What and Why

I've read Wooden Boat magzine for most of my adult life. Finally having built a house and a few other things I've got around to building a wooden boat of my own. I've already built a chesapeake twin sea kayak to get the hang of epoxy. Its amazing stuff.

In preparing to build the boat I would have loved to see some photos, not diagrams, of a small lapstrake ply and epoxy boat being built. This will probably descend into obscure jargon occassionally but I will try to make it as straight forward as possible. I think boatbuilding need not be any more difficult and therefore inaccessable than any moderately complex task such as


This isn't me but it is one of the few good photos of the Iain Oughtred designed "Auk", a ships tender. I plan to have a sail rig for it so it will have a centerboard and rudder as well as oars and rowlocks.

I'll be building a particularly small version (it can be a bit either side of the stated 7'8" - 2.36m by changing the interval between the building moulds. The reason for this is twofold. Firstly the longest plank will just be able to be cut out of one sheet of 2440x1200mm ply if I keep the length to 2.16m. The second reason is it will be lighter when I have to carry it over to the dam to let little people go for a row.

Construction will be a fairly standard combination of old and new technologies. The form is pretty ancient dating back to the ninth century AD. Its called either lapstrake or clinker depending on where you were born. The material, timber, is old too. Originally the hull was made of planks now I'm making planks of marine ply. The fastening is all new technology. Epoxy resin is used a sealer when applied neat and as a filler when mixed with fibre dust. Its amazing stuff you can do almost anything with. The boat is so much stronger without he need for half the internal framing.