Note: Fundamentals of Boatbuilding is open to everyone, although woodworking skills and familiarity with tools and with the language of boatbuilding really help students to get the most out of it.
GREG RÖSSEL grew up cruising on the waters of New York Harbor and spending time in the boat yards on the south shore of Staten Island where economics (more than anything else) made wooden boats the craft of choice. He makes his home in Maine where he specializes in the construction and repair of small wooden boats. Since graduating at the top of his class in boatbuilding technology from Washington County Vocational Technical Institute, Greg has had a multifaceted career. For several years, he was an assistance restorer for a major private collection of antique runabouts and airplanes. Then he spent another couple of years as an instructor and assistant director at Maine Maritime Museum’s Apprenticeshop program. All the while, he was building his own shop at home in Troy, Maine, and tackling a wide variety of small-boat construction and restoration projects. For over 30 years, Greg has been able to work for himself full-time, aside from a few odd jobs like setting up a wooden Whitehall factory in Mexico, custom lines taking and documentation for museums and other customers, and writing over 200 articles for WoodenBoat, and other publications. He has also written and illustrated Building Small Boats, a book on carvel and traditional lapstrake boatbuilding, published by WoodenBoat Publications and The Boatbuilder’s Apprentice, which explores other styles of construction and techniques. Since 1987, Greg has been an instructor at WoodenBoat School in Brooklin, Maine, teaching lofting, skiff building and the “Fundamentals of Boatbuilding”. Also, for the past 21 years he has been producing a weekly two-hour radio program about world music (which mercifully) has nothing to do with boats.
WADE SMITH
Despite an education and otherwise promising start in electronics manufacturing in Vermont, WADE SMITH couldn’t ignore the subversive call of the wooden boat in the back of his mind, and so left everything behind to study boatbuilding at the Apprenticeshop in Nobleboro, Maine. Rather than returning to the safety of a 9-to-5, Wade decided to follow his passion and continues to this day as a boatbuilder and boatbuilding instructor. Wade worked for Barry Thomas in the boatshop at Mystic Seaport, researching, documenting, and replicating historic watercraft from the museum’s collection, and learning every word of John Gardner’s famed Boatbuilding for Amateurs course. After Barry’s retirement, Wade continued on as the Director of the John Gardner Boat Shop for 11 years, during which time he helped to create, and subsequently oversaw, an exponential increase in boatbuilding-related courses, and assisted in setting up new boatbuilding programs from Maine to Honduras. After 15 years of working primarily as a teacher, Wade wanted to get back to building boats and was invited to join the crew at Taylor and Snediker Boatbuilding in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, whom he considers to be the most insanely multi-talented group of boatbuilders working anywhere today. Since then, he has been teaching boatbuilding for four weeks per year at WoodenBoat School and engaged in high-end commercial boatbuilding the rest of the year.
WARREN BARKER
WARREN BARKER built his first boat, a Culler skiff, in 1976 after earning his B.A. at Williams College. He then studied at Hoosuck Design and Woodworking School before joining Murray Peterson Associates in Maine, where he helped to build a number of prams and spars, as well as the 42′ ketch NIA. For the next four years he worked as a project foreman at Eric Goetz Custom Sailboat Company, mostly building high-tech, one-off, cold-molded racing boats. Along the way, Warren has built or rebuilt a variety of small craft on his own. A two-and-a-half-year stint restoring the yawl COTTON BLOSSOM ended with his first commission in his new shop, a Haven 12½′. A Bridges Point 24 kept the doors open, followed by CURLEW, a reproduction of the Herreshoff Alerion. Immersed in the Herreshoff technique, he used their methods to produce a 26′ gig for Portsmouth Abbey School and a Columbia dinghy. Having completed the 30′6″ William Garden–designed “Camilla” and the Herreshoff 12½′ “Crow Dancer” in his Westport, Massachusetts, shop, he took the position of senior instructor at IYRS mentoring the construction of Herreshoff designs from 12′ to 35′ and a smattering of other designers’ work. Trying to stay ahead of the students, he is learning the ins and outs of GarWood and Chris-Craft boats.
THAD DANIELSON
THAD DANIELSON felt a strong attraction to the ocean and boats at the age of nine on a liner voyage to East Africa with his family in 1954, reinforced over the next four years by having the Dar es Salaam waterfront as his playground. After high school in Rhode Island followed by college and graduate school, Thad got into sailing. Some years later, a chance look at one of the first sets of plans sold by WoodenBoat turned his interest from general woodworking and house building to wooden boats. He moved to Marblehead, Massachusetts, set up Redd’s Pond Boatworks, and was soon busy building and restoring a wide variety of traditional wooden boats. He recently retired from the shop but is still building boats. Thad is the North American Secretary of the Albert Strange Association.
Tuition: $1250 (two-week course)
Note: Previous boatbuilding/woodworking experience is required.
Fundamentals of Boatbuilding is the core curriculum of our boatbuilding courses and one of our most popular offerings. This series generally deals with the whole craft of boatbuilding, specifically with wooden boats, and most specifically with plank-on-frame small craft.
We tend to build challenging boats in these classes—round-bilged, carvel, and lapstrake-planked types—because if you can build one of these, you can build almost anything. Ideally, each class will start one boat, work at planking another, and finish a third. The emphasis is always more on learning than on pushing through a project. Each session combines daily discussion periods with an abundance of practical work. You’ll start out discussing boat plans and design, and how to develop a project plan.
Lofting will follow (see LOFTING, as follows, for a complete treatment of this subject). From there, it will be a steady stream of boatbuilding lessons—tools, body plans, types of construction, planking methods, steam-bending, lamination, woods, fastenings, and much, much more.
ADVANCED FUNDAMENTALS is designed for experienced individuals looking for ways to continue their education and taking the “next step” in working on more complex designs and projects. Daily lessons will include scarfing, interior and exterior joinerwork, sparmaking, centerboard installation, and various other details. This course is a wonderful complement to any earlier boatbuilding exposure you may have sampled.
Thad Danielson goes way beyond being an instructor. He inspires and thus, he is more of a mentor than a traditional teacher. His instruction style is minimalistic, yet very comprehensive. Thad really made FUNDAMENTALS OF BOATBUILDING worthwhile.”
