Skills for Traditional Boat Building

FULL COURSE DESCRIPTION

Skills for Traditional Wooden Boat Building 

Gain practical experience in traditional wooden boat building in 5 days. This short course will teach you how to sharpen tools as it is so fundamental to wooden boat building, but after that it jumps straight in the deep end with some of the most exciting and challenging aspects of making curvy 3 dimensional wooden boats without glue, GRP or epoxy.

You learn scarfing as the plank shape is often like a banana and it is more efficient use of timber stock to cut and join 2 pieces of timber for one plank run. Being able to plane a bevel angle on the side of a plank is important too.

Lining out the planking is where you decide on how many planks each side and how to make then look fair. Very important for clinker and lots of tricks to learn.

The techniques for riveting a carvel plank is very different from a clinker plank as the outside of the hull will have to be faired (create a curved surface shape). Hopefully you will have a chance to do a bit of both, but the teamwork for clinker riveting using dollies, rove punches and good communication is great to get the hang of.

Steam boxes are used to make the green wood timbers supple and bendy and sometimes a plank in situ will be steamed in a bag to then bend into place.

Even if you don’t get to do everything in the 5 days there are usually plenty of on going projects to go and look at on the ground floor where the long 40 week course students are building several boats.

You might like to combine this course with another and save 5% on course fees. 

There is no upper age limit or skill requirement to join a short course or the longer courses. Accommodation is not included but plenty of options locally.

The College by the Sea

The Boat Building Academy is located on Monmouth Beach, Lyme Regis so you are a stones throw from a beach full of fossils, spectacular Jurassic Coast cliffs and the famous Cobb Harbour. The college building has a real buzz to it. There are students there from all over the world on a 40 week professional boat building course or 12 week furniture making course. They may have started their career change path on a short course at the college, just like you.

The College can send you a list of possible B&B, lodgings, camping, or hotels. The BBA building is at the quieter end of the beachfront, but only 5 minutes walk to the East lies the harbour with cafes, pubs and waterside restaurants. Walk further along the promenade and there is a park with great sea views to enjoy a picnic and the main high street and food shops behind. The main beaches are sandy and great for an evening swim to wash the sawdust away.

Debbie’s View: Why these Short Courses are Awesome

Co-founder of Classic Sailing Debbie Purser spent 40 weeks at the Boat Building Academy in 2020-21 and built a 16ft spritsail yawl called ‘Wild Boy.’ She knows the tutors and has an inisders view. In a nutshell, this is why Debbie thinks the BBA’s short courses are awesome:

“Because you can ask questions about virtually every aspect of boat building from a tutor who is employed to educate the public and complete novices, and also teaches professional boat building for the industry. It’s a passion for them and you might find the whole topic rather addictive….”

‘I am a boat builder’.

When I heard about the BBA – only a few miles along the coast from Weymouth, I had to investigate.  To be honest, when I visited, it all seemed wonderful, but so far from anything I’d ever done before that I didn’t know if it would be the right place for me, but then some friends offered to lend me half the fees, and I just couldn’t refuse their generosity.

Before the BBA, I’d never used a jigsaw, nor a plane or chisel, and I have almost no memory of woodworking class at school, however the instructors were so helpful and clear in their instruction that I quickly picked up the basic skills. Then came lofting, and my ever migraine, but it was still an amazing experience! I had been sailing off the West coast of Scotland before going to the BBA, and had fallen in love with the old wooden boats I’d seen, and wanted to work on something traditional, so it was great to be able to participate in the build of a 17′ 8″ clinker Pilchard Larker; an open working boat….

I feel very lucky to have been able to attend a school like the BBA, and then to go on and be employed by two of the world’s top luxury boat builders, without having any other previous experience in the industry.  The BBA gave me a mass of skills (many of which I had never heard of before); a love of making things, and a career and a direction for my life.  I may not be living on a boat yet, but when people ask me what I do, I can now confidently say; ‘I am a boat builder’.

After the course Ben worked for Spirit Yachts and Sunseeker.

For me, attending the BBA was one of the best decisions I have ever made. The pace is massively intense and the teaching is very no nonsense with a commercial focus but it is up to each student to put as much in as they want to take away.  I put in a massive amount and graduated with so much from a beautiful boat to a life changing career and some great friends.  It is also great to still have a link with the BBA when I return to carry out our epoxy talks and see what other students are building with our products.

The full boat building course was an amazing experience, it challenged me both mentally and physically. When I began the course I had absolutely no wood working skills and by the end of the nine months at the BBA I was able to confidently work with wood and was the proud builder/owner of a 13′ larch on oak clinker rowing punt.

The course provided me with a range of practical skills that has enabled me to gain a foothold in the wooden boatbuilding industry and latterly has enabled me to be offered a three year funded PhD researching the Shetland Boat: its history; folklore and construction.

I left the BBA in December 2008 and I have been impressed by the continued encouragement and support the team have provided me.  When in Lyme Regis I always enjoy popping-in for a welcoming chat and a cup of tea.”  Marc’s boat ‘Defiant’ was centrepiece of the ‘Boats that Built Britain’ exhibition at the National Maritime Museum Greenwich that accompanied the BBC series of the same name.

Information of Marc’s NMM exhibition appearance can be found on the National Maritime Museum website.  Read his PHD blog here www.shetlandboat.wordpress.com

The 10 month course really appealed to me as I didn’t want to spend several years at college not earning.  I wanted to be exposed to new tasks quickly and pick up the skills then move on to the next job.  Sometimes in education you feel that the tutors are talking for the sake of talking.  I never got that feeling at the BBA.  They are all like minded people who have had to get things done as quickly and as easily as possible in the real world and want you to be able to do the same. 

The second half of the course is mostly building boats from scratch. Whilst doing this you are learning all the time, even if you don’t realise it.  You can be sanding for 5 hours but you have learned not to put so much filler on next time!  Your personal progression is clear from the quality and speed at which you complete jobs as the course moves on.  First time it might take a whole day, second time you might be finished by lunchtime and you wonder what took you so long before.  Before you know it you are tackling something you would never have dreamed of doing and it turns out really well.  Being immersed in the whole boat building environment and just walking around the workshop is a valuable experience each day.  You can see how others have approached similar tasks and benefit from their mistakes and vice versa.

Your college has set the benchmark for the future of training craftsmen, which has long been the biggest worry of traditional boat builders and repairers. You  deserve to go from strength to strength, and I for one will recommend it to anyone looking for a career in our industry.

Tom Richardson, Owner of Elephant Boatyard, Hampshire

My visit to the Academy was truly inspirational. I found the energy and commitment of the staff to be second to none. Their dedication to their craft and the students, and their passion for excellence in design and technical skills, clearly explains the success rates that the Academy has, and the very high level of results achieved by the students. You truly are a centre for excellence in your field!

Chris Humphries, then Director General of City & Guilds

I attended a three day Clinker Boat Maintenance and Repair Course some years ago. The knowledge has proven extremely useful. The skills I am still working on !

Adam Purser, Director Classic Sailing

The flagship 40 week Boat Building course teaches men and women how to build boats to industry standards.

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