Flint Dinghy

My first project as a commercial boat-builder was Ross Lillistone's Flint dinghy for a client in Bicheno Tasmania. The requirement was for a rowing boat with the capability of taking a small outboard. This was with a view to getting some exercise rowing in the local bay, but with a capacity to venture further afield occasionally and have the option of motoring home.

After considering quite a few designs, the Flint seemed the best for the environment at Bicheno, primarily an efficient boat under oars, being relatively narrow, but with a modern look and sufficient consideration of stability and safety for open-water use, such as on the East Coast at Bicheno.

The Flint is a relatively simple stitch-and-glue construction, as such its a good project for amateurs, but at the same time it takes that approach to its maximum application in the way the bottom panels are twisted at the bow to give as long a waterline length as possible. This does give the Flint a great capacity to cut through chop and make progress under oars in difficult conditions (the origins of the design), but at the same time makes getting the panels tied together a little 'hair-raising'. Paying for high quality marine plywood is probably mandatory to get a good result.

The Flint primarily a single person rowing boat, but at the same time its got the capabilty to carry passengers and take a small 2hp motor. As such I think it would make an excellent tender for a larger boat, it would probably tow very well too.  It also has a sister design, the Fleet, which is optimised for efficient powered use and so can take a somewhat larger outboard.

The plans and instructions provided by Ross Lillistone, for a quite modest fee, are excellent, and the design also has the capability to be sailed too, also described in the plans.

On the first launch the boat lived up to expectations as an excellent rowing boat.

Ross Lillistone has other very nice but more complex designs with more of a focus on sailing, but I think the Flint deserves to be better known. It certainly fits within my interests at Huon-Ply Boats of making good use of the properties of plywood to build modern small boats.

One final comment, if you build such a light-weight boat, always keep it secure, they can take off in strong winds, more on that later!

Building a Lightweight Derwent Skiff

About the middle of 2016 I started with a build of a new lightweight version of Allan Witt's Derwent Skiff (DS) design. It's now nearly finished, after some delays with other projects and responsibilities,  I am very pleased with the result (In fact, I'd like to make more of them, so this one is for sale on completion).

The boat was built from a kit supplied by Allan but also built on a 'strong-back' that in many respects is just as impressive as the kits. This lightweight 'Expedition' model is the same hull shape of the other earlier DS iterations, which are still available, but is fully enclosed, and, by using 3mm Okoume plywood and an internal structure, the boat can be built to as low as 22kg weight.

My impression on seeing the first boat that Allan had built was that he'd designed a boat that ticked all off my boxes. I'd previously made a stitch-and-glue rowing skiff (to a free set of plans I'd taken off the web) which was essentially the same concept in being fully enclosed, but it was a disappointment with respect to weight, being a hassle to transport on a car-top as just getting it on and off was difficult for one person. Other than also being fully enclosed, Allan seemed to have solved all the design problems very cleverly, and produced something that was just a joy to look at (Why else own a wooden boat?).

For all rowing a longer, narrower boat is usually going to be better. For recreational use it's sensible to add some width to gain stability, but the boat length is the key to that wonderful feeling of gliding a long distance at the end of each stroke. At 5.5 metres, this DS model is a good length (a longer double version is in the pipeline), and being able to get it from home to the water and back easily, without having to resort to a trailer, a key to its getting lots of use. Despite its light-weight though, it's still a bulky thing to handle, so for a single person to manage transport a 'system' is needed, but everyone will adopt one that works best for them. I have a ute so sliding the boat on from the back in a frame I've built is easy.

I do think that this kind of rowing skiff can be used for expeditions, there is certainly more than enough volume in the front and back sections of this Expedition DS model's hull to store equipment for an extended trip, but on a true expedition a boat is going to get knocked about, so it would be necessary to make some allowances for this kind of use in construction, such as to give it a tougher bottom. Larger hatches on the front and back of the boat, such as in sea-kayaks, would also be desirable, but adding slightly to the weight and time needed for construction.

Apart from the proven DS hull shape for recreational rowing, this model has an innovation that I think is quite clever in that there is no need for a drop-in rigger and sliding-seat unit. Instead the rigger arms attach to the side of the boat in a very simple but strong way. This system takes advantage of the fully-enclosed nature of the boat with attachment 'platforms' on the sides of the cockpit, onto which each rigger arm is clamped tight with a screw-bolt. This system also provides flexibility to change the rowing position easily when either taking a passenger or not.

The Expedition DS seems well capable of overnight trips without any special customisation,  something I am looking forward to trying soon. By just packing gear through the inspection ports into the sealed-off front and rear compartments, it's likely to remain dry under all conditions.

