Building Communities - Building Wooden Boats

The School

The Wind & Oar Boat School is building communities through building boats. We encourage groups of all shapes and sizes to experience the camaraderie, team building, collaboration, and self confidence that arise from working towards a common goal.

Building Communities

Through shared efforts in a team atmosphere students create an aesthetic work of art. Whether the project is a dragon boat paddle, a wood strip kayak, or a St Ayles Skiff, students work together, learning from each other and forming bonds to their joint creation. Whether you want a group team building exercise or a grade school introduction to wood and water, the Wind & Oar Boat School will tailor a course to fit your needs. The first build was a group of 10 women, of diverse ages, who without any woodworking experience have just finished building a 22 foot St Ayles Skiff.

Building Skills

Boat building and its related arts require skills ranging from hand tool fabrication to geometry, from joinery to hydrodynamics. The Wind & Oar Boat School teaches students the necessary skills to craft wooden boats and their accessories using both modern and traditional techniques. For most classes, no experience is required.

Based on this same St Ayles Skiff, the Wind & Oar Boat School will begin classes for high school students who wish to construct a boat they can row as a team in competition with other high schools. Interested students or schools should contact us.

You don’t need to be a woodworker. We will start at the beginning and teach you the skills required to build any small wooden boat, from a simple rowboat to a strip canoe or lapstrake sailboat. Courses are currently under development so if you have a particular interest, please contact us.

The satisfaction of crafting a tangible product with one’s own hands is immeasurable. Experiencing the process in a group creates a shared bond to the result.

Building wooden boats is good for you!

Building Awareness

While creating artistic wooden boats is a valuable pursuit, understanding their impact on the environment and our role as stewards is equally valuable. The Wind & Oar Boat School seeks to broaden students’ awareness of forestry practices related to the wood we use, watershed concerns, and ecology of the rivers we travel. By increasing access to the rivers through the building of low impact water craft, students connect to the environment.While creating artistic wooden boats is a valuable pursuit, understanding their impact on the environment and our role as stewards is equally valuable. The Wind & Oar Boat School seeks to broaden students’ awareness of forestry practices related to the wood we use, watershed concerns, and ecology of the rivers we travel. By increasing access to the rivers through the building of low impact water craft, students connect to the environment.