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You will be taught how to bend, mold and assemble wooden pieces to make a simple boat that will bring you hours of fun on the water. Working under the expertise of Karl, your group will experience the pride of completing a wooden boat by hand.
Karl has worked as a Boatwright for over 25 years and will teach the school. He has built multi-million dollar yachts, small skiffs and all sizes in between. Karl, is a gifted craftsman who loves creating with wood, especially wooden boats. He works with domestic and exotic woods, bending, splicing and gluing them into all shapes and sizes of boats. Karl's boat shop in NW Tennessee is filled with hand tools, and a touch of technology for time tested results. "The small wooden boat of yester-year is a piece of Americana that everyone should experience at least once," says Karl Weinert, Master Boat Builder. Do you remember these boats - they were built in garages and basements of people anticipating fun on the water. Where did this idea come from? Approximately five years ago – we were living in North Florida on a country gentleman’s farm. We loved the country environment it was so relaxing to be away from the hustle and bustle of busy city life. We were learning about caring for cows, goats, chickens and a donkey, as well as how to hay and build fences. We had a nice barn to build boats and other wooden projects as well as a guest cottage on the farm. Karl had a great career as a master boat builder at Merritt’s Boat Works in Pompano Beach, FL., Merritt’s is world renown as building the finest hand built custom sport fishing boats in the world. Karl is also an accomplished machinist so by combining his skills with wood and metal all boats are fair game. We thought that people would love to come to the farm and build a small boat. Students working along side Karl learning all the way would end up with a small finished boat they could enjoy as well as feeling proud of a job well done. Word of mouth spread and several people did in fact build boats at the farm. They are still today enjoying their boats serving up all the fish they catch. At the same time we were introduced to a new concept, combining farm activities with fun-a twist – called Agri-Entertainment or Agri-Tourism. Bringing people to the country to experience a bit of farm life in the country as well as having some fun doing something on the farm. This fit exactly into what we thought we wanted to do – share fun we were having on our farm combining skills we brought with us from the city! Fast forwarding – we wanted to move to an area that had seasonal changes and water near by. We looked at many farms and found one we like – in NW Tennessee – Big Sandy. We are now settled in to our new location and began revisiting the idea of people learning the skill of assembling a small wooden boat. After researching the idea we found that there is a grassroots network of Family Boatbuilding Vacations held generally once a year in July. Encouraging families to bond together making a completed boat, experiencing the use of a hammer and the feel of a wooden boat on the water. We wanted to take the concept year round to make a better coincide with vacationing families please see our school schedule. We are offering two boat designs taught at the school:
Creating the memory and keepin' it afloat. |
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