Please help me choose the right plans for my needs

Rhinox

a strip planked model (other than ply sheet S&G) is a pain in the B... and does not really help to understand the construction.
The recommendation to build a cardboard model is founded in the fact, that many people cannot imagine, that a strange looking cutout of plain ply can form a good looking hullshape, and that such a boat has a noteicable stiffnes if all parts came together.
That your round bilge hull is a nice looking stable thingy, you can imagine with ease.
Thats it

 

Lofting is fun if you are detail oriented and if you have a willing partner, make her part of the fun, too.
Perhaps the most complete online explanation;
http://books.google.com/books?id=iY...X&oi=book_result&resnum=11&ct=result#PPA49,M1

Or, this fellow will do the lofting for you.
http://www.douglasbrooksboatbuilding.com/lines.html
for a fee.

See these also for a more abbreviated treatment
http://www.grapeviewpointboatworks.com/rangeleybuild2.html

http://www.dixdesign.com/lofting1.htm

As an aside, making a mockup in strip plank (1/8" square won't be to scale) is only useful to show you how the strips will run out as you turn the bilge. Not to worry, the solution is easy, esp. if you are going to paint your hull.

 

The art of lofting is almost over, with few knowing how to truly loft a boat any more.

In a nut shell, it means using the plans and a "table of offsets" you literally draw the boat full size. Typically this is done on some craft paper on a roll or on painted sheets of light weight plywood.

The art of lofting is a fair bit more then this of course. I've been present when some greats lofted out the lines of a boat, making grand changes to satisfy desires to improve a quartering wave or refine a bow, etc. This is the part of the art that is being lost.

With modern plans, you often don't even get a table offsets, just dimensional drawings. With some types of construction is fine, but not others.

There are several good books on the subject, but it's not as hard as it appears at first glance.

I loft "as needed" which generally means I'll loft the station molds and other critical pieces, like the stem and keel profiles.

Lofting will catch errors in the drawings (amazingly enough, yacht designers actually make errors), but most importantly you'll make slight adjustments to produce a real "fair" hull.

It's a lot easier to make these adjustments on a piece of paper. It's a lot cheaper then cutting an expensive chunk of wood too short as well.

After many boats, I've adopted lofting as necessary, depending on the model I'm building. If I'm familiar with the type, I'll do minimal lofting initially, but then go back and pickup patterns and templates from newly lofted drawings as they become necessary. An example would be that recently did a new seating arrangement in a small boat and built a mockup of cardboard. My concern was there wouldn't be enough foot room. I was right, when sitting in the life size cockpit of cardboard (I actually sat on a 5 gallon bucket), there wasn't enough room to comfortably place my feet. My changes canted the seat risers so there would be sufficient space for feet, which cut into under seat storage a bit, but made the new seating area useable.

Other things like the keel profile/plan, rudder outline, stem profile or complicated areas like a splash well for an outboard, where a bunch of different angled pieces come together can all be worked out on the lofting, before you commit to the saw.

Making something fit a round bilge hull can be tedious. If you have a lofting, you can make templates, trimming them for a perfect fit, then transfer these to your actual stock, for very precise fitting, right off the bench.

All my plans come with an offsets table and lines plan. Frankly with a lines plan, offsets table and general "build brief" covering scantlings, I can build any boat, but this isn't my first rodeo either. The first thing I do is loft station molds, deducting plank thicknesses if necessary, etc. then I space them on a strong back, per the lines drawing. I then run battens all over it to insure it's fair. Once I'm convinced it's fair, I lock everything down in position, with braces, then continue to the next phase of the building, knowing my starting point is to the dimensions of the plans and adjusted to be fair and smooth. This insures the boat is the right shape, is smooth and will not cause me heartaches latter in the build, when I realize one side has a hump in it and the other has a hollow in the same location.

Boat building is all about problem solving. Figuring out how to do things with weird shapes. A lofting can become the tissue you'll cry over, instead of a sweet piece of mahogany you've cut 2" too short.

 

Are not we talking about a rowboat or did I misunderstand. This man is not designing a $100,000 pleasure craft so why make it any harder on him then has to be?

 

He's still going to build it over a jig or set of station molds. These will need to be lofted. The stem and other elements of the boat will still benefit from lofting. He can play with a joggle stick and make templates or he can pick up dimensions directly from a lofting. Most haven't a clue what a joggle stick is, let alone how to use one, but they do know about a tape measure and a drawing.

