The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
CLUB BUILDS BOAT
Six-Hour Canoe to appear in 2018 Mid-America Boat Show
A boating club whose membership draws from across Northeast Ohio and beyond plans to showcase a homemade boat and an upcoming class on how to do it at the 2018 Progressive Mid-America Boat Show in Cleveland.
The Cleveland Amateur Boatbuilding and Boating Society just finished an example of the Six-Hour Canoe, which was originally designed and built by Boat Design Quarterly publisher Mike O’Brien.
According to an ablebooks.com synopsis on the 1994 book about the boat, Building the Six-Hour Canoe, O’Brien’s design is a simple, economic way for aspiring boatbuilders to get into the hobby.
“The canoe is constructed from a single 4’x16’ (or two 4’ x 8’ sheets) sheet of marine plywood and a few pieces of dimensional lumber and, with epoxy glued seams, is watertight from the moment it hits the water,” the synopsis reads. “When completed, the canoe is 15’3” in length with a 31½” beam. Inexpensive to build using ordinary tools and materials, the canoe gives everybody access to boatbuilding and a boat.”
On Dec. 19 in a backyard workshop with a wood stove and a quartet of eager boatbuilders inside, some of the final touches were being applied to their own Six-Hour Canoe.
The group plans to display the finished product, along with some other
vessels, at the boat show, slated for Jan. 18-21 at the I-X Center in Cleveland, in hopes of sparking interest in the club and in a handson class for folks who want to learn how to build a SixHour Canoe of their own, said CABBS Board President Edward Neal, who hails from Lakewood. “This is the first class the club has developed,” he said. “It’s one of those if-you-build-it-they-will-come kind of things.” Club secretary Jim Jackson, a Mentor resident who taught industrial arts at Mayfield High School for 35 years, said CABBS celebrated its 50th birthday in 2017. Both Jackson and Neal said the organization’s membership is aging and it would like to attract some younger boatbuilders. “We’d love to see some younger members - people in their 30s and 40s,” Jackson said. “Most of us are in our 60s and up.” He explained that the group’s late-1960s origins lie in a sailboat kit from England which included provisions for amateur boatbuilders to construct a Mirror Class sailing dinghy. Because CABBS was the only North American group licensed to sell the kits at the time, hundreds of people joined the organization, as membership was a prerequisite for purchase.
Over the years, more and more hobbyists’ interests strayed from building sailboats, however. “It used to be a huge organization. People would build their boats then compete in them against each other,” Neal said, adding that the club even had a chapter at a Lockheed Martin facility in California. Jackson said today, people are more interested in building paddle-powered craft like kayaks and canoes. And, although CABBS’ membership isn’t in the hundreds these days, there are members as far south as Holmes County and even around the country, including one who now lives in Hawaii, another in Virginia and some in Pittsburgh. “So it’s not just for Cleveland people. It’s for people from all over,” he said. Neal said today’s CABBS, which meets alternately at the Berea and Strongsville branches of the Cuyahoga County Public Library, has a membership of 30 to 35.
He said he hopes their presence at the boat show, along with the hands-on boatbuilding course, will attract some new members, especially younger ones.
“We’re trying to reach out to the millennial generation and others looking for more craft-related products, who realize the personal satisfaction you get from building something with your hands,” he said, adding what a refreshing change that can be, especially for those who spend all day in an office. “And, if you look at computer screens all day, it’s really nice to build something with your hands.”
The class itself, dubbed Boatbuilding Basics Workshop: Build the Six-Hour Canoe, begins March 3 and lasts five consecutive Saturdays, the organization reports. It will be held at Soulcraft Woodshop near the Interstate 90-East 55 Street interchange in Cleveland.
“Participants will build the boats from meranti marine plywood, spruce, ash, and Douglas fir, and use silicon bronze screws, fiberglass tape, and epoxy to assemble it,” the related CABBS news release reads. “They will learn basic boatbuilding skills and processes such as laying out plywood panels, fitting angles, planing, gluing techniques using epoxy and fiberglass tape, sanding and painting.”
The finished product, Neal said, is a single-person craft weighing 50 to 60 pounds with a weight capacity of about 250 pounds and is paddled, kayak-style, with a double-bladed paddle.
“It would be appropriate for quiet lakes and inland streams,” he said, adding that it’s not intended for whitewater paddling.
The Cleveland Amateur Boatbuilding and Boating Society’s release explains that “class participants will work in teams of four. Each team will build its own boat. Each completed boat will be raffled off among the four team members who built it.”
Neal said he encourages anyone with an interest in boating and/or boatbuilding to look into CABBS and the Six-Hour Canoe class.
“Not everybody in the club has built a boat,” he said. “Some have a boat they’ve restored. Others have a boat and are interested and want to maintain it, et cetera.”
Some members, however, have taken boatbuilding hook, line and sinker, like Berea constituent Mike Latham.
According to Neal, Latham hopes to display a 19-foot, center-console fishing boat he named First Light at the upcoming boat show.
“He spent six years building it and it looks like it came off the production line at a commercial builder,” Neal said.
Neal also said the group organizes numerous events, including boatbound outings and excursions, throughout the year.
Cost for the boatbuilding class is $225 per person and includes all materials, use of the facility, and guidance by CABBS.
Registration closes Feb. 10, 2018. Class size is limited to four boats or 16 participants.