Build Your Own Boat
use boat plans to build your own boat

Do you hear the siren song of the sea? Does the sight of a boat gliding effortlessly across the water fill your heart with longing? Does the completion of a woodworking or home handyman project fill you with satisfaction? Do you want to build your own Classic Wooden Boat? Then read on to see if Plans4Boats is for you.

To be sure, the materials included are aimed at wooden boats, and they are not going to teach you the very latest technology. Yes, there are boats with fiberglass layups, steel and even canvas hull designs. But the vast majority of immediately buildable designs that do not require additional purchase have wooden hulls. If you want to learn about Kevlar® and fiberglass sandwich technology, you will want to look somewhere else.

But if the allure of sailing your own classic hand built wooden recreation boat is irresistible, then you have come to the right place! This huge collection of 200+ classic wooden boat designs from the pages of Popular Mechanics, Mechanics Illustrated, Popular Science, Science and Mechanics, and other sources includes canoes and kayaks, row boats, power boats and sailboats. The designs vary from conventional to clever to downright outlandish. One thing is certain – when you are done you will be the proud owner of a boat like no other.

Many of the plans are aimed at portability without the expense of a trailer – either through car top transport compatibility, folding designs, or multi-piece nesting designs. These characteristics seemed to be quite important to the editors of the previously mentioned magazines.

10 Wooden Boats includes descriptions, pictures, materials lists and detailed drawings for the construction of small, non-powered wooden boats such as prams and row boats. The one that particularly caught my attention was the Cape Charles Sea Kayak. Somebody near my house owns a similar looking wooden kayak, and it looks gorgeous on their car top rack when I see it around town.

23 Boat Plans is 187 pages of wooden boat plans right out of Popular Mechanics, with similar detail to the “10 Wooden Boats”. The information is dated, as evidenced from the “late model” 1940s automobiles in the photos, but the “blueprint” drawings (actually, gray print) have sufficient detail to construct each of these projects. Some of the designs are quite unusual, including a 3 section rowboat for easy transport, a bicycle boat similar to the one which I rode at Camp Dearborn as a teenager, and a 6’ (that’s right – not a typo!) sailing dinghy for training children which I might just build for my son. Also included are tips such as a detachable keel/sail to convert your canoe to a sailboat. The largest boats are the 25’ motor cabin cruiser and 21’ sailing sloop. A section dedicated to just construction techniques is also included.

Fishing Boat Designs is a recent publication (within the last 10 years) for construction of 4 wooden fishing boats capable of handling up to a 10 Hp outboard motor. The perspective is to supply designs for use in developing countries, but the drawings and instructions are quite good and the designs appear to be sound.

Vintage Boat Plans contains 26 ZIP file directories of a wide variety of types of boats, each containing numerous designs with varying detail regarding construction. They include sailboats, rowboats, canoes, motor boats, ice boats, air boats and a number of novelty boats that must bring the number of designs in this group to well over 100. To be fair, a few of the names are misleading. That does not mean that there is something wrong with the design, just that the name evokes the wrong picture. For instance, the “submarine” is really a diver propulsion vehicle AKA underwater scooter, rather than a “dry submarine” of the type most people would imagine. The “yacht” is actually an “ice yacht”, AKA iceboat.

How to Build a Sailboat is a manual on sailboat design in wood, fiberglass and steel. It contains several sections devoted to discussion of design and fabrication preceding the descriptions of 41 sailboat designs ranging from 19’ to 80’. The specific project information and pictures would most accurately be thought of as specification sheets. The detailed design drawings necessary to build these boats are purchased separately from a different source.

3D Boat Design Software is actually a free design package that is downloaded from another site somewhere off of the internet. The manual and a tutorial are included in this package as well as a starter database and links to download the design software package.

Many reference materials qualify as truly antique – I am talking about copyrights from 1883, 1884 and 1931. That said, there is a MUST READ chapter for anyone that is considering building a wooden boat from a recent reference called “Simple-Boat-Building”. Specifically, Chapter 2 – Materials and Tools provides invaluable advice on plywood, adhesives, fasteners and paint.

Another noteworthy reference is “Build Your Own Sailboat”. This primer on sailboat construction includes discussions about all facets of sailboat design, and includes pictures and detailed specifications for 41 sailboats ranging from 19’ to 80’. Hull construction of wood, steel, aluminum and fiberglass are represented. The designs are typical cruising sailboats including motor sailers, but include a few surprises including a 27’ trailerable, a few shoal drafts, and even a of Chinese “junk” rig among the alternatives!

One section of the “bonus” materials carries the misleading title of “Boatbuilders Handbook” (dated November 2003). This directory actually consists of 10 sections from Title 33 CFR – Code of Federal Regulations. It is a guide to the boat design regulations and is not an engineering or “how to” manual. That said, the information is useful, albeit for a different reason than the reader would conclude from the title.

Conclusion – On the whole, it is fun just looking at all of these designs and contemplating what they must be like to build and sail. That alone makes the package worth the price. If you are at all serious about building your own boat, this is an extensive package that will get you started…and might just include that design you are looking for.

Mike Soltis is an amateur woodworker and lifelong sailor from Michigan, the Great Lakes State. His 45+ years of nautical experience includes canoes and kayaks, fishing and row boats, operating power boats, sailing dinghies, crewing in Great Lakes yacht races and skippering ocean yacht charters. He has built 3 winning “anything that floats race” boats, numerous plywood cabinets and renovated the wooden cockpit of his ski boat.