Lofting and many other aspects of boatbuilding were developed as a result of illiterate builders. Many could read their own name, just barely understood a yard stick and had enough fingers to get to ten easily. The joggle stick (some times called a "tick stick") and table of offsets were developed for this reason.

Offsets are given in feet, inches and eighths of an inch. This is because a builder could figure out the feet and inches marks and could count the eight inch ticks off on their fingers. So a notation of 1-9-3, was 1' 9" and 3 eight inch ticks on the magic stick.

The joggle doesn't even need the ability to read and relies on direct distance transfer, plus the accuracy of the user. I use joggles all the time as a fast accurate and easy way of picking up odd shapes.

This seemly antique methods work well and in many cases far better then conventional techniques. I can use a joggle faster and more accurately then anyone with a tape measure and a piece of paper. Even if you're picking up a profile with a pair of dividers, you can easily be off a substantial amount, just by rocking your hand back and forth as you scribe the lines. This isn't the case with a joggle, which will be dead bang accurate with enough reference points.

 

I do´nt know why....................
but I expected such sort of proper description from PAR, although now I´m deeply impressed to learn he´s illiterate, using a joggle.
Thanks Paul.
Richard

 

She has furnished you a rope (complete with noose), placed a foot stool underneath a roof rafter and can count on gravity to do the rest! You are a lucky man! Go for it!

 

Rhinox, you're getting some good advice, but perhaps you should select a simple design for your first time build. You didn’t mention if you have experience working with wood, hand and power tools in good shape, material on hand for making jigs and building frames, a place to work etc. Any deficiencies on those areas will extend build time and cost. The great thing about a simple boat project is, if you enjoy it you can always do another, more challenging and rewarding one.

Design selection: skiffs and dories both go together quickly but in your place I would avoid dories - they are easy to build but tippy. They have narrow bottoms and high sides. They were designed to be stable when weighed down with a heavy load of fish or equipment in the bottom and handle big waves -“Our DORY is ideal for launching or landing through the surf in coastal areas” - which, counter-intuitively, is incompatible with the high initial stability that makes a first-time boat comfortable and secure feeling. A flat-bottom boat of adequate beam will give you that, and a small, lightly-built skiff is an easy car-topper, and you can haul it across a beach on occasion. For ponds, small lakes and maybe on a bigger lake close to shore on a calm day the skiff will be in it’s element.

Designing: do you want to build boats, or design them, or both? Don’t try designing your first boat if that’s not where your main interest is; there’s a lot to learn. Free!Ship is a great piece of free software but it won’t tell you if you have a viable design. It’s a little strange to use at first and takes time to master. Don’t re-engineering a purchased design either.

Time: how much time do you think you will have? There’s a new home, gardening -plus landscaping if it’s a new house, decorating -especially if it’s an old one, drapes, furnishing, fixing the problems the real estate salesman didn’t tell you about, getting to know the neighbors? Then there’s the new missus; a wife is not just a fiancée with a piece of paper. Enough said.

Construction: S&G is surprisingly time-consuming and requires you to work with fiber-glass tape, epoxy and fillets which some folks quickly learn to hate; for every hour of construction there is an hour of sanding. A lapstrake hull requires time and material spent building a form before you even get to start the boat. A strip built hull also needs a building form and must have either ribs installed or glass applied on both sides to provide cross-grain strength. Flat bottomed boats like dories, skiffs and pirogues don’t need that, you glue battens along the bottom edges of the sides, join them together, flip ‘em upside-down, plane the flats along the edges and glue on the bottom. Because the joints are flat you can use a non-gap filling glue which will set way faster than epoxy and clean up with water. You can have a basic hull in a couple of days without breaking a sweat; of course there’s more to do but that applies to any type of boat. There’s little point glassing over a ply hull that will not get rough usage and will be removed from the water after each use.

Looks: a classic copper-riveted lapstrake boat with steamed oak ribs, wineglass transom, hand-cast bronze rowlocks and scuppered gunnels is a thing of beauty, no doubt about it; provided it gets finished that is. But a simple skiff can be attractive too, with a clean sheerline and some restrained brightwork it does not have to be ugly.

