Boat Building

What Really Sank the Titanic: New Forensic Discoveries

On the starry night of April 14, 1912, at the dawn of a century charged with human ingenuity and hope, the largest and most advanced passenger ship in the world struck an iceberg and sank to the bottom of the frigid North Atlantic. In the decades that followed, despite numerous official inquiries and the eventual discovery of the wreck itself, key questions have gone unanswered: Why did the double-bottomed, 46,000-ton RMS Titanic, built above and beyond the most exacting specifications, sink in less than three hours? Was the iceberg alone responsible for the tragedy? Or did other factors contribute to the collision's deadly toll? A conclusive explanation has not been given--until now.

With the same methodology used by forensic scientists in crime-scene investigations, researchers Jennifer Hooper McCarty and Tim Foecke applied new tools to the century-old mystery. By analyzing step by step how the ship was designed and constructed, what vulnerabilities were overlooked, and how this marvel of modern engineering may have been a disaster waiting to happen, they build a compelling new scenario.

We are vividly taken into a bygone era, when luxury ocean travel and ruthless business competition fueled ever mightier ship construction projects built by Belfast shipyard workers, some mere children, laboring in unsafe, exhausting conditions. With Britain, the shipbuilders, and an entire industry caught up in a mad dash to build the greatest vessel ever, shocking lapses went unnoticed. Using modern microscopic techniques, the authors reveal those failures and show how they doomed the lives of at least 1,500 of the Titanic's passengers and crew.

Grippingly written, What Really Sank the Titanic is illustrated with fascinating period photographs and modern scientific evidence. It includes little-known Titanic facts and lore, colorful portraits of the ship's designers, builders, and crew, eyewitness accounts, and a dramatic timeline of the ship's last hours. In an age when forensics can catch killers, this book does what no other book has before: fingers the culprit in one of the greatest tragedies ever.

Sloop: Restoring My Family's Wooden Sailboat--An Adventure in Old-Fashioned Values

When Daniel Robb set out to rebuild a family sailboat that had been deteriorating for years, he couldn't have anticipated what he was getting into. Although Robb was a skilled carpenter, boatbuilding (and boat repair) required a specialized set of skills. And this wasn't just any boat; it was a Herreshoff 12 1/2, a classic wooden sailboat. Built especially for the coastal waters of New England, this little sloop had sailed for years out of the author's boyhood home in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, before being relegated to a quiet corner of a yard, no longer the focus of the family's summer. Restoring the sailboat was both an act of respect and an homage to a place and a way of life that are in jeopardy of disappearing.

Sloop is the captivating story of Daniel Robb's education in boatbuilding, peopled by an eccentric cast of characters -- lumbermen, boatbuilders, and local artisans -- who are part of a changing and perhaps dying world. They tell Robb how to find the materials -- certain kinds of wood, fastenings, caulking, and canvas -- he'll need, which are increasingly hard to come by, and they educate him in the techniques of restoration, an all-but-lost art. Building and restoring wooden boats means an initiation into a world where life is lived simply, with respect for materials, for labor, and for the local waters.

A craftsman and environmentalist, Robb is a willing and able student, and although the restoration of the boat takes far more time and effort than he'd calculated, it is ultimately successful. After all Robb's struggles with quartersawn white oak, homemade steam boxes, bronze screws, copper rivets, andold mast hoops, the Herreshoff sails again -- and a dying art and a vanishing way of life remain alive and vibrant just a while longer.

By turns charming, meditative, and wonderfully quirky, Sloop is a paean to a sense of place and to old-fashioned values.

How to Cast Small Metal and Rubber Parts (2nd Edition)

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The Fiberglass Boat Repair Manual

"This book will save you money and grief before you can say woven roving."--Sailing

"A comprehensive and accurate work that should benefit almost any owner of a fiberglass boat."--SAIL

"This book will prove a valuable addition to the library of any boat builder or owner who is seriously interested in doing his own repairs, as well as intercepting minor problems before they become major projects."--Boatbuilder

Are there hairline cracks in your boat's deck or topsides gelcoat? Have her color and luster faded over the years? Does she have deck leaks? Has she been holed? Is her hull oilcanning in a sea? If your answer to any of these questions is yes, this book is for you. This is the definitive guide for fiberglass boat repair and beautification, covering not just cosmetic dings and scratches, but also major repairs of structural damage to hull and decks. It will show you how to:

• replace deteriorated gelcoat, or repair the flaws in an existing gelcoat and recoat it with polyurethane or marine alkyd enamel paint;
• strengthen a weak and overly flexible hull or deck;
• tab in loose hull liners and joinerwork;
• make templates from the good side of a hull to reshape large shattered or missing areas on the other side;
• repair or replace water-saturated deck cores;
• repair keels, rudders, and centerboards;
• rebed and refasten underwater and on-deck hardware;
• rebed, refasten, and strengthen hull-to-deck joints;
• fix broken hatches, and make new ones when necessary;
• treat the symptoms and causes of overstressed hulls.

