Boat building & coracle making courses

Kayak making - build your own skin-on-frame kayak

Bronze AWARD

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Kayak making - build your own skin-on-frame kayak

Bristol

£1600

Come and build your own skin-on-frame kayak. Lightweight, beautiful and extremely strong; skin-on-frame combines traditional construction with the best modern materials. Over 7 days, you’ll learn to cut joints and steam-bend oak to form your kayak's custom-fitted wood frame; lashing and pegging it together in the traditional way - without any nails or glue. Then it’s on to sewing, colouring and coating the skin of your kayak, before you rig her and paddle away! Working from Shipshape Boatbuilding's workshop, in the historic Underfall Boatyard, you’ll be a chisel-throw away from...

Canal art - roses and castles - decorate a plate in narrowboat decoration

Gold AWARD

(7)

Canal art - roses and castles - decorate a plate in narrowboat decoration

West Midlands - Next course on 8th February 2020

£65

My name is Julie and I'm an accredited Senior Journeyman in decorative art with the Waterways Craft Guild and I have been teaching narrow boat decoration for over 12 years. My training course will take place in the log cabin in my garden. The content of the course will be to decorate a wall hanging dinner plate with canal art roses, daisies and a canal art castle scene using enamel boat paint, sign writer’s brushes and the same traditional techniques used to decorate narrow boats. If you have an item...

Bronze AWARD

Boatbuilding artists residency

Argyll and Bute - Next course on 23rd May 2020

£450

‘We develop skill at the live edge.’ Richard Sennett, The Craftsman Join Archipelago Folkschool co-directors Ben Wilde and Ruth Little for a week of embodied exploration and collaborative making on this Artists Residency. At the centre of the residency, led by Ben, we will build our classic Caravelle skiff, a lightweight rowing boat, from start to finish. Around this process, Ruth will initiate pathways of research and reflection on acts of ‘thresholding’, or working at the live edge between physical, social, ecological and disciplinary systems. The week is offered at...

Bronze AWARD

Boatbuilding, Sailing and Stories of Iona

Argyll and Bute - Next course on 4th July 2020

£1000

We love building the Caravelle rowing boat with groups all around Scotland, but often the most interesting things about the week are what happens around the build. So in this new week, we’re leaning into that - think of this week as an experience of a lifetime! Over a week at the beautiful hostel on Iona, we will work together to build a boat - but we will also take time off to sail a stunning traditional boat, gather to hear stories and songs of the sea told by candlelight,...

Bronze AWARD

Canoe Building

Argyll and Bute - Next course on 6th June 2020

£1400

A new course for 2020 - building open Canadian style canoes. Like our kayak courses, this is an all-inclusive week on the croft where we’ll be in the workshop all day building lightweight stitch and glue canoes in plywood and fibreglass. The boat - a Selway Fisher Peterborough - is a beauty of a boat, but light enough to easily move around by yourself. As these make a great boat for two, we’re offering a two person booking for this week - come with your parent, partner, friend or colleague,...

Coracle Making

Shropshire - Next course on 28th August 2020

£350

Build an Ironbridge style coracle using simple tools and techniques to suit all levels of experience and ability. The coracle has been around for thousands of years, evolving as a cheap, simple boat that anybody could make and use for all sorts of short river work, particularly fishing. You will learn to select suitable ash laths, techniques for bending laths to shape, nailing, clenching nails and fixing and tailoring the calico cover ready for painting. You will leave with a finished coracle and paddle ready for the Coracle Regatta on...

Bronze AWARD

Family boatbuilding

Argyll and Bute - Next course on 4th April 2020

£1350

Work alongside your family on this family holiday with a difference. Come and learn together, and build your own wooden boat to take home with you. Over a week on Mull, families of up to 5 people, ages 8+ can build their choice of boat in our workshop with supervision from two of our boatbuilding tutors. Due to the flexibility of this week, we can accommodate a lot of variations in your family size and the boats we are building. Options include an open canoe, or the Echo Bay or...

Bronze AWARD

Half model making

Central - Next course on 11th January 2020

£200

A great introduction to using hand tools in a purposeful way. Learn to shape timber by hand, through the production of your own beautiful half model of a boat. Before ships were designed on paper and computers, ideas were often sculpted by hand in 3D as a half hull. We’ll be creating complex hull shapes with planes, spokeshaves, drawknives and chisels. Everyone will leave with a model of their own. The workshop tales place in GalGael's amazing workshop on Fairley Street in Glasgow. There is good parking and it's easily...

Bronze AWARD

Kayak Building – Build your own sea kayak

Argyll and Bute - Next course on 9th May 2020

£1550

Our most popular course! Join us for a week on Mull and build your very own beautiful sea kayak to take home with you. We build the CNC Shrike over this week - a Greenland style sea kayak, made of thin marine plywood and fibreglass to make a very strong but very light boat. Because of the nature of these builds, you will do a lot of work on your own boat before we work together as a group on all the boats to achieve various tasks in the available...

Bronze AWARD

Make a canoe paddle - two day course in Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire - Next course on 25th January 2020

£225

Make your own canoe paddle at the Sylva Wood Centre under the tutorship of master boatbuilder Colin Henwood. During this two-day course, led by award-winning boat builder Colin Henwood, you will learn how to shape a single canoe paddle from ash using hand tools. Make your own canoe paddle at the Sylva Wood Centre, working with ash – Britain's superior native hardwood. Using traditional skills and tools you will produce a complex shape with hand and eye. Learn how to finish your smooth and elegant design. Take home a unique...