Sarum Boats: January 2009

1/31/09

Boatbuilding / Surfboards

More reasons why the surfboard is more complex to build than a boat: in addition to the rocker table we already created, we will also need a 'planning bench' to set the board on edge in, in order to plane and shape the rails. The appendix of the manual illustrates this; I build in a short time the one above, of 2 2x12' and 2 2x6s (with some leftovers). The space between the horizontal members has a bottom and can be used to stow tools, etc.

1/14/09

Here's where we are on the 14th of January. Keel stringer is on, breasthooks in. Now its ime to rip all the stringers, and we should be steaming ribs soon.

1/6/09

Surfboards!??

Still waiting for John's kit, but making progress on Derek's - they can switch jobs, builder and assistant, down the line. They work well together. Bottom and top planks are assembled, and frame is nearly fit together. Next step is to glue frame to bottom on 'rocker table' Photos soon. After we do this once, I expect the second one will go quickly.

Chief Sarum overlooks the progress on board number one.

Something completely different?

A Skin-on-Frame car? Thanks to Chris Hansell (who built a skin-on-frame canoe last year) for sharing this video with me:

Boat Building at Salisbury School

This is a record of boat building at Salisbury School, a boys' prep school in northwest Connecticut. In 2002, Eliot Hovey finished his Annapolis Wherry, from a Chesapeake Light Craft, stitch-and-glue kit. He rowed it to a very respectable fourth-place finish in the Blackburn Challenge.

Since then, students /faculty have built sea kayaks; lake kayaks; a couple of prams; Oxford rowing shells; one canoe; a Chester Yawl, a skiff and two surfboards from kits.

Along the way, I learned how to build low-seat, skin-on-frame, solo canoes, which have become our most popular project. After a few of those, I built a ‘recovery’ kayak and a plywood coracle. As of summer of ’14 we were up to seventy-five boats (I’m not counting the surfboards as boats). My lifetime total is well over a hundred boats.

I've also built three West-Greenland style kayaks and four coracles; for the blog of the latter, go to Steel Coracle.