Stitch-and-Glue Boats: Care, Repairs, and Upkeep
posted by
A number of years ago, I took a boatbuilding class with the fine folks at Chesapeake Light Craft in Annapolis, Maryland, where I built a stitch-and-glue Northeaster Dory. The plan was simple: row her around the flatwater impoundments of the desert Southwest, then, someday—point the bow toward Maine or the Pacific Northwest for a longer, wetter adventure.
That bigger trip hasn’t happened yet. The dings, scratches, and real-world wear, however, definitely have.
One of the great things about stitch-and-glue boats is that they’re tough, forgiving, and remarkably easy to maintain if you stay ahead of the little stuff. CLC has long been a gold standard when it comes to clear, practical advice—not just for their kits, but for small boats in general. This guide covers a handful of straightforward stitch-and-glue maintenance basics that’ll help keep your boat looking good, rowing well, and ready for wherever the next trip actually takes you.
From CLC Boats:
That FIRST scratch. You have to get that first scratch. