"I want to learn boatbuilding, but I'm afraid I'll fail."

“I want to learn boatbuilding, but …”

I’ve been in touch with a lot of people who want to learn wooden boatbuilding but are held back by obstacles that feel difficult to overcome.

What I hear the most is:

1. I want to learn boatbuilding, but I don’t have access to a suitable workshop.
2. I want to learn boatbuilding, but I don’t have the time
3. I want to learn boatbuilding, but I can’t afford it.
4. I want to learn boatbuilding, but I’m afraid I’ll fail.

These are all real and relevant concerns. But in most cases, I believe they can be overcome.

In this blog post series, I’ll address each of these four issues, one by one.

Obstacle 4: I want to learn boatbuilding, but I'm afraid I'll fail

Before I started learning boatbuilding, I had a hard time believing how it can be possible for a human being to build something so complex and beautiful as a wooden boat. 

There are so many things that need to be right in a boat:

• It has to be strong.
• It has to be durable.
• It has to move effortlessly through the water.
• It has to be seaworthy.
• It has to be functional and user friendly in its intended environment and for its intended use. 
• It - obviously - has to be watertight.

And, add to that: Most of us strongly feel that a boat should be beautiful, too. 

These are a lot of requirements. I would say that it's enough to intimidate even the most self-confident aspiring boatbuilder. 

In this blog post, I'll outline what I believe it takes to successfully learn wooden boatbuilding.

Break down the process into manageable "chunks"

When I started at boatbuilding school I had no idea how wooden boats were put together. And I was very eager to learn about this "boatbuilding magic". 

But quickly I learned that boatbuilding - of course - isn't magic.

It's by no means impossibly difficult. It's not particularly easy, either. But it's something I believe most people can learn. 

I found that the key to learning boatbuilding is to break down the process into manageable chunks. 

A wooden boat is a complex shape that includes a lot of different parts that all need to be correctly shaped and assembled for the boat to turn out as intended.

But each individual task in the construction process is not particularly difficult, once you see how it's done and practice it a few times. 

So, at its core, wooden boatbuilding is all about this:

Learning the various sub-tasks and putting them together in the correct order.  

Knowledge in your mind -> Knowledge in your hands

But just seeing how a job is done, or reading about it, isn't quite enough.

You need to move the knowledge from your mind into your hands and your body, by doing the actual work yourself.

This takes time and requires repetition. But with practice the various tools and techniques will become second nature. 

Traditionally, boatbuilding apprentices learned the craft by first watching experienced boatbuilders work and then doing the same job themselves. 

Fundamentally, Small Boat School teaches boatbuilding in the same way as a traditional apprenticeship. But there are a few practical differences:

• Instructions are given per video instead of in person.
• Help and feedback is given through the online Apprentice Forum instead of face-to-face.
• Apprentices work in their own home workshop, at their own pace, building their own boat.

A traditional apprenticeship vs. an online-based apprenticeship

The traditional, in-person wooden boatbuilding apprenticeship is a wonderful, time-tried way of learning.

But very few traditional apprenticeships are offered these days. Mainly because very few commercial boat shops build wooden boats anymore. 

And, for a lot of people, embarking on a full-time apprenticeship - possibly far from where you live - is simply not a feasible option. 

The online-based apprenticeship program I offer at Small Boat School requires you to find a suitable workshop space, including the basic tools you'll need to build a boat.

And the program is self-paced and requires students to be self-motivated. There's no boss prodding you on the shoulder if you're not in the workshop each morning at seven. 

This can be good or bad, depending on your situation and your preferences.

For some people, the flexibility built into the online-based apprenticeship program can be a big plus: You can learn real wooden boatbuilding, even if you're only able to work evenings, weekends or holidays. 

There are no deadlines. So you can spend several years building your boat if that's what suits your schedule. For me, the important thing is that the boatbuilding process is enjoyable and stressless.

An advantage to the online program is that the training videos are very carefully filmed and edited, and you can review them as many times as you need. 

If there's anything you're unsure of during your building process, you can re-watch the video material to make sure you get every little detail right. 

The online-based Apprentice Forum also contains a lot of information that can prove useful: If you have questions during your build, you'll get personal help here.  But answers to questions from other students will also be there for you to read and learn from.

Other ways of learning boatbuilding

If a boatbuilding apprenticeship (physical or online) isn't a good fit for you, there are a few other options:

Books on boatbuilding can be a great resource, which I've used a lot myself. The downside to books is that they can be quite difficult to read and understand because the tangible, three-dimensional and temporal process of building a boat is very difficult to explain in words. 

Short in-person courses can be great, too. They will usually only scratch the surface of what it takes to build a boat. But they can be a good way of getting a hands-on feel for what boatbuilding is like - possibly in combination with books or an online-based course.

Make sure you have access to a set of experienced eyes

Whichever route you choose, I think it's important to have some way of getting personal help and support from an experienced builder. 

During your build, you will almost certainly run into problems that you can't find an answer to in your books or online. But which can almost certainly be solved if you have access to a set of experienced eyes. 

Countless boat projects have been abandoned half-finished because of mistakes that weren't discovered in time - or because of seemingly "unsolvable problems".  

That's a real shame. 

The main skills you'll need to build a boat

It's of course an advantage if you have woodworking experience before you start building your boat. 

But I would argue, that woodworking experience isn't the number one thing that determines if you'll be successful with your build. It isn't number two, either. 

I believe the two main "skills" you'll need to be successful in your boatbuilding project are:

1. Willingness to spend the several hundred hours it will take to practice and learn the skills you'll need to build your boat. Everyone is a beginner at first, and learning takes time.
2. Willingness to make mistakes. Because you will be making lots of them. And you will - at times - need to backtrack and correct these mistakes. 

If you're willing to spend the time needed to learn, and if you're not afraid of making mistakes, I believe you'll be able to learn anything. 

Wooden boatbuilding, too.

- Mikkel Pagh