I’m not saying that making a masterpiece of the boatbuilders art is not fun; it can be, but it demands skill and knowledge without which it can be an exercise in frustration. If that’s what you want after mature reflection then go for it, but consider signing up for one of those training courses offered by (among others) the Wooden Boat Magazine, where you get to build the boat of your dreams over an intensive week or two with qualified instructors in a well equipped workshop.

 

Thanks everyone for the primer on lofting. It doesn't sound too scary to me :shrug:. I'm not sure I see the benefit of drawing the entire lines plan of the boat full size on the floor, but I absolutely see the benefit of lofting individual components to, say, cheap plywood patterns to check fit before cutting into expensive wood and realize there was an error or I measured wrong or something silly and scrap some material as a result. I'm sure I'll be doing that whenever possible.

Regarding the model, thats pretty much what I expected to hear. I'm pretty good at visualizing in my head anyways, so I'm sure I can get by without building a model first.

Lt. Holden: Haha funny comment. It reminds me of when I was back in college, my favorite professor had a saying. Whenever it was time for exams, someone would always ask if we could make it "open book" and use our notes as well. His answer was "sure! I'll give you whatever rope you want to hang yourself with".

This professor was a really reasonable guy - didn't expect us to memorize a bunch of crap, just understand concepts. Exams were mostly based on deriving formulas, and not just "plug and chug". Because of that, the notes and the book wouldn't really help for exams anyways, so the implication behind the saying was that those who understood the concepts wouldn't need any supplemental material, while those who didn't understand the concept would only be led astray by the book/notes, wasting time searching the entire exam for answers they wouldn't find, being hung by the rope, instead of having the lifeline they expected it to be. I did well in his classes - he even nicknamed me "the curvebreaker" although I was definately not anywhere near the most intelligent :shrug:

ancient kayaker: thank you for your concerns. Those are the type of questions I've been asking myself for nearly 3 years, and I believe I'm pretty honest with myself. I'll happily answer your questions just as an extra check that I'll be able to handle this.

~~~

"You didn’t mention if you have experience working with wood, hand and power tools in good shape, material on hand for making jigs and building frames, a place to work etc. Any deficiencies on those areas will extend build time and cost."

- I wouldn't consider myself experienced at all with working with wood, but its not like I've never built anything with wood or used a saw or tools before either. My dad is a real do-it-yourself type of person, mostly because my family never really had a lot of money when I was younger (family of 6 - I have 3 younger brothers - all getting by on my dads truck driving salary; not over the road, its actually nightly grocery delievery). Anyways, when I was growing up, there was always work to help out with. When I was real young (like 2-5 yo or something like that), my dad built an addition on the house mostly by himself - 40' by 40' living room and kitchen. I of course wanted to help out and wouldn't stop bothering him, so he handed me a hammer and a couple nails and he told me to go hammer them in somewhere. Ended up in the emergency room shortly thereafter after I hit myself in the chin with the claw end of the hammer. Still got the scar. After that, we've built 2 decks, an entrance room, on of the decks we built a room over, rebuilt a bunch of the back deck after carpender ants got after it, and recently my dad decided to enclose the back deck into a room, so I've been helping out with that as often as I can make it back home to help out. I know how to measure twice and cut once, and all that. Stuff like knowing what side of your pencil line to cut on and what not, I know. Stuff that someone who's maybe never picked up a saw before wouldn't know.

That being said, I realize there's a difference between hammering some plywood and 2x4's together, and building a boat. Part of the purpose for this thread was to determine if building the boat like the whitehall required a seasoned builder, or if someone like me with enough time, patience, and money could do it. Basically, is it an art project, or an engineering project? Anybody with enough time can put together, say, a giant and elaborate lego set by following instructions, and you can build some pretty amazing things out of Legos. However, I don't care how much I read about art and painting, I'd never be able to recreate the mona lisa or some marble sculpture. Similarly, I feel if given instructions of what wood to cut to what shapes and where and how to put it together, I'm perfectly comfortable building anything. If parts require a more artistic interpretation, thats where I will struggle.

Regarding tools, well I don't have my own. I've mentioned my grandfather's tools. I'm not sure what he has or in what condition, or if I'll be able to use them (I'm thinking I will), but I'll find out soon enough. Whatever I don't have, I'm assuming I'll just buy. That doesn't mean I have a bottomless pit of money for a wallet, but this is going to be a hobby. If I have to save for a few weeks/months in order to by a tool, or get that next shipment of wood, then I'll wait. I won't be on a deadline. How long it takes is not important. That doesn't mean I'm going to start something and not finish it, but this isn't an impulse "I want a boat now, can't afford to buy one but I think I can build one cheaper". Its meant to be a hobby, and some hobbies are expensive, and I'm OK with that.