The self-draining cockpit is also a feature that I am keen to test. Other than the need to remove any water that comes over the side this is also an important safety aspect, in the event of a spill to just get back on board and start rowing again is the goal. This focus on safety through good inbuilt buoyancy and being self-draining is a feature of both the new Expedition DS and Allan's Derwent Raider design.

The 'Niko' Fitness Rowing Boat

In searching for information on sustainable boat building timbers, I came across Vendia Marine Plank, a product from Finland. It seemed to tick the boxes of what I had in mind: a kind of engineered timber similar to plywood, produced from a widely available timber resource (Namely Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), found over a wide area of Northern Europe), and with good weight and other desirable marine timber characteristics.

Getting hold of a sample of Vendia Marine Plank from the other side of the world seemed like an expensive proposition, happily Vendia assisted in making that possible, then choosing what boat to build as a demo project was the issue. One of my main interests being recreational rowing, a rowing skiff design was at the top of the list.

With the aid of Google it quickly became apparent that a rowing skiff design has been created specifically for building in Vendia Marine Plank, the 'Niko-kuntosoutuvene' (Niko fitness rowing boat) design by Jarmo Häkkinen. A slight dilemma then occurred, to abandon my past approach of searching high and low for the best design at the least cost and try to adapt it, or, to pay for the expertise of others much more 'knowledgable in the field' of boat design. Thankfully I decided to go with a new approach and purchase the Niko design.

The Niko's basic specifications are: Loa 5.8 m, Lwl 5.44 m, Boa 1.45 m and dry weight (planked in Vendia pine) of 58-60 kg including thwarts. It is probably not a perfect boat for local Tasmanian conditions (more on that subject at a later time) but it does seem an excellent design within its design criteria, which are as a boat to be built by novices in a guided two week course, to have very good performance as a recreational 'fitness' rowing boat, and to make efficient use of the Vendia Marine Plank product's features, such as its standard plank widths and lengths.

Rowing boat performance is a reasonably simple thing to optimise. As a design for the extensive lakes and rivers of Finland, the Niko, as I see it, didn't have the need to consider rougher waters, so is more focused on achieving top speeds under human power but also being reasonably stable (so longer and straighter (less 'rocker'), but with adequate width). In fact it resembles the racing styles of wooden rowing boat used in Finland.

Lakes and rivers aren't the most common waters in Australia it has to be acknowledged, instead we have harbours and estuaries. Never-the-less most recreational rowers will tend to look for smoother waters and times of day. Heading out into open waters on multi-day journeys and getting back safely is another thing altogether and something that I am also working on providing a solution to.

The Niko is wide enough not to need outriggers, yet can be adapted to sliding seat rowing if desired.

The Niko is also a very elegant design I think, elegant simplicity in both its appearance and construction.  So building this first boat I hope will prove the worth of the Vendia Marine Plank product, and produce a fast and elegant rowing skiff to use in helping promote recreational rowing in Australia, with the possibility of a course for novice builders, as occurs in Finland, potentially being offered.

A Rowing Boat in Vendia Marine Plank

I finally started the build of a Niko recreational rowing boat design from Finland. My desire was to display the boat at the current Australian Wooden Boat Festival, with the dual goals of promoting recreational rowing and use of sustainable timbers for boat-building. Sadly, problems of time and money not being together in the same place long delayed making a start and the boat, although a quick build, wasn't ready for display.

So I'll document the build here as well as I can, and try to make up the missed opportunity of having it on display at the AWBF. I plan to make good use of it once finished, so building and using the Niko will be subjects for this blog.

Vendia Marine Plank is a product from Finland that is essentially plywood (my key interest at Huon-Ply Boats) but with the surface veneers sliced rather than rotary cut, giving an attractive appearance of traditional sawn timber planks.

It comes in 3 metre lengths and a variety of widths and thicknesses, but not the wide plywood sheets we are used to here. Its a specialised product developed for building timber boats, and given that 'engineered' timbers are widely used in other areas of timber contruction, something suited to boat building seems inevitable, that was what piqued my curiosity to get a sample.

The Niko design by Jarmo Häkkinen, a Finnish professional boat designer, is a 2-place recreational/fitness rowing design based on the popular timber racing boats developed in that country from their traditional lake and river transport designs.

Below is an image of the Vendia Marine Plank package that I obtained from Vendia (my thanks Lenka Trebaticka) for the project.

On the left are thin 6mm planks: 8x  6mm*200mm*3m, 4x 6mm*275mm*3m, 4x 6mm*350mm*3m (each 5x2mm plys 4 longitudinal,1 transverse), on the right are 16mm thick planks.