I live right near a river (here) that is navigable all the way to the sea - tidal even up to where I live and with no particularly rapidly-flowing or troublesome sections.
So… I thought it might be interesting to build a boat and go exploring down there. I came across this interesting set of plans to build a small boat from a single sheet of plywood.
I intend to modify it just a little - to make it marginally less flared so it can be paddled like a canoe (rather than rowing it and travelling backwards all the way), although it looks as though that would be possible without modification anyway. I also want a bit more height at the pointy ends and will add a- so mine will probably be a one-and-a-half sheet boat, but I’m not worried about that.
I think the construction is well within my capability - the author of that site seems to dislike stitch and tape construction (indeed seems to rather dislike epoxy and glass entirely), but I have no such qualms, so I think I’ll be doing it with stitch and tape - a fraction heavier, but stronger.
I’ve never built a boat before, but as far as using it is concerned, I can handle canoes, kayaks, rowing boats, etc with a reasonable degree of amateur competence, and if the worst comes to the worst, I’m a strong swimmer. I expect to test it out on a pond or lake before trying to take on the river.
You want to put a dwarwish Finn as a galleon figure at one end of your vessel? Well, since Rovaniemi boasts that it is the home of Santa, I guess you could ask for one of the elves from there to volunteer
If you build it, let us know and I’ll wander round and take pics. I might even throw you a line if it sinks - I may be too busy recording the event for cash*^h^h^h^h*posterity.
And you might want to get your shots first - the Hamble has never looked very appealing.
That would be good. You’re right about the river - being a fairly slow-flowing estuary, there are lots of parts of the Hamble where I wouldn’t want to make landfall - lots of stinky mud flats. However, there’s a gravel shore at Upper Hamble Country Park and there’s also a pontoon jetty there that would make a good place to stop if nothing else is available.
Plan A, though, would be to stop at the end of the end of the northern-pointing shingle spit in the dead centre of this picture - opposite Hamble Marina - we walked to it the other day (a February picnic- in the wind and rain - of sausages and beans cooked over a solid-fuel army surplus cooker) and although it’s mostly surrounded by mud flats, there’s a bit at the end where the gravel slopes straight into the water.
I think I’d plan to undertake the journey when there’s a neap tide - travelling downstream as it falls and back up again as it rises.
Have you asked your wife first? This is one of those stock situations of middle-aged drama, where the husband says, “I’m thinking of building a boat,” and the wife says, “Why, oh, why?”, as she envisions her garage/basement/living room being unusable for the next ten years, and her husband hiding out in his workshop drinking beer and ruining expensive marine plywood.
My great-great-great grandfather and his brother built a boat and sailed to Canada from Ireland. If they did it without power tools, surely you can. I’ll see you for dinner!
When I was growing up my dad built a 15 foot wooden sailboat. It took a long time as I recall. It was something he’d always dreamed of doing and my mom finally threatened to toss the plans if he didn’t build the damn thing. He did, we all helped. It was a wonderful family experience including the times that we actually got to sail the thing. I have more memories about that than I can even begin to share.
It was a bitch to right if you tipped it over but luckily I was never along on one of those trips.
I never got to help sail, I was just a passenger, the sailing stuff when to my dad and my older brother.
After dad died the boat got shuttled from one brother to the other until we (my brothers and sisters and I) decided that it was time to retire it. Years of being outside in the weather had taken its toll but we couldn’t bear to just haul it to the dump so we dragged it out to my place (I had an acre in the woods at the time with a nice sized bonfire pit in the front yard) and we torched it. Said a few words of rememberance about Dad and got good and drunk.
Sorry that I don’t have any advice, you just brought back a really nice childhood memory.
Good luck with your project and here’s hoping you get as many good memories and years of enjoyment out of your boat as we did.
Yes. She made noncomittal noises, but I think she’ll be OK with it…
Quite possibly. I should confess this is the year I turn 40. However, this is not the first time I’ve decided to do something or other, then done it. It also wouldn’t be the first time I’ve decided to do something, then bought the materials, and not done it.
Sooner or later you’ll get me to confess that I want to make a boat, too. I have got as far as not letting my wife throw out a book I bought for a dollar that contains plans for a number of boats, most of which are large enough to require their own ocean. However, the very first design seems just manageable, if we ignore the fact that I have nowhere to build it, no time to build it, and nowhere to store it that isn’t my mother-in-law’s shed, which, however, is very spacious and steps from a large pond.
My father and I built a small sailboat from plans - a “Glen-L-10” if memory serves, a 10’ cat-rigged boat with a daggerboard for a keel. It sailed, albeit slightly quirky. Was loads of fun to build (though of course he did most of it, I did a lot of sanding, tool-carrying, holding of stuff in place, etc.).
OK, as if this project wasn’t unlikely or difficult enough already, how about this idea…
The zero-budget boat. Build the thing completely for nothing.
I’ve found a ready source of free plywood - used to top/stabilise pallets during transit - it looks quite good stuff - at least exterior grade - I don’t think it will matter too much if it’s not marine ply, because I can go way overboard(pun intended) with the sealing and waterproofing, and this boat isn’t going to be left in the water for anything more than a couple of hours.
Other timbers can be made from other bits of pallet and reclaimed wood - some of the pallets delivered to our warehouse are made from tropical hardwoods - including very strong dense red-brown stuff resembling mahogany, but also some kind of pale brown timber that is very strong, but light - not as light as balsa, but much tougher anyway.
But the timber is only part of the equation, and probably not the most pricey part. I still need to find:
-Epoxy glue
-Fibre glass tape for the joints
-Something to stitch the panels together while gluing
-Paint, lots of paint and varnish
-Sandpaper and other consumables
I reckon if I mooch into a boat repair place (there are a few around) and enthuse about the Zero Budget Boat project, I might be able to scab some half-tins of paint, varnish, wood sealer, especially if I promise to mention their generosity on the website.
The epoxy glue and the glass tape are the big challenges, I think - absolutely no room for shortcuts or skimping there - without enough of this, the project just isn’t possible at all, but epoxy isn’t the sort of thing that gets ‘left over’ - it’s a two-part mix and anything that is mixed and not used can’t be kept - anything not yet mixed is essentially brand new and won’t be thrown away…
Any suggestions? Or did I just make it impossible?
