Chesapeake Light Craft, the boat kit experts, will begin a busy 10-month season of build-your-own-boat classes across the nation with seven weeks of early spring boatbuilding in its own fully equipped workshop in Annapolis starting in mid-February.
In CLC classes, talented professional instructors help students assemble their own boats from start to finish. Each class session starts on a Monday morning; by noon Saturday, participants head home with a completed boat ready for finish work.
Students in the early-season classes in Annapolis can select from several of CLC’s most popular designs. Paddlers can choose from high-performance touring kayaks from the Shearwater line, or recreational types like Wood Ducks and ultralight Sassafras canoes. Those who prefer a higher perspective on the water can build a stand-up paddleboard. Sailors have choices ranging from an 8-foot lapstrake dinghy to a traditional 17-foot dory. In the performance rowing category, there are single or tandem sliding-seat designs called wherries – including one of CLC’s newest designs, a coastal cruiser with strong rough-water ability, the Expedition Wherry.
Over the last 19 years, CLC boatbuilding classes have launched more than a thousand wooden boats and introduced thousands of students to the joys of boatbuilding. CLC has been hosting and teaching build-your-own-boat classes since 1994.
CLC’s precision-cut boat kits are intended for first-time boatbuilders working at home – more than 30,000 completed CLC boats are on the water – but a classroom setting has its advantages. Students work in a well equipped shop with a professional boatbuilder at their sides and enjoy the positive energy (and extra hands) of a group setting. For those who bring helpers, classes are a rewarding and memorable parent-child or family experience.
Those unfamiliar with modern wood-epoxy composite boatbuilding can watch examples of these week-long classes condensed into ninety-second timelapse videos at clcboats.com/timelapse.
Tuition for the week costs $800 and the various boat kits range from $750 to $2,000. More information on Chesapeake Light Craft’s Build-Your-Own Boat classes can be found at clcboats.com/classes, or by calling 410-267-0317.
Chesapeake Light Craft Schedule of Winter/Spring Classes in Annapolis:
· Build Your Own Kaholo Stand-Up Paddleboard, February 17 – 22, 2014
· Build Your Own Passagemaker Dinghy or Eastport Pram, February 24 – March 1, 2014
· Build Your Own Annapolis Wherry, March 24 – 29, 2014
· Build Your Own Northeaster Dory, April 7 – 12, 2014
· Build Your Own Sassafras Canoe, April 14 – 19, 2014
· Build Your Own Expedition Wherry, April 21 – 26, 2014
· Build Your Own Shearwater or Wood Duck Sea Kayak, May 5 – 10, 2014
