Our courses seek to introduce you to, or extend your knowledge of, traditional wooden boatbuilding skills and are designed for those seeking either a recreational experience in relation to wooden boat building, or for those wishing to enter the boat building industry.

Our Course Types

Half and Full Day: including skills like rope knotwork, make your own landing net or wooden stool
Multi Day and Week: normally run over a week or two including build your own canoe or kayak.
Full Time: for those really serious, build your own clinker dinghy or enjoy the full year experience with a one year boatbuilding course.

All courses are taught in our traditional wooden boat building workshop and it is not a pre-requisite that students have any wood working skills. Our instructors will induct you to the boatshed and to the tools and equipment provided for use during your course.

You may choose to purchase the boat you build by enrolling in a course and paying for the materials as a “sponsor”. This way you are able to take the boat you have built home with you. We offer this to one student per course.

We limit student numbers in each course to ensure that everyone receives sufficient personal instruction. For example a typical dinghy course would have a maximum of three students to one instructor.

CHOOSING A BOAT TO BUILD

• As a student sponsor, you can choose from any of the recreational courses offered throughout the year.

• As the sponsor of the dinghy - you have a choice of our set designs. We will also consider alternate designs requested by you.

• Due to the increasing scarcity of Tasmanian boatbuilding timbers and some specialist materials we will request a materials deposit 3 months prior to course commencement to ensure we are able to secure the purchase of timbers some months in advance of a build course.