How to build a sailboat?

every time I see a sailboat Glide by it makes me feel good maybe it's the aesthetic beauty of well-crafted lines or appreciation for living life at a slower Pace modern life is so hectic rushed loud and digital sailboats kind of feel like an antidote to all the noise if you're new to sailing you might feel like sailboats are inaccessible to normal folks Posh toys for people with names like Rockefeller and Kennedy but that's not entirely true not only are sailboats more accessible than you might think you can actually build one yourself with absolutely no training in this video I'm going to show you what it's like to build a sailboat with your friends using a simple construction method I'll introduce you to a super cool company that is dedicated to making sailboat building more accessible and I'll share what it feels like to Adventure on a sailboat you built with your own hands if you're enjoying these videos and want to support us to make more check out our gear at waterlust.com we specialize in environmentally responsible UV protective clothing that is perfect for a day on the water like Silk weight Sun shirts and leggings that are as comfortable above water as they are under all of our designs are carefully engineered and we exhaustingly test them ourselves as a small family owned and operated business your support means the world to us [Music] this Story begins a few years ago it was winter time it was cold but those days when the sun sets way too early and you find yourself dreaming about the summer thought to myself wouldn't it be cool to build a sailboat and take it on an adventure now you all should know that I'm not new to sailboats or more importantly the irrational feelings that sailboats can create and my immediate feeling was that this boat building idea would more likely than not lead me to becoming one of those people that dies of old age with a half-built sailboat in the backyard seriously it happens all the time didn't want to be that person so I decided if I were to build a sailboat I had to feel confident that I could actually finish it so like anybody with an idea that they aren't quite sure how to pull off I took to the internet and discovered a company in Annapolis Maryland that specializes in wooden sailboat kits the company is called Chesapeake light craft and they have a bunch of cool designs that utilize what is called Stitch and glue construction a boat building technique that greatly simplifies the process for first-timers like me I've been making many documentaries of water lust and wondered they wanted to work together on a boat built link video project it seemed unlikely but hey you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don't take so I emailed them you guys want to build a boat and make a little movie about it and just like that the first Domino fell [Music] the team at CLC was energized at the idea of coming up with something new a boat somebody could use for camping was car toppable Lively and fun to sail and had some kind of secondary propulsion for no win days to devise such a craft one of clc's designers Dylan Majora's came up with a sailing canoe concept with two sails a pedal drive and tons of internal storage for camping the design had gorgeous lines and Blended modern technology of The Petal tribe onto a classic form when we arrived in Annapolis we had no idea how intense it would be for our team of four to build two boats as fast as possible spoiler alert it would take us 16 days of work to get two finished boats onto the water for their first sale including paint finishing rigging two first of their kind boats 100 finished in 16 days [Music] the marathon started with getting marine plywood Parts cut on the CNC machine and the initial body of the boat put together we used what is called Stitch and glue construction which we mentioned before where the initial form of the boat is held together with copper wire or stitches and then it is permanently reinforced with fiberglass and epoxy the glue the first day was by far the most satisfying because we started the day with a pile of wood but ended with something that kind of looked like a boat day two was all about fiberglassing here we focused on laying strips of fiberglass along the bulkheads and reinforcing critical joints and flat sections we learned the magic of mixing sawdust with epoxy and turning it into a kind of peanut butter glue that magically strengthens each joint stiffening the boat significantly The Wooden Boat by itself is quite strong but when it's reinforced with epoxy and fiberglass it becomes nearly bulletproof with the epoxy drying day three started with building the complex interior structures that would house the pedal drive and Center board once the epoxy inside the boat was dry we flipped the hulls sanded the exterior until it was smooth and coated the entire boat with the sealing coat of epoxy which we left to cure overnight the next morning on day four we glued the pedal drive and Center board structures in using some very cool glue called total boat fixo which we got from our friends at Jamestown Distributors we'll talk more about the Jamestown team later on but they Supply many of the materials we