Wooden Boatbuilding Course 2024
Applications Closed
This is your opportunity to enter the profession of Wooden Boat Building. This course has very limited numbers to ensure each student gets tailored tuition with a shipwright. This is an intensive course of 38 hour p/w over a 1 year period (12 February - 13 December), to learn and practice rare trade skills. Join an illustrious group of alumni, that work for some of the major maritime museums or own successful boatyards.
This course will enhance your opportunity to gain employment, working in boat yards both in building and maintaining traditional & modern wooden boats.
Tuition Fees: $ 22,500 GST inclusive
Four Students Only
Course Starts 12 February 2024
Course Content:
The one-year course is broken into 4 main components that aim to cover the fundamental activities of traditional boat yards and marina's, these are duties required to perform the basic function of a junior shipwright/boat builder. The skills covered at the school will also suit those that are interested in learning how to restore older vessels to a modern standard.
Component 1:
Part 1- Induction & safework practices. Covering the WHS practices as required for the workshop and general boatyard environment.
Part 2- Basic joinery. We will spend a period getting to know the hand tools used in the industry (and how to sharpen them) while creating some of the more common joints found in traditional boat building. We will also introduce and discuss the locally available specialty timbers and their use in wooden boat building.
Part 3- The boat builders tool chest. We will build a toolbox or tool caddy for use during your time at the school and beyond. During this period, we will cover the use of machinery and sign off students in the safe use of static machinery including the bandsaw, thicknesser, drill press, etc. We will also be introducing handheld machinery, which include battery operated tools prolifically used in the industry.
Part 4- The half model. This module is aimed at introducing concepts of boat shape and design. We will start with a talk from a marine professional in this area and continue with discussions on boat shapes and designs and how their underwater hull shape affects their motion and speed in the water. The group will then proceed to carve a half model. This is a time-honoured process of designing a boat from scratch used by shipwrights before such things as AutoCAD and other computer programs came to the fore in modern boat building. Carving the half model and drawing it out on paper allows students to understand the concepts prior to lofting.
Part 5- Lofting. This is the art of drawing a boat to full scale in a two-dimensional representation. It is used by boat builders to clearly see the shape of a boat prior to construction and ensure that all lines are fair and sweet. Once satisfied with the shape and fairness of the drawings, the builder will use the loft to create patterns for the construction of the full-scale boat. A table of off-sets are used to generate these shapes. The off-sets are generated from the half model once it is carved.
Component 2:
During this section students will use all their skills gained in component 1 to build a boat using plywood and some boatbuilding timbers. These vessels may be hard chined or clinker ply construction, rowing or sailing dinghies. By constructing a boat in plywood, students can understand the processes involved in building a large object to exacting standards while working in a medium which gives a lot of flexibility and room for error (there is always more at the shop, unlike Huon pine). During this component we will also be introducing marine adhesives, namely epoxy, and basic sheathing in fibreglass or dynel.
Component 3:
Restoration of a wooden boat - yet to be confirmed for 2024. In 2023, we are fortunate to be involved in the restoration of "Gwen", a 70-year-old, 22ft Bermudan rigged Cray boat. Planked in 1" king Billy Pine, with a Blue gum keel and powered by a 3-cylinder Kubota. Gwen is a lovely representation of some of the historical fishing fleets of the Eastern shores of Tasmania. She is currently sailed out of Kettering and very much adored by her current owners. Unfortunately, she is showing her age and as a result is an excellent opportunity for our 1-year students to gain some important restoration skills. The hull requires refastening, caulking, and refinishing. We will be building a new deck and small cabin, while improving her fit out. The deck construction typically starts with new carlins, full and half deck beams with lodging and hanging knees. We will cover that in plywood and a layer of fibreglass, over which will be laid Celery Top Pine and caulked with a polyurethane to create the traditional deck appearance. As with most restoration projects other issues may arise as we poke and prod and these will be dealt with during her restoration.
Component 4:
Huon pine clinker dinghy construction. We have 3 main unique designs that we tend to build for customers during this period, the Foster 10, the Percy (12") and the Whitehall (14"), but we are not limited to those as we delve into the art of traditional clinker boat construction. We will start with lofting and go all the way to completion, building a rowing/sailing Huon Pine clinker dinghy. This will include the construction of oars and spars. Steam bending will be an important part of this project but will be introduced during the plywood component.
Extra components:
During the latter half of the year, we also encourage students to consider a personal project, which can be in the form of a kayak, small boat or even some furniture. Some of the projects have included a hollow surfboard, yacht's skylight, a backgammon set, kayaks, and a yacht’s tender.
A fine furniture/wood working component is also built into the course and will relate to a personal project or the restoration component, the project for 2023 was a Huon Pine waterwheel for the Royal Botanic Gardens, for 2022 it was a ship’s skylight and in 2021 it was a ship’s wheel. The project for 2024 is yet to be determined.
Overall, the course includes a range of boat building skills and knowledge and is conducted in a working boatbuilding workshop. The course prioritises practical skills but also includes theory, guest speakers and occasional field trips.
Important Notes:
Please note that, at this point the school is not a registered training organisation (RTO) so the course is unaccredited, and therefore cannot issue certificates of completion towards an Australia-wide recognised certification. We are however rigorously working towards this such that we may offer a Certificate II or III in Marine Craft Construction in the very near future. However, to date the skills and confidence gained during the one year boat building course has directly led to employment outcomes in the Tasmanian boat building industry.