That beautiful craft swinging at anchor or nestled dockside, her topsides reflecting water and sky like a polished mirror, could be yours. Here's how.

Canoecraft: An Illustrated Guide to Fine Woodstrip Construction

Known internationally as "the Bible of canoe building," Canoecraft is back, and it's bigger and better than ever. The best-selling how-to guide has been completely revised and expanded, and master canoe builder Ted Moores again infuses the pages with the experience and wisdom acquired over almost three decades. His step-by-step instructions, generously illustrated with new photographs and diagrams and incorporated into an accessible fresh design, will allow even the beginner to create a reasonably priced classic. North America's leading builder of woodstrip/epoxy canoes, Moores is a longtime teacher of wooden-boat construction as well. With students who have ranged in age from 11 to 87, Moores has discovered that all have been motivated by the same dream: to build something beautiful and functional.

Canoecraft is the road map to that dream. In it, Moores offers comprehensive instructions for the first-time builder and, with the second-time builder in mind, includes a larger variety of canoe plans -- five of which are brand-new. In this edition, each plan is presented as a traditional table of offsets. Moores has also added a series of builder's tips and new techniques and an entire chapter on carving a paddle, the perfect accompaniment to your handcrafted canoe. His message is straightforward: When good materials are used and simple steps performed with care, professional results are sure to follow.

Whether your goal is to build a general-purpose recreational canoe, an efficient modern tripping canoe or a full-decked fast-cruising canoe with walnut veneer, Canoecraft can help you make it happen.

Devlin's Boatbuilding: How to Build Any Boat the Stitch-and-Glue Way

Why is stitch-and-glue boatbuilding so popular?

Any number of construction methods will produce a beautiful boat. But for the backyard builder with limited experience and a tight budget, the choice is not so complicated. Traditional plank-on-frame and cold-molded construction require complicated lofting and building molds--to say nothing of expensive tooling and lots of time. Stitch-and-glue construction, on the other hand, can produce the same results with a substantial savings in time and money. The process is quicker, easier, uses fewer parts, and produces a boat that is much easier to maintain--without the building molds and with only the simplest lofting. For tools, you need little more than a circular saw, a sander/polisher/grinder, a block plane, a framing square, a level, and a tape measure.

Sam Devlin has elevated stitch-and-glue boatbuilding to an artform, and his graceful designs have attracted the attention of backyard builders across the country. Here is all you need to know to build the boat of your dreams, whether it's a 7-foot dinghy or a 40-foot power cruiser. Devlin's Boatbuilding: How to Build Any Boat the Stitch-and-Glue Way shares the wisdom of his 16 years of experience designing, building, and helping others build his fleet of small sail- and powerboats.

It's all here, from choosing a design and setting up shop to painting the finished hull and launching. There is also a gallery of Devlin's designs and a detailed appendix listing sources for tools and other materials.

Boatbuilding: A Complete Handbook of Wooden Boat Construction

Boatbuilding is a practical handbook and boatshop assistant, designed and written to meet the needs of the builder, covering the complete process of wooden boat construction. The text covers all types of craft from flat-bottom rowboats to ocean cruisers and commercial vessels, and aids the builder in overcoming difficulties and discouraging delays resulting from the lack of easily available information on the practical side of boatbuilding. Boatbuilding gives detailed instructions, with many illustrations, on all phases of boatbuilding written out of actual boatbuilding practice and aids the builder in planning each job in its proper sequence in relation to those that follow. After a chapter discussing the choice of plans suitable for amateur work there are chapters on lofting, the backbone and setting up, flat-bottom hull construction, V-bottom hull construction, round-bottom hull construction, deck framing and building, special construction (plywood, strip planking, lap-strake, diagonal, ribband carvel, canvas), heavy construction, joiner-work, iron-work, and spar making. Each chapter is organized for easy and quick reference, and the book is completely indexed. An added feature is the inclusion of building plans for nineteen boats designed for this book and suitable for amateur building.

The Elements of Boat Strength: For Builders, Designers, and Owners

"This work is significant. It is the first to include a method of assessing structural strength in the context of the modern marine environment." --Commander M. C. Cruder, U.S. Coast Guard

Acclaimed author and naval architect Dave Gerr created this unique system of easy-to-use scantling rules and rules-of-thumb for calculating the necessary dimensions, or scantlings, of hulls, decks, and other boat parts, whether built of fiberglass, wood, wood-epoxy composite, steel, or aluminum. In addition to the rules themselves, The Elements of Boat Strength offers their context: an in-depth, plain-English discussion of boatbuilding materials, methods, and practices that will guide you through all aspects of boat construction.

