I'm really excited to be teaching my new strip-planked boat class at the WoodenBoat School. In this class we will build two of Nick's popular boat designs. Each boat is quite different cedar strip boats. Nymph is a sweet little double paddle canoe. It is lightweight and fun to paddle. The Night Heron is an elegant sea kayak. These two boats will give people a well rounded experience in using the woodstrip method of constructing small boats.
We will go through the whole building process, starting with truing up the forms, working through installing the strips, fitting strips together, fairing and sanding, fiberglassing, installing seats and hatches, and fitting out the boats. At the end of the class the finished boats will be raffled off to one of the lucky students for the cost of materials.
If you want to build a lightweight, rugged and beautiful small boat then this is the class for you. These two boats utilize the strip building method which combines thin strips of wood with epoxy and fiberglass and will make a car-top-able, low maintenance, and gorgeous vessel. Nick Schade has been building strip-built boats for over 25 years. He has written two of the standard texts on the subject, Building Strip-Planked Boats and The Strip-Built Sea Kayak and his efforts have guided thousands of people through building their own boats using the popular strip-planked method.
In this six-day course, students will explore this method of construction while building two very different boat designs created by Nick. Nymph is a small, extremely lightweight, easy to handle double-paddle canoe in the J. Henry Rushton tradition, but with a modern take. Night Heron, is an elegant, high performance sea kayak design that has found a place in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art. These two boats will provide an excellent overview of the strip-planking process. This will be a busy week with students learning to shape and fit the cedar strips, learn how to handle fiberglass and even get to use some carbon fiber/Kevlar materials which provides extra strength to the boats.
Throughout the week Nick will take time to discuss the many variations on the strip-building process that students can use on their own boatbuilding projects. After a week of fun work we will step back to admire two stunning boats and then get on to the drawing! We worked all week making two boats- now who gets to bring them home (after paying materials of course!) Two lucky students will bring home the boats we worked on all week and will have the pleasure of paddling them for years to come.
More information about the class
The WoodenBoat School Listing on this class
Location: WoodenBoat School, Brooklin, Maine
Registration (starts January 1st)
