Introduction to Wooden Boat Building

My fascination with floating in a boat, and working with wind and water to travel the watery world, led me to building boats. This interest stirs in people around the world. For thousands of years wooden boats have been successfully built and operated on the waters that surround us. Often the builders of these boats worked to preserve jealously guarded crafts. Today, marketing has left these crafts free to all who would apply their hands to tools and create vessels of their own. In this book, I present the processes followed to build a Norwegian Pram and an Arthur Spurling rowboat, along with discussion and anecdote on the impetus and skills that make building these and other boats possible. The pram, a lapstrake boat with transoms at both ends, built without plans, is the simplest of vessels built with techniques perfected by Vikings 1000 years ago. The lapped method of plank fashioning and fastening described can be used for a wide range of other designs. Arthur Spurling built hundreds of rowboats that were treasured by their users on the coast of his native Maine. The building process described will produce a fine rowing boat but can also be used in the construction of any other boat built to plans. Everyone comes to projects like these from their own perspective, with their own experience and resources. Even the simplest boat is a complex construction of varied parts. Square rarely occurs in boats, fair and fit rule. "Fair" means smooth in line and surface, without sharp bends. Sound wood bends in fair curves, making the creation of beautiful wooden boats seem natural. "Fit" means the parts come together tight and evenly. Shapes needed to join with another are patterned for through one or another method of spiling, establishing the shape of a curve. Cutting and finishing wood to match the shape needed for fit calls sharp knives in the form of saws, planes and chisels. Boat building woods are not the easiest to find these days, but wherever trees grow there are still people cutting them and turning logs into lumber. Finding these sources and using available wood to build your boat presents challenges, but pleasurable and interesting challenges. Besides the building processes, I tell something of the experience I have had leading me and guiding me through the building of boats. This book will be a guide to you, but you will find other guides for yourself, not least by thinking your own way through the process of building your boat. Have fun.