Instructor Emeritus Dan Packard explains a point about geometric measurement to a student working in the Westrem Shop the first week of classes.
The School begins classes once each year, early in October. Students are divided into sections of 12 students each, and get two hours of classroom instruction and six hours of shop instruction per day, Monday through Friday 8am – 5pm.
Basic Boatbuilding is the focus of the first semester, which runs from early October to late December.
The instructors assume that most, if not all, students have no woodworking skills and proceed from that assumption. The skills taught in the first semester are those essential to boatbuilding, and the course, for that reason, is very "hands-on".
Students learn to sharpen and use all their tools, and participate in a wide range of individual skill-building exercises, from learning to make the joints commonly used in boatbuilding to a series of tools. Basic lathe work is taught. Students learn to draft and make a half-model. Then, working in pairs, they learn to loft a boat full-size on the floor. Finally, working, together as a team, the semester culminates in December as students work together to build a flat-bottomed skiff.
The Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding is located in Port Hadlock WA and is a private, accredited non-profit vocational school.
Our mission is to teach and preserve the fine art of wooden boatbuilding and traditional maritime crafts. We build both commissioned and speculative boats for sale while teaching students boatbuilding the skills they need to work in the marine trades.
You can find us on the web at www.nwboatschool.org .
You can reach us via e-mail at info@nwboatschool.org or by calling us at 360-385-4948
