How To Build A Wooden Boat.pdf

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Foreword

When I was very young, I huill for myself the

best boat in all the world. Ii was a rat dory.

designed 10 (it a secondhand sail, and not veil'

impressi,'c to other eyes. What matter? It was a

brave thing and, to me. ~Ulirul-and I have

neversince los1 my vision of the Besl Boat in the

World-always juS[ a bit beyond the present

one. and always there to suive Iowa rd. Maybe

this background will help explain the chaplers

that follow. I hope they convey some of the

feeling of joy I have had from a lifetime of

boatbuilding. I hope they may encourage you to

gather a few ancientl1Xllsand natural m<lterials

and build for yourself the best boat in all the

world-a thing of perfect beauty, which will

guard and preserve you wherever you wallt lOgo

on the vast ocean seas. The voyaging may be

moslly in the imagination, and this, the best

boat in the world, may scem less than that to

other people. That really doesn't maller, It will

be your own, born of study, toil, and sacrifice;

and you'll get from it a continuing emotional

expcriencealmost unique in this modern world.

Critics may well point out the narrow scope

of this book: what amounts to one builder's

t€X"hniqucs (and prejudices?) applied toone very

special (shall we say, limited?) typeo( boat. You

won't find here complete discussion of your

favorite hard-chined skipjack or lapstrake surf-

boat or sawn-frame schooner or featherlight

canoe-anyone of which, I'll grant, may be the

best boot in the world. You can buy a book that

treats all of these, and more, (00, in one

volume-a book wriuen by a yacht designer of

great skill and experience, who knows all about

the pans of the finished boat; but that designer

doesn't know (or perhaps can't be bothered to

tell you) the basic techniques, the inch·by·inch

marking, (,ulling, and fastening that get all of

these pans together in the proper order.

Here, if you will pardon me, is where I come

in. I am opinionated, lazy, plodding, timid

about trying an)'thing new. and I have built

about 500 deadweight ton.:; of sailing yachts-

largely with my own hands, and perhaps half of

them to my own designs. And over the past 50

years I have tried. earnestly and constantly, to

horrow, steal, invelll. or develop by trial and

error the hest and easiest way for me to perform

each of the several differcnt operations involved

in the huilding of a wooden boat.

I apoloRize to all the old pros, who have

their own different and very satisfactory ways to

do the same things. I s.ay only that these tech-

niques have worked for me and that if you will

stay with me patiently, I think I can, in the

following pages, explain to you how I set up,

frame, plank, and deck such a boat. with maybe

a n'nlerboard trunk and a rudder thrown in.

MERRYWINC, the boat shown in most of our

illustrations. poses almost all the problems you

are likely to meet up with, whatever you build,

and I hope I can convince you that there's no

great mystery to boalbuilding aher all.

I'm sure that the boat of your dreams is the

best and most ocamiful boat in the world. If you

don't goahead and build it, you will missoneof

the most exciting and s3tisfyingexpcriences left

to us today. You'd hetter get ~oingl

-Bud McIntosh

ing about boalbuilding-from his own lirricl1y

practical point o( ,'iew and experience-with

lillie or no attention to the theoreLicdl, except

where il mattered absolutely.

Thus, the series of anidcli by Bud McImolih

began in WoodenBoat. Thcre was a certain

nregularity to it, and a certain ablience of

method to the order in which the chapters

appeared, but we were happy. The material was

being published, and the readers were finding it

both informative and inspiring. For, in Bud

they found a real educator-one who wasted

little time on the nonesselHials, and who

encouraged his renders freely to see both the

basic simplicity of each step in wooden boat

building, and its relationship to the whole.

There was, however. an element not yet well

expressed in the series: illulitration. We had

begun with a few photographs and a few

sketches. but we knew we were not doing

enough to convey directly the eSlience of what

wali beingsaid. And it was not posliible 10 assign

just any illustrator to the task of bringing thelie

ideas to the printed page, bec-duse a thorough

understanding of the process was essemial to

conveying it.

