Sometime in late 2018 I decided to build my own recreational rowing skiff, as a culmination of the skills I accrued during my one year full-time opleiding at the Ambachtelijk Botenbouw Centrum. I picked the prettiest skiff from Wooden Boat's catalog: "Liz," a pulling boat designed somewhere East of the Rockies by Ken Bassett.
The boat's description: "Elegant, high-performance, sliding-seat pulling boat designed to mitigate the speed-robbing pitching associated with some sliding-seat craft."
Lapstrake planking over steamed frames.
Skill required to build: Advanced.
But oh, so pretty. And "no lofting required" (which I've since learned, doesn't mean that lofting is not recommended).
A little over 18 months later, working on average 2-3 days per week, I'm a bit over 50% to completion. I'm currently planking the hull. With 1/4" thick yellow cedar. Which planes beautifully, if you like planing sixteen feet of cold butter.
Each of the nine photos below represent a full stage of the build process so far and merit a full post each for the nerds among us. I've been keeping a written logbook throughout the build, so it should be simple enough to revisit each stage in turn. Future posts about the "Liz" will likely be heavily process-oriented retrospectives, or updates.
Or bald-faced rants. I promise nothing.