partially because the hull turned out to be in much worse condition than expected. But also despite some nice positives coming in terms of usable space below, other things just seemed to get more and more complex.

Restoring traditional Australian workboats. USL Code. storerboatplans.com

FAQ USL Code restoration of scantlings for traditional Australian Boats.

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

Methods for all types of plywood boat repairs. Also putting nonskid in paint or varnish with sugar. storerboatplans

Fixing up old Plywood Boats – Fix leaks and holes, replace bottom in 24 hours, low cost nonskid that works.

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

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.