Thus emered Sam Manning, a uniquely

capable artist and writer. and an acromplilihed

boatbuilder himself. We had worked before

with Sam, and knew well his ability to translate

abstraci ideas inlocomprehensi,·edrawings. He

had demonstrated it dearly in numerous maga-

zine and book illulitrdtions over the years, and

he appreciated the simplicity and directness

with which Bud approached thissubjeci. When

he consented to collaborate with Bud on the

series, and to aim toward the publication of a

book, we were thrilled at the prospect. Over the

years, the collaboration between these two extra-

ordinary individuals has yielded a body of work

which we believc sets a new standard in the

field.

It is by no means 3 text on building all

manner of wooden boats; it is by no means a

general treatise on the subject. Rather. it is an

attempt to convey, in detail, Ihe processes by

which Bud Mcintosh has successfully built so

many boats over the years. It is an attempt to

convey the spirit and the philosophy behind

these processes. To the extent that it succeeds at

this. the reader is treated to the rare experience

of wisdom acquired firsthand-and to theinim-

itable pleasure of understanding what seemed

to be complex and myslerious procedures.

This book is a celebration of the wisdom of

one New England boatbuilder. In a culture

WhCTt' fewer and fewer items are constructed by

hand, and where tOO little time is spenl preserv-

ing process ilself, and the lasting pleasures such

process can bring, we are honored and proud to

be able to offer it at last.

-Jonathan Wilson, Editor

WoodenBoaI Magazine

MERRYJflNG

D~signed by David C. Mc1ntosh

Sail plan T~draw" b"l Da~ Dimon

LOA 39'0""

LWL 27'6"

lkam 10'0"

Drafl

S'6"

Preface

I had heard about Bud McImosh far years before

I met him. Among the cognoscenti in the field

of traditional wooden boats, his name was

uHered with a special kind of awe: not the mys-

tical kind, but the kind that is characterized by

uner amazement. Here was an artist and crafts-

man, I heard, who could 110t only design and

build beautiful boats but who could build them

quickly and cheaply-in the best sense of that

word. Here was a man who knew from expe-

rience how much and what kind of wood lO lise

where, and how to (it it so well that it seemed to

have grown in place. Moreover, here was a man

who was remarkably erudite-well read, well

spoken-bul without an overbearing nature. It

was the Sluff of legend, all rig-hI, and I was

cenain thal our fledgling magazine would find

a way to do an article on this unusual man. But

time and money passed quickl y in the early days

of WoodenBoat, and somehow that goal seemed

to el ude me,

One day, my friend Randy Peffer called to

say thaI he'd just been to visit Bud; he'd discov-

ered that the boalbuilder had been working on

writing a book about boatbuilding, and thaI

this was no ordinary work. I would see for

myself, he told me, because he had put copies of

a couple of chaplers in the mail.

When they arrived, I read lhem eagerly, hop-

ing thaI I might have come upon somelhing

new and useful for the magazine's readers, but

expecting nothing special. After all, the builders

of traditional wooden boats in this country had

not, up to that time, been given to writing much

at all, and certainly not with the darity and style

desired in magazine journalism, Yacht designers

wrote ahmH hoatbuilding, and sometimes very

well; historians did, lOO, and preserved thereby

some very imponam information, But one did

not hear much from the boatbuilders who

trudged off to their shops every day to coax even

more beauty from that most lovely of natural

materials, Making a living at it was-and is-

challenge enough; it would be difficult to find

oneself inspired, upon arriving home at the end

of the day, to sit down and write freely about it.

I was, therefore, unprepared for the elegance of

Bud Mcintosh's writing.

Indeed, I was truly moved by a clarity and

style which seemed unmatched in lhe litera-

ture of boatbuilding. Here, in one chapter, was

a profoundly clear blend of solid experience,

literary style. and a measure of wit and humor

unlike anything I had ever encollntered, I

wasted no time in arranging to publish what-

ever Bud could write. whenever itcouJd be writ-

ten. And I dreamed that, if it could become a

book, we would be the ones 10 publish it. That

was 10 years ago,

The boalbuilder had been able to write, it

turned out, because he had found himself

suddenly rendered infirm by an injury to his

foot. To prevent himself from being over-

whelmed by boredom, he decided to begin writ-

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