Build this Boat

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Hit the water with this easy-to-build rowboat.

As Water Rat noted in The Wind in the Willows, “There is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply ?messing about in boats.” Mother’s Basic Boat is a simple boat plan, which should be easy to construct for those with woodworking experience. To purchase more detailed plans, with instructions for constructing an optional sail.

Cut out The Pieces.

All you’ll need to build the boat are a few tools and the materials listed at right. The large pieces of the boat will be cut from plywood, and reinforced with pieces of hardwood lumber. You can cut the 170 feet of lumber you will need from three 10-foot lengths of 1-by-8 stock, or use any scrap hardwood lumber cut to 11/8-inch-wide boards. (For a sketch of the completed boat.

Start by drawing an alignment line for the midship bulkhead, which forms the central support for the boat, across the sheet of plywood 3 feet 61/2 inches from the stern end, as shown in Figure A. Now select one of your long pieces of lumber, which you will use to draw the ship’s curve. Start by drawing the left side piece. Mark the midway point of the length of the strip on the piece and center the strip on edge over the midship alignment line. Next, use a C-clamp to secure the strip over the outside center clamp position located one-eighth inch in from the plywood’s edge. (Clamp positions are marked on the diagram with a “C”.)

With a friend’s help, gradually bend the ends of the strip in until its outside surface can be clamped at the two other outer clamping positions. Now trace along the outer surface of the ship’s curve to form an arc that intersects all three points. Move the piece of lumber to the inner set of clamp positions, again aligning its center point to the midship line. Bow the strip around to intersect the three points and secure it with clamps. Again, draw the arc along the ship’s curve, then add the slant of the bow and stern as shown in Figure A. Use a saber saw to carefully cut around the boat’s sidewall. Use the flopped first piece as a pattern to cut out the right sidewall.

Going on to the second plywood sheet, use your hardwood strip “ruler” to draw the boat’s bottom, employing the same bend-and-trace technique used when drawing the sides. Then, cut out the bottom, leaving a surplus of 11/2 to 2 inches around the pattern on the sides and at the bow. It will be trimmed away later. With that done, you can cut out the second side and the transoms, and also draw and cut out the midship bulkhead.