In this short course you will perform nearly all of the skills necessary to build a small wooden boat. You'll steam and bend wood; eye-ball the boat's fair and not-so-fair curves, and join gunwales, inwales, stems, knees, decks, ribs, stringers, and thwarts. By Sunday afternoon we will have framed up and skinned an 11 1/2 solo canoe. Weighing about 20 pounds, the boat will paddle like a kayak, but be lighter, and thus car-top and portage. Its polyester skin, once waterproofed and protected by several coats of polyurethane, will be surprisingly durable.

At the end of the class, the canoe will be raffled off for $500, half its normal price. The winner will need to complete the boat by sanding and varnishing the gunwales and by applying a few coats of water base polyurethane to waterproof the skin. Each student can also build their own wooden paddle for a small materials charge.

Instructor Hilary Russell has helped teenagers and adults build more than one hundred canoes, kayaks, coracles, umiaks and pulling boats. He has perfected the use of tough nylon skins over white cedar and spruce frames, producing light, durable, beautiful vessels that combine "skin-boat" simplicity with high-tech materials. To read more about Hilary's background in teaching boat building, visit our Blog site here.

(This course is priced as a two-day course, but includes a Friday, May 4th, evening introductory session. The course concludes Sunday afternoon (May 6th)