Build it, and they will float

November 14, 2010 9:27 PM

Hannu builds boats. Not a really unusual thing (though getting rarer as time goes on). However, he concentrates on small, simple, easy to build boats with as little material as possible. Some, like a 18' canoe built from one piece of plywood, are simply amazing.
posted by swimming naked when the tide goes out (19 comments total)

Thanks. Halfpea on the water is almost the cutest thing I've ever seen.
posted by Ahab at 9:35 PM on November 14, 2010

Discussed previously here
posted by quosimosaur at 9:52 PM on November 14, 2010

yeah, not to piss on this post, since boatbuilding is cool and all, and ought to be promoted I think, but why is Hannu any different from a large number of people doing the single sheet of ply thing? He's far from unique in this field.

Anyway, this is basically a double.
posted by wilful at 9:57 PM on November 14, 2010

This guy's site is really great. Thank you.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 10:32 PM on November 14, 2010

Sorry about the double...the URL didn't auto-fail and I didn't notice the same.
posted by swimming naked when the tide goes out at 11:01 PM on November 14, 2010

Considering every single link in the previous post is 404, it seems a little churlish to complain about this one, no?
posted by GeckoDundee at 11:01 PM on November 14, 2010 [7 favorites]

wilful: I'd say this guy is different, both in the quality of the finished product, but the attention to detail he gives for displacement calculations, potential speed, etc. as well as the simplicity of his instructions and free downloadable plans. I haven't seen any better.
posted by swimming naked when the tide goes out at 11:03 PM on November 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

This is a great example of comprehensive lone expert website syndrome, as discussed here.



I love it.
posted by dazed_one at 11:33 PM on November 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

GeckoDundee, that's not the protocol for doubles. But I'm really not complaining.
posted by wilful at 11:58 PM on November 14, 2010

I made that previous post, and didn't realize all the links had gone dead. Thanks for re-upping these links. Hannu is cool.
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:12 AM on November 15, 2010

The coracle was my favorite, scroll down to the black and white picture.

Also read his disclaimer at the bottom of the main page.
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:16 AM on November 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

scroll down to very bottom to see a micro-Auray punt loaded into a Festiva (small hatchback car)

The best looking one, to my mind: Portuguese style dinghy
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:27 AM on November 15, 2010

Just have a chunk of space set aside for years and years, once you start a boat project it's tough to abort, but if you're like most of humanity (yea me as a sad pathetic example :) step 3 will get almost finished and just sit there 4 by 8 feet waiting and waiting.... But a boat project in the basement is really much better than dozens of boxes of stuff.
posted by sammyo at 4:52 AM on November 15, 2010

My dad has a few plywood kayaks and a gorgeous strip-built canoe. The work and time involved in even small boat building is unreal.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:22 AM on November 15, 2010

I would love to build one, just for fun, but honestly I'd never use it and wouldn't know what to do with a large boat once I had it built.
posted by Forktine at 6:35 AM on November 15, 2010

My brother and I are about half-way through a Bolger Teal build. It's technically 2 sheets of ply, so considerably bigger than Hannu's average project, but still really tiny. These make me feel a little better about how small ours is going to be :^)
posted by richyoung at 7:47 AM on November 15, 2010

I really want to retire.
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:32 AM on November 15, 2010

You take this website and add this inspiration and you have the recipe for one heck of an adventure. Can you imagine sailing across the Atlantic on a a 13.5 foot family cruising sailboat? And you could build it yourself? Man, how am I supposed to get any more work done today?
posted by ChrisHartley at 9:41 AM on November 15, 2010

I liked Halfpea the best: Is there any point in building something as useless as a 4 ft dinghy? Yes, of course there is! Someone has to do the stupid things in the world. By doing something really stupid one pushes the whole stupidity-sensibility scale up a bit. After this building project, things that seemed stupid yesterday, may seem sensible tomorrow, compared to this :-)

When I was a kid, my dad built a Folbot in our garage. I sailed & kayaked in that boat for 20 years before it finally got a gash in its skin. Homebuilt boats rule.
posted by catlet at 10:54 AM on November 15, 2010