Simple Boat-Building - Rowing Flattie, V-Bottom Sailing Dinghy, Moulded Pram, Hull for Outboard

By Geoffrey Prout

This vintage book is a complete and beginner-friendly guide to building boats, with information on the design and construction of a rowing “flattie”, a V-bottomed sailing dinghy, a moulded pram, and more. It was designed for those looking to build a boat on a budget and without special tools, and was written by an amateur with actual experience building twelve boats. Contents include: “Hints on Designing”, “Sequence and Method in Building”, “How to Build a Dinghy Flattie”, “Finishing Details”, “How to Build a V-Quartered Sailing Dinghy”, “How to Build a Moulded Pram Dinghy”, “How to Build an Outboard Run-About”, and “How to Build a Dagger-Trunk”. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction on boat building.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pratt Press
• Release date: Jan 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781528764056

Book preview

CHAPTER I.

HINTS ON DESIGNING.

About flatties—Cost of flatties—First consideration in designing—The scale—Striking the first line—Drawing curves—Use of penning batten—Making penning battens—Artist or craftsman—Profile—Deck plan—Size for stern-board—Flare—Outline of bottom—Outline of deck—Use of French curve—The cultivation of eye.

THERE have been a great many changes in the method of boat-building during recent years. Since the war, builders of small open boats have had to meet a demand for a useful dinghy type of boat suitable for work as a yacht tender at a price less than that of pre-war.

Now, with materials, labour, rents and everything else up in price, this demand looked like one that would never be met. But manufacturers will meet a demand whatever it is. Hence the small flattie type of dinghy has become common, if not popular.

These flatties are good, weight-carrying little boats, and they tow passably well if the towing warp is seized to the forefoot of the boat. Sometimes a weight is put in the stern in addition. The only attraction that has made them common, however, is cheapness.

You can build a 9-ft. flattie for 30s. Plenty of builders will turn one out for you for about £6. In fact, the flat type of dinghy can be bought for about half the sum demanded for a moulded boat.

These flats are the simplest possible thing in boats. So simple, in fact, that more amateurs than ever have been tempted into the joys of boat-building. They can be built with standard sizes of timber kept in stock at any timber merchant’s yard where timber is supplied to the building trade. A couple of ounces of copper nails and a pound or two of galvanised iron wire nails are all that are required for fastenings. The tools required to do the work are merely the simple ones to be found in every home tool chest.

Even an amateur, however, does not want to think that any boat he has built is best described as a nicely varnished box, sharp at one end. So, simple as the new boat-building is, as much style as possible, commensurate with keeping down the price, is advisable. Therefore, the amateur should not build except to design. He can design his own boat very easily.

The first thing the designer must consider is the minimum depths and distances as detailed in Fig. 10. Now, he can work out a plan for a boat of any size, having her total depth from gunwale-line to centre of bottom not less than 1 foot 3 inches, the rowing thwarts not less than 7 inches below the gunwale-line, and the thwarts far enough apart. If you are short by even an inch in any of these you will find that your knees sticking up prevent rowing, that there is no room for your legs, that your rowing position being so cramped and awkward the use of the boat is a positive torture.

First of all, obtain a scale such as that illustrated in Fig. 1. A footrule, with the inches marked off in twelfths, is excellent. You then draw to a scale of 1 inch to the foot.

FIG. 1.—Preparing the Plans.

Now pin your paper on to a drawing board, set your T-square on one side, to make a horizontal line, and strike this line right across your paper, about two-thirds up from the bottom (1, Fig. 1). Now mark off on this line, with your scale, the length of your boat. In Fig. 1 it will be noted the boat is about 8 feet 3 inches. Draw, here, a line to represent the sheer of the boat on the deck-line, but do not have this sheer more than a drop of about 3 inches in the middle.

You can draw this curve freehand, if you wish. But certain other curves must be drawn with a penning batten, so it is as well to use a penning batten for all curves. The natural beauty of a curve imparted by a bent batten is wonderful. As a great designer used to say, Straight is the line of duty; curved is the line of beauty. So you must be careful with your curves for this reason as well as for another, which will be made clear when the actual building takes place.

The way to use the penning batten is with lead weights, which are pointed at one end, shaped, indeed, like a boat with a dead-flat bottom. To draw your deck-line sheer, with penning batten and weights, place the point of a weight at the mark on your line at either end of the length of the boat. Now put your penning batten against the points of the