Product Description

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

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #59534 in Books
• Published on: 1997-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
``George Buehler is a throwback to an earlier, more self-reliant time. His theme is that it isn't necessary to build `approved' style yachts in an `approved' fashion, it is more important to get on with building and using boats!'' (American Sailor )

``With an eye to economy and ease, Buehler has modernized wooden boatbuilding processes just enough to allow even the unskilled (and underfunded) to succeed.'' (Boatbuilder )

``A rowdy, detailed, informative, sometimes profane and immensely practical compendium of boatbuilding techniques, comments and philosophy. Buehler's thumbnail descriptions. . .are as clear and concise as you will get. But best of all, Buehler believes you can have as much fun building your boat as you intend to have sailing it.'' (Sailing )

``How to build wodden boats the Buehler way; which is to say, inexpensively, yet like the proverbial brick outhouse.'' (WoodenBoat )

About the Author
George Buehler was born in Oregon in 1948, and has been messing around with boats ever since his Sainted Mother gave him a copy of Scuppers the Sailor Dog. Buehler resides with his wife and two dogs on Whidbey Island, Washington, where he is known for the sterling qualities of his friends, his kindness to stray dogs and abandoned boats, and his collection of bad habits. He's a fair shot with a pistol, and a Croquet Ace.

Customer Reviews

Great boats, great advice, but MAN, he uses a lot of wood.
The hardest thing about this book is spelling the author's name.

Buheler sets out a wonderful and simple method for building a boat--any boat. While he has some small scale plans and offsets in the book (and available from him in large scale), the strength of this book is the advice. He's "been there and done that".

His boat designs and construction methods are RUGGED. I'm not a marine engineer or naval architect, but he seems to love massive wood structures, and uses them whereever he can, even if they may not really be nessasary.

But, as he says, when things start to blow, I'm sure they're a comfort. Even if you aren't building with that in mind, read his book for the ideas. The tips on nails alone saved me lots of money.

And trust me, you'll laugh, too.

Want to build a boat? Buy this book first!
Having built a variety of dinghies, canoes and even a submarine (it sank...I was 12.) I, in so many words, know my way around a set of tools, can read plans and don't even have nightmares about lofting (much) but am feeling a bit apprehensive about starting a project that will probably span the next decade and take me through to retirement: building a 45+ foot blue water cruising yacht.

I've read a number of boat building books over the years, but I found this book, well, really useful. It not only has all the facts in it, it has some feeling. Buehler's style is very non-nonsense and while he has no issue with elegance, perfection or precision, he recognises that you may want to actually sail the thing you build. The Buehler way is get the important stuff right (that's what will keep you alive in a force 10), get on the water and enjoy it (that's why you built it, right?), then come back and build a better one! (because otherwise, you'd buy a GRP bathtub to begin with).

I really can't recommend this book enough - it's a great read that will have you laughing out loud as you learn how to make a set of chainplates which can -quite literally- rub through a dock, let alone the GRP gin palace moored next to you.

Finally, a tip: After you buy this book, read his book on Troller (not Trawler) Yachts, it will change your perspective on motor cruising forever.

THE way to build a boat.
Buehler makes sense. His construction methods are in reach of the novice, the materials common and not exotic, and the designs are hearty. After reading his book, other boats will appear overly complex, expensive, and frail. You won't want to build a boat any other way.