~~~

"Skiffs vs. Dories"

- I appreciate what you and other have said regarding skiffs seeming like they would be just what I'm looking for. I guess, what it comes down to is that I just don't like the looks. Because of that, my heart really wouldn't be into the build, I'd probably cut corners out of not caring, be more likely to find other things to do than work on the boat which would start to seem more like a chore than something fun to do, and then in the end what I'd end up with is something that (IMO - no offense to anyone here intended) seems plain, generic and boring. If a skiff were all I wanted, I'd just buy one.

A dory, on the other hand, appealed to me because I like the looks of double enders, and I like the load carrying capacity. Stability doesn't really bother me too much - I'm perfectly comfortable in a canoe, and I can't imagine it being any less than that. Although I'm a big guy, I'm actually pretty agile with a great sense of balance. A dory would IMO have the load capacity to carry me around for fishing, so long as it could handle a little bit of chop. It wouldn't be a big issue to not be able to carry my fiance and dog as well, as I predict 90% of the time I'll be heading out on my own regardless of the boat.

That being said, the glen-l whitehall is pretty much everything that appeals to me in a small boat. With my concerns being eased that the strip planking won't be physically harder than building with plywood, I don't yet see a reason why I shouldn't build it . I'd be really into it, not just willing but eager to spend free time building it, I'll be extra patient making sure to do my absolute best work without cutting any corners, and I'll be extremely proud to be seen out and about in my boat.

~~~

"designing vs. building"

- Simple. I just want to build, not design, which is why I initially asked everyone for help finding me plans for what I need. Its meant to be a hobby - something I can do in my free time (or to have a good excuse when I don't want to go shopping ) If I don't have to design it, I won't.

That being said, if I ever chose to try to design something, I feel my engineering knowledge already has me pretty far up the learning curve, compared to someone without an engineering background who wants to design and build their own boat. (and IMO, lots of those people (but not all) only want to design themselves because they're too cheap to shell out the ~$100 for plans - but then how can they even afford to build???). Anyways, I know about hydrostatics and hydrodynamics. I can calculate centers of geometry/mass/bouyancy, etc. Without knowing a lick about boat building, its perfectly obvious to me for a boat to float in equilibrium, the center of mass of the boat and everything in it must be in a verticle line with the center of bouyancy (the center of the displaced water - idk if there's an official term for it, but thats what I call it) due to summing forces and moments. With that knowlege, I can figure out where the water line will be for different loadings, and can figure out how the boat will pitch when the load shifts. I also realize there are other aspects of design, specifically once you get up to power boats. I don't really understand the physics of planing, and how to calculate stuff like squat and porpoising. I don't know much about skin drag and/or wave drag other than it exists. If I was thinking about a sailboat, there's even more there that I don't know about. And I'm sure there are countless other things that go into boat design that I haven't really thought about. But, if I ever wanted to, I feel I have the capacity to expand upon what I already know, to learn everything else I would need to know to design my own boat. I mean, I was interested in aerospace engineering before I decided on mechanical. I've "designed" aircraft stuff for class, and designed real R/C aircraft for a student group competition. If I can learn how to design something that flies, I'm pretty confident I could do the same for a boat. Where my designs would lack would be the artistic areas. I'm not artistic in the slightest.

~~~

"Time: how much time do you think you will have? There’s a new home, gardening -plus landscaping if it’s a new house, decorating -especially if it’s an old one, drapes, furnishing, fixing the problems the real estate salesman didn’t tell you about, getting to know the neighbors? Then there’s the new missus; a wife is not just a fiancée with a piece of paper. Enough said."

