Now that Bobtail is finished (apart from sealing the plate case to the hog). we decided we needed another project.

It is important that Tom learns some practical skills so this autumn and winter he is going to build a canoe.....

We have decided to build a stitch and glue boat as a first attempt and plans were bought from Selway Fisher. The idea is to cut out planks and stitch them together around moulds, creating the right shape hull.

The temporary moulds are made from hardboard. Here is Tom using a jigsaw for the first time.

The boat we are building is a Peterborough 14. This should fit comfortably in the garage. It has 7 planks each side so so should have a nice shape and not look like a coffin.

The plans have plenty of detail and are easy to understand.

The planks are made in two halves. Each plank is set out on a sheet of plywood using a table of stations and offsets.

Tom soon got the idea and moved onto cutting out the planks.

We are still racing N3434 up until Christmas and last weekend we won the Centenary Bowl for the second time.

It really is a splendid trophy.

Back in the garage when one set of planks are complete the other three sets were roughly cut to size. The four sections were then clamped together and planed to shape. The rough cut ones were cut over length to allow for scarfing the two halves together. Much neater than joining with fibreglass tape.

Cutting out 28 "half" planks is a long process when you are only 12, so a some were finished in the evening to prevent a rapid loss of interest.

The plan is tto have as many complete planks ready for next weekend so we stitch som together and find out if it will all work.