Intro to Boatbuilding: Shellback Dinghy
Event Information
Description
WHEN: This course is held over two consecutive 3-day weekends, September 11-13 & 18-20;
class runs from 8:30am - 5pm each day, with a half day on the final Sunday.
Lowell's Boat Shop Members: $715
Nonmembers: $795
Payment required by August 24
If you’re curious about the boatbuilding process or ready to jump in and start building your first boat, this class is a great way to get started. No previous experience is required, simply a desire to learn. In this class students will build the hull of a good-looking classic design, the rowing version of Joel White’s venerable Shellback Dingy.
Instructor Bill Thomas will cover the basics of boat design and how to read and understand plans. Students will learn about plywood and solid wood, fasteners, glues and epoxy, and will work with fiberglass cloth. Construction methods will employ a combination of traditional techniques and modified glued-lap plywood construction. We’ll set up a strongback and molds, and make patterns and laminated frames. While building the Shellback’s lapstrake hull, students will use traditional methods of cutting and fitting the planks.
The class will build one boat that will be raffled off for the cost of materials on the last day.
During the class there will also be time to discuss what you’ll need to set up your building space and get started with your own project.
Instructor: For over 40 years Bill Thomas has been a woodworker, designing and building custom projects -- from cabinetry and furniture, to sailboats, powerboats, kayaks and canoes -- for a wide range of clients. He teaches woodworking and boatbuilding in numerous locations around the country, including Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina, the WoodenBoat School in Maine, and Arrowmont in Tennessee, and offers online classes through Craftsy and Off Center Harbor.
www.billthomaswoodworking.com
Organizer Lowell's Boat Shop
Organizer of Intro to Boatbuilding: Shellback Dinghy
A NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK AND WORKING MUSEUM
BOAT BUILDING - EDUCATION - EXHIBITS - ROWING
Established in 1793, Lowell's Boat Shop is the oldest continuously operating boat shop in the United States and is cited as the birthplace of the legendary fishing dory. Lowell’s is the only remaining survivor of the area’s world-renowned dory manufacturing industry that produced in excess of a quarter of a million dories over a period of two centuries. Building more than 2000 boats in 1911, this business was one of the first in the Nation to employ a seminal form of assembly line manufacturing.
Conveyed through seven generations of the Lowell family, Lowell’s Boat Shop was passed to the Odell family in the 1980’s and then to the Newburyport Maritime Society in the 1990’s. In 2006, Lowell’s was purchased by Lowell’s Maritime Foundation, an independent non-profit group with the mission of leading this National Landmark and Working Museum through its third century of wooden boat building.