needed to make this boat project happen and some of their team even came down and helped us paint the boats talk about next level customer service with the interior structures drying we added additional reinforcements including the internal mastep day 5 was equal parts stressful and exciting as we inch closer to the nerve-wrenching Milestone of gluing the decks onto the Hulls spent the first half of the day prepping the deck surfaces to make sure they were flat and ready for bonding here we're using block planes to precisely cut down any high spots and applying glue to all the surfaces that will make contact with the deck once the glue is in place we carefully lay the deck down and using clamps plastic wrap weights and anything we can get our hands on squeeze the decks and hulls firmly together while the glue dries on day six we anxiously took the clams away celebrated that the deck stay put flipped the boats over and started working on the hulls first we routed out the center board Trunks and then the more complicated pedal drive opening which required making a guide jig so we didn't accidentally cut too much material away getting that pedal drive opening cut was pretty exciting because it allowed us to drop the pedal drives in for the first time and get a better sense of what these crazy canoes would look like when they're done [Music] day seven one week into the build and we laid fiberglass onto the decks and started cutting the rudder and Center board components on the CNC which on day eight we then glued together and prepped for shaping shaping on day nine we brought in the big guns the man the myth the legend Mike Mills from Jamestown Distributors came down to help us prepare the halls for primer as we finished the rudder casings and added the rails we use total boat two-part epoxy primer and after Mike put his Blessing on the mix we've rolled it on day 10 we cut the storage compartment hatch in the deck which was scary and shaped the center board and Rudders which was super fun on day 11 we varnished the top sides of the boat and realized how gorgeous white and wood go together but as much as we love the white day 12 was devoted to painting over the primer with total boat wet Edge topside paint one boat green the other blue on day 13 we started getting fancy and made some cool sticker graphics for the sails which arrived just in time from the incredibly talented Douglas Fowler who specializes in classic canvas we also christened the boats with their names Anna and Mia named after the starting and ending ports of our upcoming Adventure Annapolis and Miami day 14 was all about rigging and with the help of our friends at Harkin we added some Modern block and tackle to the classic lug rigs but just because something looks right in the shop doesn't mean it's going to work on the water so in day 15 we put the boats on the roof and splashed them for their maiden voyage to test the pedal drive and make sure all the rigging worked but sadly the wind died before we could have a proper Sail with the better forecast on day 16 we hit the water again to get more familiar with the rigging and give the boats their first true sails in a classic late summer Chesapeake Breeze it's a pretty special feeling sailing a boat you built yourself especially for Dylan who not only built them with us but designed them in the first place we experimented with the two-sale setup sailing with the crew member and seeing how fast we could go under the pedal drive overall it was an amazing and exhausting 16 days we kept a camera rolling from the rafters the entire time so here's the entire experience all in one sped up clip [Music] do I recommend speed building Wooden Boats probably not it's way more relaxing if you just take your time but hopefully our project shows you what is possible even for first-time Builders like us Venture our plan was to load the boats onto the truck drive down to Norfolk Virginia where the Intracoastal Waterway officially starts and sails South our filmmaking strategy was to have one team in the truck each day responsible for shooting in the second team sailing and I have to admit I was pretty aspirational at first that we could sail all the miles home but quickly learned that the build had taken a lot more out of us physically than we had planned but hey Adventures rarely go exactly to plan so we shifted to a new strategy where we'd sail when we could drive past tricky or dangerous sections sometimes camping on beaches sometimes crashing in motels When Storms came just going with the flow and enjoying the beautiful boats we had built together [Music] about a month to get to Miami and here are some of our favorite memories way [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign 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Channel: Waterlust

Views: 7,198

Keywords: build sailboat, boat building, wood boat, wood sailboat, sailboat kit, boat kit, cnc boat, stitch glue boat, CLC boat, chesapeake light craft, how to build a boat, DIY sailboat, DIY boat, Waterlust, sailing canoe, canoe sailboat, mirage drive canoe, ICW sailing, classic sailboat

Id: evmSZvVWB4E

Length: 12min 8sec (728 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 05 2023