This is the most often asked question I get, besides “How tall are you?” or “Do you play basketball”? The answer to the former is 6’6” and the latter question may be answered with “No, do you play miniature golf?”

But seriously, this is a fair question. How are your boats built?…is really what folks are asking, but the assumption is often this: since it is a kit, it must be stitch-and-glue construction. No, that is not the case.

I didn’t like getting this question early on because I knew my boats were certainly not stitch-and-glue but I was still working out a lot of the construction methodology on the fly. What is interesting is that people were and still are very surprised when they see one of our beautiful boats and learn that it was a kit. They exclaim, “THAT is a kit boat!?” But the first question still was always…stitch-and-glue?

Family week, class of 2021 - unfortunately I snapped this after the family from CA already left

Our boats are primarily designed to be real, functional, beautiful boats as a first priority but ease-of-construction and build method is very much a part of the design process. There are a few ways the hulls are constructed depending on the design and they all utilize plywood-epoxy and what I call “Tab-n-Lock”:

Screw-and-glue, wood chine construction (the focus of this post)
Glued plywood lapstrake (will cover later)
Tack-and-tape seam construction (will also cover later)

The “easy-to-build” line up of boats all utilize the first method in the list above - boats like the Echo Bay Dory Skiff and Compass Skiff. They are excellent beginner boats because they do not require a strongback and have few parts to assemble. They also offer great lessons in real boatbuilding skills: bending wood, planing a bevel, predrilling and driving for screws, using clamps and other basic tools, and using epoxy and wood to make good, strong joints. In just a few days of working you can have the hull built without the mess of stitch-and-glue construction.

bulkhead

A bulkhead for a Compass Skiff prepped with hardwood cleats. Note the tabs on the ends.

Frames

Part of the parts making process is to laminate these side arms, which eventually get glued and screwed to a hardwood bottom piece to make a midship frame.

Midship frame

The side arms were glued and now the frame is assembled with the “cross-spall” running across the top, which will help to hold the shape until the boat is built. This frame is important in establishing the width of the boat in the middle. Putting these parts together really is easy and a fun way to practice basic carpentry skills.

NC-scarf

This is our proprietary scarf joint cut on the CNC machine, a puzzle joint that is “blind” - you cannot see the dovetail shapes from the outside of the join. This was a very important thing for me and is why people are often surprised that my boats are kits because the finger joints so common on kit boats are very hard to see in my boats!

Layout

The planks were glued and now all the parts are ready to go.

Stem

The stem comes precut in the kits and is screwed and glued to the side panels where they join at the bow. The angle is already cut so all people need to do is attach and add screws and glue.

Bow joined

The first step

Almost there

Each bulkhead and the midship frame is installed “dry” (no glue) by inserting the tabs on the frames into the slots on the plank.

Sides formed

The transom is installed and the bulkheads and frame are glue “in-situ” meaning they do not need to be removed to be glued in. A tube of epoxy with a mixing tip is used to inject glue into each joint and the wedges are righted on the outside of the hull.

Tab-n-lock

This shows the relationship between tab and plank with the edge to hold things together until the glue cures. Later, the tab is cut flush.

Chine logs

Another huge difference between stitch-and-glue and the Chase system is the use of chine logs made from either cedar or a light hardwood. They bend in along the bottom of the plank and are held in with clamps until the glue cures.

Planing chines

After the glue cures, the chines are planed down with a block plane to make a flat perimeter for the bottom to attach to.

Bottoms down

The bottom panel is attached with the tab-n-lock method and the perimeter is screwed down to the chines and epoxied.

That is how a hull is built

These guys just finished the hull of there boats - they are structurally sound and could be launched the next day. All without any fiberglass, very little epoxy, and they got to learn some real boatbuilding skills along the way.

One anecdote sums up why I do not believe in the perceived superiority of Stitch-and-glue construction. At WoodenBoat School in beautiful Brooklin, Maine where I teach in the summers, I was teaching a build-your-own Echo Bay class. While my students were enjoying making long, cedar shavings with their hand tools, planing down the chines to receive the bottom, someone from the stitch-and-glue class came over, hands gloved covered in dripping epoxy and fiberglass, and said, “oh, cool, you guys get to use real tools in this class!”. One of my students noted how the stitch-and-glue guys already had a hull put together day 1 while they were still making parts (which they were enjoying, but they were clearly noticing that the other class already had hulls wired together). At the end of the week though, both classes had boats built, and our easy-to-build, tab-n-lock, screw-and-glue boats were further along (like they were totally done) and, as a couple students noticed, looking cleaner.

Next blog post we’ll talk about glued lapstrake and tack-and-tape methods to further illustrate our approach to boat kit construction.