Why I built this

I build boats. Not for a living, and not especially quickly. So far that is a Northeaster Dory that took up the summer everything shut down, a little Polliwog row boat, and a Tiny Titan hydroplane that was really for my kids.

Every one of them taught me the same thing. The hard part is not the woodwork. The hard part is not knowing whether what you are looking at is normal. Whether that gap should worry you. Whether everybody’s first fillets look that rough, or just yours. Whether you are two weekends behind or two months.

The people who could have told me had finished their boats and moved on. What they knew was in their heads, or in a forum thread that trailed off in 2014 with the photos long since gone.

So this is a place to write it down

It is somewhere to keep a boat builder logbook: the whole build, step by step, with photos, notes, and the hours it actually took rather than the hours you meant it to take. You post from your phone while you are still standing in the shop, a few minutes at a time. Over months or years that turns into the record of how your boat got made.

I had two things in mind for it.

Keep your own record

Years from now you will want to know which epoxy you used, when you turned the hull over, and what you would do differently. You will not remember. I did not, and I only had to look back a couple of years.

Help the next builder

This is the part I actually care about. Every log is filed under its design, so when somebody starts the same boat you built, your log is there waiting for them. They can read how you handled fairing before they attempt it, and see what it cost you in hours.

Somebody worked out how to get that hull fair. Somebody found out the hard way which order to fit the frames in. It seems a waste for all of that to disappear the moment the boat hits the water, when writing it down as you go costs almost nothing.

That is the whole idea. Keep your own record, and leave it somewhere the next person can find it.

If you are building something

Start a log. It does not have to be tidy and you do not have to enjoy writing. One photo and one line is a log, and it is worth more than the tidy account you never get round to. The site is free, there is no advertising, and your photos and your words stay yours.

If something is broken or you think something is missing, I would genuinely like to hear about it: admin@boatbuildlog.com.

Matt