I've had a long career building, repairing and restoring wooden boats, and although I've retired from commercial work I can't stop building boats. This site shows a lot of the boats I have worked on, as well as the current one I'm building. There's stuff also about my years of teaching boatbuilding, about boat festivals and about the history of the eighteen footers and open boat racing in Sydney. And I've begun to document my boatbuilding experience with a YouTube channel www.youtube.com/c/IanSmithBoats and three books, all available at www.sydneywoodenboatschool.com.au/shop
My boats Page has the story of our makeover of our Halvorsen 25 Sea-Mist a couple of years ago and the recent fitting of a new engine.
Read about the Historical skiffs movement replicating Australia's iconic 18-footers and other Historical Skiffs
Learn about the Sydney Wooden Boat School which ran from 1989 to 2001 and now carries on producing videos and books,
VIDEOS- Smithy's Boatshed Channel
There are now 60 videos on the newly re-named SMITHY'S BOATSHED Channel on YouTube, direct link www.youtube.com/c/IanSmithBoats , on boatbuilding and sailing including my series on Traditional Clinker Planking and Carvel Planking.
BOOKS
Wooden Boatbuilding, The Sydney Wooden Boat School Manuals is a distillation of decades of experience teaching first-timers to build a boat. Originally individual manuals on different methods of wooden boat construction like Traditional Clinker Construction, Plywood Clinker Construction and Strip Planking which helped hundreds of clients to build a boat, we've combined them in one volume with a couple of new sections including Carvel Planking and Restoring a Putt-Putt Launch. 218 pages with hundreds of photographs and illustrations. See www.sydneywoodenboatschool.com.au/shop
The Open Boat- The Origin, Evolution and Construction of the Australian 18-Footer traces the history of Aussie open boats. Folklore suggested that 18-footers evolved from working boats but I found it's a bit more complicated than that. A fascinating history, and a thorough examination of how they were built using batten-seam carvel planking with photos and illustrations based on my building of the replica of the 1919 18-footer Britannia in 2000-2002. 200 pages. See www.sydneywoodenboatschool.com.au/shop
The 18-Footer Britannia- 100 Years of a Sydney Icon tells the story of the famous 18-footer built in 1919 (which can still be seen today in Wharf 7 at the Australian National Maritime Museum) and the family of Wee Georgie Robinson and other sailors and members of the community associated with it. 100 pages full of stories and images many of which were supplied to the author by family and crew members and have never been published before. See www.sydneywoodenboatschool.com.au/shop