We Got This Email The Other Day

Our book, “Fundamentals of Model Boat Building”, has received many excellent reviews from some very knowledgeable people, but I dont think that any is more meaningful than this one. Its not a review in the standard sense, but I think that it speaks volumes.

I am going to let Joe Szymanski do the talking through the email that he sent us, along with the photos of the model that he made, the first model boat that he has ever done, after reading our book.

“JOHN - Back in 2011, I picked up a copy of Fundamentals of Model Boat Buildingwhen you were at the PRAD Festival at the Calvert Marine Museum. I enjoyed reading the book last winter, but then just added it to my library. Then late this summer & fall, I kept paddling by a pretty like crab skiff on St. Johns Creekand your book came back to mind -- I thought "that would be a fun little boat to try to model from scratch..." So I remembered my camera on subsequent paddles, and tried to snap some pictures of the boat in the water. I had some extra time over the Christmas holidays, so I launched into the effort of trying to estimate dimensions, develop 3-view scale drawings, etc. After several matboard prototypes, I was happy with the basic hull shape and proceeded with a wood model. (See the attached picture for the model in its current state of completion.) I had never built a model boat before...”

This is the photo that he sent with his email...

He continued...

“...it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience & mental exercise to go through the process as guided along by your book. Thanks for the inspiration and hopefully Ill see you back at PRAD some year in the future.

Sincerely,
Joe Szymanski”

Here is Joes finished model:


Heres a shot of the subject boat:


We think that when you look at the original boat and look at the first model boat that Joe ever made, he deserves an excellent review. 5-Stars!!! Thank you, Joe!

Joe and I have corresponded by email following this one and he offered to send more photos of his model during the phases of building it. Here are some of them...

 

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

 

 

 

Have you made a model after reading our book? Wed love to hear from you with photos or not. Our emails are johninto@intothings.com and nancyprice@intothings.com.

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The Aim of this Blog

First post on a brand new blog, I guess that I should explain what I plan to do with it.

I have been an amateur boatbuilder most of my life, in one way or another. From building toy boats for myself from plywood tea boxes brought home from work by my mom, or carved from pieces of dead protea bushes scavenged on mountain walks, to canoes shaped from salvaged galvanised sheet steel, wood from peach boxes and pitch melted into the joints and nail holes. This eventually led me through designing and building my own plywood beach catamaran to building a 36ft sailboat designed by Ricus van de Stadt. This led further to me studying yacht design then designing and building a few dinghies, canoes and two more large sailboats of 34 and 38ft (The 38ft boat forms the background to this blog). Along the way I also designed many boats for other amateur or professional boatbuilders for various materials.

My first big boat project. A 36ft boat in my mid-20s.

Despite my status as a professional yacht designer, all of my boatbuilding escapades were as an amateur in the worst sense of the title. I built the big boats in my garden, working through extremes of hot, windy summers and cold, wet winters. I was always on a tight budget, skimping on the family budget to buy what was needed for the boat that was in progress at the time. My wife had to endure losing kitchen utensils that sometimes found their way to a more useful role in the workshop, finding epoxy chilling in the freezer if I needed to slow the cure or discovering welding rods drying in the oven. Even newly painted scale models were sometimes drying in the warm oven. I dont know how she put up with me but that is the much needed and loved tolerance of the wives of most amateur boatbuilders. I am lucky to have the support of my wife in these ventures and hope that you are as lucky too.

My most recent project, a 14ft high performance skiff.

All this has given me a large amount of experience and knowledge that I am always happy to share with anyone who can benefit from the info. It places me in a good position to help others to make the best decisions for whatever boatbuilding project they are considering or have in progress. I expect that most of the posts will be of my choosing but I will be open to readers sending me their boatbuilding questions or problems that are looking for answers.

I anticipate that I will post on it weekly but the frequency may change. Lets just see where it goes, I hope that you will join me in the experience.

Addendum: Due to limits on my own time available to work on this blog, I need to keep it to a basis that allows me to post about once a week. I cant allow it to turn into a forum type of blog, on a question and answer basis because that will become very demanding of my time and rapidly fail. I will endeavour to provide interesting and informative content that will be of value to you, the readers, on this basis. If you have any particular subjects that you would like me to cover, please send me an email and I will add it to my list of subjects. You can do that via the email link on my website at http://dixdesign.com/email.htm . Thanks for understanding.

To see my designs, please visit http://dixdesign.com/

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