Boat Building and Woodwork Courses

Classic Sailing teams up with the Boat Building Academy

Did you know you can now book 2-5 day boat building, sail making and woodwork courses through Classic Sailing?

You can even train to become a boat builder as a new career on a 40 week professional career course. This flagship course of the Boat Building Academy includes recognised City and Guilds level 3 trade qualifications, a huge range of skills, plus the experience of actually building a 10-20ft boat as part of the course.

The Boat Building Academy is on Monmouth Beach in Lyme Regis, only a stones throw from the famous Cobb harbour and fossil beaches. It is hard to imagine a more salty spot to learn new skills, without going to sea.

On Classic Sailing website is now a tempting array of short and long courses for budding woodworkers or boat builders. The short courses are typically £295 for 2 days or £695 for a Mon-Friday course.

Everything from traditional sail making to modern or traditional wooden boat building options, wooden boat restoration to GRP repairs, setting up templates to build a boat, clinker to carvel construction, laminating wood and strip plank construction, ropework to painting and varnishing professionally.

There are bursaries to apply for, if you are struggling financially to afford either the short courses or the 40 week course. Why wait to change your career?

Why this partnership?

Without new people with the skills and passion to build and repair boats, it becomes very difficult to conserve historic boats and even keep more recently built wooden boats in a sound condition for sailing adventures. Also if you don’t have the skills to look after a wooden dinghy or yacht then the dream of buying a second hand vessel and restoring and maintain it yourself becomes too expensive to contemplate for the ordinary sailor.

Our connection with the Boat Building Academy is long. Both Classic Sailing founders did a short course many years ago and Debbie Purser completed the 40 week course in 2020-21 as a possible career change during the covid pandemic lockdown. She now offers micro sailing expeditions with the boat she built at the college, and runs and maintains 4 wooden boats including pilot cutter Tallulah. We can help you with both course and careers advice via classic sailing email or phone.

News Articles About Boat Building at Lyme Regis

If you want to know more we have many articles on the boat building courses and latest news from the Boat Building Academy and the boat building industry as a possible career.

There are bursaries to help some students towards the costs, initiatives to encourage more women into the industry, or to just pick up a saw or chisel and do something creative. There are case studies of past students and previous boat built.