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...

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,...

Silver AWARD

Build a coracle on the shores of Lake Windermere

Cumbria - Next course on 12th June 2020

£215

Did you know the ark was a coracle? True story. An early account of the ark has includes a fantastic description of how to weave a coracle using coir, fabric and bitumen. So come and make your very own flood-resilient vessel in Cumbria. Making and sailing these little boats is great fun. You’ll leave with a boat and a paddle of your own, the skills to make another and wet feet (probably). On this 3-day course you will: - learn how to weave the structure of the coracle with hazel...

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...

Gold AWARD

Coracle making at Flatford Mill

Suffolk - Next course on 10th August 2020

£480

Coracle: ‘A boat of skin-covered wicker’ (Pocket Oxford Dictionary). A coracle is one of the most ancient boat designs, only a few small technical steps more advanced than a raft. During this week-long course you will construct your own coracle using willows for the framework and thin canvas for the skin, and hew your own paddle if time allows. The group will be small, only four people maximum, to allow for individual tuition in the weaving and binding of the hull and gunwale of your craft. A canvas and bitumen...

Gold AWARD

Coracle making at Greenwood Days

Derbyshire - Next course on 16th July 2020

£250

Coracles are traditional riverboats. Round in shape, they are paddled with one oar. On this two-day course you will make a traditional ironbridge coracle to take home, you’ll also have a chance to practice your coracling skills on the lake in front of Staunton Harold Hall. The coracle you make will be finished but need painting with bitumen paint after the course. Kevin and Ellen Grimley have been making coracles since 1995 and have led coracle workshops in a variety of locations including Donegal, Ireland. They often demonstrate coracles 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

£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...