The earliest known boats are log-boats or dugouts with examples from Holland and Denmark dating from about 7000 BC, and the earliest plank-built boats were found in Egypt and date from about 2600 BC. Early plank-built boats were made by stitching or sewing the planks, but the Egyptians developed edge-fastening by mortises and tenons. The frame eventually developed into the rigid frame-skeleton, covered in planking, of the familiar carvel-build (‘skeleton first’ construction). In the north, hulls were built up of thin planking overlapping at the edges which were ‘clenched’ by dowels or iron rivets (‘clinker-construction’) with ribs inserted afterwards to keep the hull in shape (‘shell first’ construction).
Historically, there were many regional forms of boat building in the UK.
See also: Historic England Ships and Boats: Prehistory to 1840.
There are numerous regional styles of boats.
The Traditional Boat Building Survey 2023 found that there was a particular concern about the loss of regional boat types and that skilled practitioners were heavily concentrated in the south of England. There is a concern for boat builders based in Scotland (with particular references to practitioners on Orkney and East and West coasts) and other parts of the UK.
Allied crafts:
Summary of findings from the Symposium on Traditional Wooden Boat Building 2022 and the Traditional Wooden Boat Building Survey 2023:
Accredited taught courses
Apprenticeships
There are boat building apprenticeships available but these tend to focus primarily on modern boat building methods such as laminate/composite materials and GRP.
Boatbuilding Level 3 Apprenticeship: Building boats such as yachts, workboats and superyachts, and refitting and repairing existing boats.
On-the-job training
Many boat builders will train on–the-job alongside experienced boat builders. This may follow an apprenticeship or a college based course in order to gain work based experience and develop specialist skills.
The Wooden Boat Builders Trade Association and Heritage Crafts have been working together to consult the boat building trade. A Symposium on Traditional Boat Building was held in Bristol in October 2022 and this was followed by a Survey of Traditional Wooden Boat Building in January 2023.
Numbers of practitioners
90 people responded to the survey. Of these 30 described themselves as full-time traditional boat builders and 31 as doing it as part of their work.
When asked how many traditional boat builders they knew of, most respondents gave a figure of between 5 and 50. From this we have estimated that the number of full-time boat builders to be between 21-50 and those doing it as part of their work as 50-100.
How endangered is traditional wooden boat building?
73% of survey respondents describe traditional wooden boat building as either ‘Endangered’ or ‘Critically Endangered’. Of the remainder, 20% describe the craft as viable, with the rest suggesting it’s viable depending on location and which skills are being considered.
The majority of attendees at the Symposium agreed that Traditional Wooden Boat Building be considered as distinct from boat building as a whole.
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