I spent the last 4 months building this boat through another lockdown! In Auckland, New Zealand.

The Boat is a Geodesic Airolite 'Classic 12' designed by Platt Monfort, I bought plans and a partial kit from GABoats.com. The shape of the Hull is Loosely based on the lines of a whitehall rowing boat and can be built and setup to be sailed which I opted to do.

A skin on frame boat is basically a wooden frame wrapped with some sort of fabric, in this case Platt Monfort came up with a technique using Kevlar twine to reinforce a thinner wooden frame to make an exceptionally light boat. I covered the boat with 4oz Dacron which I coated with the skin boat school 2 part polyurethane.

I haven't weighed the finished boat but according to the Geodesic Airolite specs it should be around 16kgs, I'd assume mine is slightly more than that, I dont know if that would account for the daggerboard box etc, but it is very light, I can easily lift it onto a car roof rack by myself.

I used yellow cedar for the stringers and most of the rest of the boat and then oak for the ribs and marine ply for the rest. I couldnt get green oak very easily so I had to use kiln dried for the ribs, I soaked the ribs overnight and had very little issues. I think part of my success with the steam bending comes down to selecting the best grain for the tightest bends. The frame was finished with a homemade blend of equal parts tung oil, marine varnish and turpentine.

I used epoxy for most of the glue ups because it is extremely strong, gap filling and has a long open time for all of the difficult and intricate glue ups. Occasionally I used titebond 3 where I wasn't so worried about setup time or gap filling.

I took the boat out for a test a week ago and it feels great, very stable. I do need to learn to row properly though, very different to paddling! I also had a couple of issues with the sailing rig but I did have a good minute or so of "wow I'm sailing! I can turn it where I want with the rudder! Its really happening!" and I'm looking forward to learning more about that. Sorry I didn't get any footage of her in the water it was a bit of a stressful day!

As is a little tradition with my canoes I named her 'Little Wing' after a Neil Young song.

I was so glad that I had almost all of the materials I needed to build this before the lockdown started! I only had to wait a couple of weeks when I ran out of wood and was waiting for my timberyard to re-open in lower restrictions for a contactless collection! Having this to get on with really kept me sane when we were stuck at home again and everything seemed bleak. I hope you enjoy watching the process.

If you want to see more photos etc I uploaded some on my instagram

www.instagram.com/davidbrynparker