A kayak is a small, narrow watercraft which is typically propelled by means of a double-bladed paddle. The word kayak originates from the Greenlandic word qajaq.
Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured boards which include medium-density fibreboard (MDF), oriented strand board (OSB) and particle board (chipboard).
The fuselage is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft the single engine is mounted on a pylon attached to the fuselage, which in turn is used as a floating hull. The fuselage also serves to position the control and stabilization surfaces in specific relationships to lifting surfaces, which is required for aircraft stability and maneuverability.
Dinghy sailing is the activity of sailing small boats by using five essential controls:
The Mirror is a popular sailing dinghy with more than 70,000 built.
The Heron Dinghy is a dinghy designed by Jack Holt of the United Kingdom as the Yachting World Cartopper. The Heron dinghy was designed to be built by a home handyman out of marine ply over a timber frame, but can now also be constructed from marine ply using a stitch and glue technique or from Fibreglass. Modern dinghies will usually have built in buoyancy tanks, older craft will have bags or retrofitted tanks.
Carvel built or carvel planking is a method of boat building in which hull planks are laid edge to edge and fastened to a robust frame, thereby forming a smooth surface. Traditionally the planks are neither attached to, nor slotted into, each other, having only a caulking sealant between the planks to keep water out. Modern carvel builders may attach the planks to each other with glues and fixings.
Boat building is the design and construction of boats and their systems. This includes at a minimum a hull, with propulsion, mechanical, navigation, safety and other systems as a craft requires.
Strip-built, or "strip-plank epoxy", is a method of boat building. Also known as cold moulding, the strip-built method is commonly used for canoes and kayaks, but also suitable for larger boats. The process involves securing narrow, flexible strips of wood edge-to-edge around temporary formers. The temporary formers are usually created via a process called "lofting" whereby a set of tables is used to generate the shapes of the formers. The strips are glued edge-to-edge with epoxy. It is effectively a modern form of carvel which needs no caulking and which is both stiffer and more watertight. In a small boat, there will be just one layer of strip-planking, but larger vessels may have two or three layers which,, forms a light, strong, and torsionally stiff monococque.
The Optimist, also known as the ‘opti’, or 'oppie', is a small, single-handed sailing dinghy intended for use by children and teenagers up to the age of 15. Contemporary boats are usually made of fibreglass, although wooden boats are still built.
Homebuilt machines are machines built outside of specialised workshops or factories. This can include different things such as kit cars or homebuilt computers, but normally it pertains to homebuilt aircraft, also known as amateur-built aircraft or kit planes. Homebuilt aircraft or kit cars are constructed by amateurs. Homebuilt computers have been built at home for a long time, starting with the Victorian era pioneer Charles Babbage in the 1820s. A century later, Konrad Zuse built his own machine when electromechanical relay technology was widely available. The hobby took off with the early development of microprocessors and, since then, many enthusiasts have constructed their own computers. A homebuilt vehicle is a wider concept than a kit car. A homebuilt vehicle is a motor vehicle built by an individual instead of a manufacturer. These machines may be constructed "from scratch", from plans, or from assembly kits. Outside of the United States people wishing to build such complex machinery often have no professional networks to rely on for spare parts, plans, or advice in the matter and therefore have to rely on their ingenuity and intuition in order to build a machine that works.
A sewn boat is a type of wooden boat which is clinker built with its planks sewn, stitched, tied, or bound together with tendons or flexible wood, such as roots and willow branches. Sewn boat construction techniques were used in many parts of the world prior to the development of metal fasteners, and continued to be used long after that time for small boats to reduce construction costs where metal fasteners were too expensive.
Clinker built is a method of boat building where the edges of hull planks overlap each other. Where necessary in larger craft, shorter planks can be joined end to end, creating a longer strake or hull plank. The technique originated in Scandinavia, and was successfully used by the Anglo-Saxons, Frisians, Scandinavians, typically in the vessels known as cogs employed by the Hanseatic League. Carvel construction, where plank edges are butted smoothly, seam to seam, supplanted clinker construction in large vessels as the demand for capacity surpassed the limits of clinker construction..
Philip C. Bolger was a prolific American boat designer, who was born and lived in Gloucester, Massachusetts. He began work full-time as a draftsman for boat designers Lindsay Lord and then John Hacker in the early 1950s.
A chine in boat design is a sharp change in angle in the cross section of a hull. The chine typically arises from the use of sheet materials as the mode of construction.
The 125 is a 12 ft 6 in (3.81 m) two person intermediate sailing dinghy complete with main, jib, spinnaker and trapeze. The 125 class has a strong following within Australia with national titles being held every year around the country and local state associations. The class was originally designed as an intermediate class for developing skills with the jib, spinnaker and trapeze but has become popular from novice to experienced sailors.
The Tolman Skiff is a boat design of Dory heritage created by Renn Tolman of Homer, Alaska. Tolman authored two books, initially, "A Skiff For All Seasons", in 1992 and a revised version "Tolman Alaskan Skiffs", in 2003. The books described advantages of the design and construction method Stitch and glue using plywood, fiberglass cloth, and epoxy. Included in the books were drawings and designs for simple skiffs suitable for backyard, Do-it-yourself, construction.
The Firebug is a class of sailing dinghy that was designed by John Spencer and Peter Tait of Auckland, New Zealand in 1995. It is a 2.4 m long sailing dinghy designed to be built quickly and easily by builders with no previous experience of boatbuilding. A detailed report was published in Watercraft Magazine.
Brady catamarans are twin-hulled boats that are designed by Peter Brady of Brisbane, Australia. Brady originally designed sailing cats, motorsailers and power cats, but for the last 20 years the firm has specialised in powered catamarans exclusively.
The Cape Cod Frosty is an American sailing dinghy that was designed by Harwich, Massachusetts harbormaster Thomas Leach as a one-design racer and first built in 1984.
