Fretwater Boat School March 2016: Lapstrake

This will be a five-day course, starting on St. Patrick's Day, a Thursday, and going on through the weekend into Monday the 21st. Not sure if we'll get her completed in that time, but we will do a lot of lapstraking! Probably a day or two of set-up and getting the plywood bottom in order, and riveting by the weekend.

Last April my friend Wade Smith and I offered a quick course in Fundamental Boatbuilding at my shop. We built a McKenzie drift boat, and we began work on a very sweet little lapstrake Swampscott dory. Here is Wade explaining the lofting process.

Lining out the stem of the boat with our very adorable ducks.

Building the molds for the hull.

Assembling the molds into the beginnings of a strongback.

Then the course ended and we all headed off in separate directions. There was a great clamoring among the participants to come back and finish the Swampscott. This photo of the original boat from which John Gardner pulled the lines just makes me want to weep. What a sexy little boat.

So:

In mid-March 2016 we're going to finish building the boat. Instead of building it as a purebred lapstrake with a plank floor, we are going to hybridize it and do a stitch-and-glue plywood-and-epoxy bottom and lowest strake. This will help mitigate the inherent problem of having a lapstrake boat in the desert: although lapstrake sides are gorgeous and hold up very well, the plank floor shrinks and swells so violently between immersions that the boat is mostly either leaking or tearing itself apart. 

The first day or so of the course we'll assemble the strong back and lay up the plywood floor and first strake, get them epoxied, beveled, and ready to accept the cedar planking. 

Then we'll be "getting out" the upper stakes, spiling them, beveling them, and riveting them to the lower ones with copper rivets. It's a fascinating--if repetitive-- process. By the end off the course we should be doing gunwales and seats, and if we accidentally get ahead of schedule, maybe we'll cast a little bronze hardware.

Here are a couple shots of the sort of thing it should become:

The course will run March 17 - 21, from about 8:30 a.m. to 5 or 6 p.m. As we did last year, we will run it on a donation basis, looking for about $60 a day or thereabouts. Si, the burrito truck guy, said he can come by at lunch, which will be a whole lot easier than last year's pizza errands.

The course is nearly full, so get in touch with me if you are interested. Feel free to email with questions. info@fretwater.com