Looking for a Boat Building Book

[robothobo]

Hi there,

I don't mean to spam up your forums here but I need some help, and heck if I know enough about boats to even pass the registration quiz here. Took like three tries.

My dad is retiring soon and has been talking about perhaps building a boat. I'm an engineering student and he's a modest craftsman so I'd imagine the scale of the project would have to fit a hobbyist's level of input, with at most a couple workers. He likes powerboats but has taken sailing lessons in the past and used to sail casually in his younger days. Either of those options could be suitable at this point.

Chances are this is might just be a phase of interest but I would like to encourage him anyways and was thikning of getting maybe a book or two on boat building (think beginner's/small size boat). I don't underestimate how hard a project like that probably is, but still at this point seeing as his retirement is a couple years away I wanted something in the beginner's vein and thought that this might be a nice place to consult.

As such I am petitioning for reccomendations, please forgive me if I have gone against the forum conduct here, I'm clearly not a regular vistor. Anything available by amazon.ca/chapters.ca etc. would be great as my local book stores have had nothing in stock.

(Also a slightly off topic follow up, I thought a small cheapish ship model kit might be a nice present accompaniment any reccomendations for a line or type? It'd be very neat to present him a book on building a small class of boat and have a model that represents it for him to assembly and dream over. I was thinking something small and plastic-y not one of those massive wooden accurate/to-scale reproduction ones)

Very likely I am misjudging a few things here so feel free to educate. I've noticed a bit of talk about plans for projects but something so specific would probably be lost at this point.

Thanks for your time and expertise. Happy Holidays.

[Ike]

Look here http://books.boatdesign.net/boat/boo...rchIndex=Books

[rasorinc]

this covers the basics of wood boad building. https://www.boatdesigns.com/prodinfo...umber=12%2D430
Good book with lots of demo pictures. Many 1,000s sold.

[Eric Sponberg]

Robothobo,

The easiest method of boat construction for most people is with wood. The best glue to use is epoxy. The book on wood-epoxy boat construction is "The Gougeon Brothers on Boat Construction."

http://www.westsystem.com/ss/how-to-publications/

It not only gives you the basics and the tricks of the trade, but it also tells you how to plan and cost out a project.

Eric

[whoosh]

you may try find a copy of Howard Chapelles books, old fashioned but the chapter on lofting will give you a sound understanding of how the boat progresses from design,
i found it excellent in the days before CAD I learnt to loft from his book
very good for timber building too
I can not remember the title, sorry, American author

[TeddyDiver]

Originally Posted by whoosh

you may try find a copy of Howard Chapelles books,I can not remember the title, sorry, American author

Most propably it's titled simply Boatbuilding (ISBN-13: 978-0-393-03554-4) Very good book about traditional boatbuilding.
For starters before the actual boatbulding books something like The Nature of Boats by Dave Gerr. A lot of usefull and interesting reading including some of the pros and cons in boats...

[thudpucker]

I think you ought to consider a dual-use project. Being way up there where you can sail in the winter and summer.

Build a Drop center board sail boat for your shallow waters in the summer, and one of those winter Sailing sleds.
Make the two of them with equal hardware needs so you can swap the sail and mast from one to the other with the seasons.