Well, I think I've done a pretty good job explaining that time is not a concern. Regarding the new place I mentioned we were moving too, well its actually a house that we're renting, with an option to buy if we decide we like the place. Actually, its perfect for what we were looking for. Its in a little marina community right next to Lake Erie, where the Chagrin River empties (that probably means nothing to anybody not from the area ). Its aparently a good place for steelhead fishing. The community has its own private beach and island nature preserve, all dog friendly. The community also has its own little redneck yacht club where they keep all their boats. Aparently you can catch Bass/walleye/catfish/pearch right off the docks. My workspace would be half a two stall garage (which is good - my fiance wasn't happy with me when I told her if we found a place with only a 1 stall garage, her car would have to be outside in the winter hehe). And also, possible the full basement for storing wood and tools when not needed. Actually, I would probably have the basement be the workshop are for all the cutting and prep work, and do the assembling in the garage. I can already forsee the "Pain in the you know what" factor to keep going back and forth between the basement and garage to measure and check ad naseum, but I'll make due. I actually think it would be a pretty nice setup. The basement would have all the room I need for larger, stationary tools like table saws, belt sanders, etc, where the garage just wouldn't quite be big enough without hijacking both sides (and the fiance would not have that!)

Everything else you mentioned that would take up time? Well, thats fine by me. I'm under no deadline, and I'll work in my free time, or when I want an excuse to get away for a couple hours . The fiance/wife won't be an issue, I don't think anyways. She definately agrees that I need a hobby, and is so far in support of me buying the plans and building the boat. I've shown her the pictures of the whitehall, to which she replied "wow thats a really cool looking boat!". We've also already been living together for ~4 years, so I feel like all the stuff that normally happens when you switch from fiance to husband/wife and move in together, we've already been through and worked through. We already share all our bills and money and everything, so I don't think there will be any honeymoon problems to deal with in our situation. What do i know though, I've never been married before . Even after saying all that, people still tell me how much things will change. I guess I'm still skeptical.

