Why build a wooden boat? Maybe we all have different reasons – but I built mine because I wanted to go fishing on Port Phillip Bay, and I didn’t want to spend the money on a new boat, or take a chance on someone else’s reject
As it turned out, my first boat wasn’t the one I had selected from the web as top of my “wish-list”. A friend suggested that I was probably aiming a bit high for a first effort, and so I selected a smaller, simpler, rowing boat and started boat-building.
It doesn’t happen to everyone, but I finished the first boat, built my dream boat (both still going), then a smaller car-topping rowing boat for use on the Yarra, then a bigger car-topper because the wife likes to come along too!
Ok, I just love building the things, and just between you and me, I think I’m up to number 11 or 12 over the past 10 years (5 – or is it 6 - still with me).
It turned out that there is a Melbourne based club that is full of men and women who like to get together and use and talk about the wooden boats and model boats they have built or rescued! I wish I had discovered it before I started building, but here I am now, and it’s good to be part of a group that has a similar affliction.
You can do it, you know. Yep, you can build a wooden boat and have the thrill of turning lumps of wood or sheets of ply into something beautiful and practical.
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