Welcome to the Blog

This is an updated version of a blog I had going on my UMass website. http://people.umass.edu/janderse/Blog/ I'm not sure how long they'll let me keep it there, so I've decided to make a new site, and in the process I've changed the focus a little. The original blog was more of a traditional blog in the sense that it followed the day to day adventure of building a racing shell. This blog I hope will serve as more of a how to guide to boat building.

Welcome to the new Blog! Rowing is an sport/art of grace and beauty, and much of this beauty has to due with the craftsmanship of the rowing shell itself. Ever since I started getting into the sport part of me wanted to try to build a shell. I don't think there is anything more wonderful than going to a regatta, or simply seeing a boat row bye during the morning twilight, and I've felt driven to try to build my own boat. This process has not been without it's hard aches. I spent several years trying to simply find plans. It wasn't until google scanned in a Wooden Boat Magazine book that had contact information for plans that I was able to start the process.

The first part of the adventure was doing research and purchasing plans. The designer of the plans was Uffa Fox, and they date to 1934. Tony Dixon, Uffa's Nephew sells the plans through his website http://www.uffafox.com. With the plans in hand, I went about to do some research. As far as general boat building goes, I don't think anything can compare to the Gougeon Brothers book on boat building. This book was very difficult to find for some reason, and I ended up checking it out from the local library. The next step was to look if someone was doing something similar. Maybe I could learn from others. My favorite post was from the Wooden Boat Forums, where the first response to a question about building a rowing shell is "This way madness lies."

Well, maybe a little bit of madness will help get this thing done. Over the next few posts, hopefully I'll walk you through what I did, how I got there, and what I've learned in the process. Please ask questions, and leave comments, and I'll try to make this fun and informative.