But I'll continue to stress, I'm not doing this because I just want a boat as fast, cheap, and easy as possibly. I could buy one and probably satisfy those 3 requirements . I want a hobby, and I want something that satisfies all the requirements of my original post, and the added bonus of creating something beautiful that will inspire me to work harder, and have a huge sense of pride in the result. The Whitehall seems to fit the bill, but I'll know for sure after ordering the plans and studying them for a while.

~~~

"Construction topics"

- Again, I appreciate you advice and lobbying for the plywood skiff type boats. However, your suggestions seem to stem from the idea that it would only be "easier" in the sense that it would be less time consuming and tedious work, and not that its actually physically easier. That is not a turnoff for me at all, as I have all the time I need a couple hours a night or weekends at a time, and I believe I have the patience to do tedious work like sanding/fairing for hours on end.

The training course does not interest me for a couple reasons. Firstly, I'm not the type of person that has to do something in order to learn. I can read something or be told how to do something, and then I'm able to do it. I don't know why, and I'm not saying this out of arrogance, but its just how I am. Used to piss off my friends back in school when I never had to study for exams and do practice problems. Other things, like when I learned to ski, I got absolutely nothing from lessons. I went to a couple, before I realized I was better off heading up the hill and learning the best way for me to do it that works for me and my body, and not just the "this is the way we're supposed to teach it" method. Similarly, as this is going to be a hobby that will hopefully expand beyond building 1 boat and then stopping, I need to figure out the best way to work with the tools I have or need to buy, and what methods work best for me, and be able to work within my own time constraints, no matter how quick or long lasting the project is.

The second point, going along with the first point, is I don't need/want to have a boat after two weeks. Sure, I'd still have the feeling of acomplishment of building my own boat, but then what? It wouldn't satisfy the requirement of being a hobby. Sure, I'd learn a lot in a short period of time, but would I really learn anything I couldn't pick up in 6mo ~ 1yr of working along at my own pace, reading books, asking here for advice, figuring out the best way to utilize the tools I have available and aren't just part of a dream shop, etc? Maybe I learn a way to do something in the course that requires the use of some $20,000 tool. When I go to build my next boat, because I'm still looking for a hobby, I'd never have access to something like that in my own little basement shop, so that means I might be relearning stuff along the way anyways. Or maybe the pace of the class is so quick that you don't retain a lot of knowledge, with the goal being that if you ever wanted to build another boat, you just take another class? idk... maybe I'm just not giving the courses enough credit but for me, it just wouldn't seem like the best way to do it.

So I think I've covered everything. I hope I didn't come across as unappreciative of your suggestions, because thats not it at all. Those were the kinds of questions/posts I was thinking about when I asked if anyone was going to post with reasons for why I shouldn't build the boat. After answering all those questions, I only feel even more that the whitehall is the right boat for me to be building. I don't think I've ever been more excited about how this is all coming together. Next step will be to buy the plans. I'll probably order them tonight.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I also want to let every know that I just realized I also have a side project to be working on this summer. Remember my family who owns the pontoon boat I mentioned in an earlier post? Well, they also own a little speed boat too, I guess you would call it a runabout? Anyways, it hasn't been in the water in years. Its been sitting under the covering for a long time. Well, the tarp has holes in it, and the boat now needs some work. Mostly cosmetic really. I'm guessing stuff like the seats and carpets might need replaced. What needs the most work is the outboard - the last time we tried to get the boat in the water, the motor was having problems. It would start, but wouldn't continue running. Thats been almost 10 years. We got the boat cleaned up and in the water, only to realize there were problems with the motor. Whatever problems were there are probably only worse now, and I'm not real sure what my family has in mind to fix it. Anyways, I've been invited to help fix up the boat this summer, with the reward that afterwards my fiance and I would be able to come down, hook up to the trailer, and take the boat out whenever we wanted to. My family has been saying for the last 3 or 4 years that both boats weren't being used as much as they used to, and if nobody was going to use them, they were going to sell them.

Well, I hope me being invited down to fix up the boat means they're intending to keep it. Maybe once i tell them where I'll be living with the private dock access, they'll even let me take the boat up here to cleveland with me. They're the type of people who would rather see family get good use and fun out of something, rather than sell it to a complete stranger for a little bit of money. What I do know is they're retired, and anymore that little speed boat would be too rocky and wobbley for them to feel comfortable on (thats why they bought the pontoon boat 15 years ago, actually).

Anyways, I think I've rambled on for a month now. I'll get some pics to post of where the workshop will be, as well as our amenities on the lake next time we head over to the new place - in the next week or so, we have to go finalize our lease agreement and I'll bring the camera with me then. I'll also get some pics of the boat my family asked to help work on. I think once the weather begins to get nice, we're gonna start to work on it. Probably April, but I guess if the weather gets nice this month we could start even sooner. They definately don't want to put it off though, because then by the time its ready to go, it'll be winter again .

Anyways, last chance to talk me out of building the boat . Once I order the plans, there'll be no stopping me haha. Just kidding, anyone who told me now that I couldn't, I'd probably just be even more motivated to prove them wrong

 

Build the boat of your dreams, a strip planked Whitehall finished bright or what ever. So what if it takes a little longer then you figured, they all do. You're a clever fellow and skilled enough to do the research first. Go for it.

 

I would´nt copy and paste the above......
so I just qoute

Regards
Richard

 

R: sounds like you have most things figured out. A lot of my comments were based on my own experience.

With a boat like the Whitehall you will run into a need for precision fitting to a much greater extent than a simple ply design, and there are very few right angles snd straight lines in a boat, but if you can think in 3D you can mostly figure it out for yourself. It’s amazing the difference that sharp, well-maintained tools can make, I had a lot to learn in that area.

Speaking just for myself, I am as much interested in the design process as the building and have designed dozens of boats few of which will ever take to the water. I just bought cheap ply and went ahead; the best things about small boats that don’t work are, they are cheap and fit easily into a garbage bag after it being cut up into small pieces. After a few abject but educational failures I now have a charming little marine ply canoe, feather light, zips past anything else the same size, gets her share of compliments and all my own! The second of that line is waiting for varnish, I made a few changes and soon I'll see if they work or not. Life is about learning.

Please keep us posted on progress, pictures too!

 

Rhinox

there´s nearly nothing left to say, you´ll make it.
Just one hint, get as many screw clamps, bar clamps, C clamps, vice´s as you can beg, steal or borrow, you then will notice, you would have been happier with just a few more!
And a laser level is helpful.
Regards
Richard

 

If you are lacking in actual "jointmaking" experience; after studying the plans many times over, make a list of the type of joints you will need to make and start planning how (and with what tools) you will make them. Critical to this is how you can measure, trace, scribe or lay them out accurately and finally how do you cut them, clamp and glue them. Your journey has just begun, please invite us along for the ride.

 

For a slightly different method of ultralight boatbuilding, with 1/4" (!) redwood strip planking.

http://www.roguepaddler.com/ultimate.htm