Now you can avoid wading through dense technical engineering manuals or tackling advanced mathematics. The Elements of Boat Strength has all the formulas, tables, illustrations, and charts you need to judge how heavy each piece of your boat should be in order to last and be safe. With this book, an inexpensive scientific calculator, and a pad of paper, you'll be able to design and specify all the components necessary to build a sound, long-lasting, rugged vessel.

What reviewers have said about Dave Gerr's books:

Propeller Handbook

"By far the best book available on the subject."--Sailing

"The best layman's guide we've ever read."--Practical Sailor

Dave Gerr and International Marine made a complicated topic understandable and put it into a handbook that is easy to use."--WoodenBoat

"Without doubt the definitive reference for selecting, installing, and understanding boat propellers."--Royal Navy Sailing Association Journal

The Nature of Boats

"If you are not nautically obsessed before reading this book, you will most certainly be afterward."--Sailing

Fascinating potpourri of information about today's boats, modern and traditional."--WoodenBoat

Sailboat Hull and Deck Repair (International Marine Sailboat Library)

A fiberglass hull's seamless nature leads many boatowners to conclude that repair must be difficult. Wrong. Here, clearly and abundantly illustrated, is all you need to know to seal joints, bed hardware, replace portlights, locate leaks, fix cracks and even holes, restore your hull's gloss, renew nonskid decks, and much more. You'll wonder what you were worried about.

Buehler's Backyard Boatbuilding

Everybody has the dream: Build a boat in the backyard and sail off to join the happy campers off Pogo Pogo, right? But how? Assuming you aren't independently wealthy, if you want a boat that's really you, you gotta build it yourself.

Backyard boatbuilding has its problems. Building in fiberglass is itchy, smelly, and yields a product that yachting maven L. Francis Herreshoff once called "frozen snot." Ferrocement, once all the rage, has pretty much sunk from favor, if you catch the drift. But there's still wood, right? Ah, wood. Nature's perfect material. You can build in the time-honored traditions of the Golden Age of Yachting, loving crafting intricate joints in rare tropical hardwoods, steaming swamp oak butts to sinuous shapes, holding the whole thing together with nonferrous fastenings that cost a buck or better each. Does that sound like boatbuilding for everyperson?

What about the currently fashionable wood/epoxy boatbuilding? You butter regular old wood with Miracle Whip, stick it together in the shape of a boat, and off you go, right? Epoxy works, but They don't exactly give it away; nor is it exactly a benign substance. Suiting up like Homer Simpson heading for a fun-filled day at the nuclear power plant isn't exactly the aesthetic boatbuilding experience many of us are looking for.

Where does that leave us? In the capable hands of George Buehler, who honors the timeless traditions of the sea all right, but those from the other side of the boatyard tracks. Buehler draws his inspiration from centuries of workboat construction, where semiskilled fishermen built rugged, economical boats from everyday materials in their own backyards, and went to sea in them in all kinds of weather, not just when it was pleasant.

Buehler's boats sail on every ocean and perform every task, from long-term liveaboards in Norwegian fjords to a traveling doctor's office in Alaska. This book contains complete plans for seven cruising boats--from a 28-foot sailboat to a 55-foot power cruiser. All the information you need is here, including step-by-step instructions honed by nearly 20 years of supplying boat plans to backyard builders--and helping them out when they get into trouble.

Buehler is anarchic, heretical, and occasionally profane; his book is West Coast counterculture meets traditional hardchine workboat construction, leavened with hardnosed common sense and penny-pinching economy. This book is for those who look around them and see that much of what is done in the world today--whether in yachting or politics or economics or interpersonal relationships--is based not on logic but on conforming and meeting other people's expectations. This book is most definitely NOT about either. It is about the realization of dreams.

If you believe that everyone who wants a cruising boat can have one . . .

If you see beauty beneath the fish scales and work scars of a commercial fishing boat . . .

If you want to build a simple, rugged, economical, good-looking cruising boat--power or sail--using everyday lumberyard materials and few skills other than perseverance, this is the book for you. Buehler's Backyard Boatbuilding tells you how to build extraordinary boats using the most ordinary skills and materials, with complete plans, instructions, and specifications for seven real cruising boats ranging from a 28-foot sailboat to a 55-foot power cruiser.

"Build wooden boats the Buehler way, which is to say inexpensively, yet like the proverbial brick outhouse."--WoodenBoat

Richly flavored with personal advice and anecdotes as well as a wealth of valuable information."--American Sailing Association

"Everyone will revere this book."--The Ensign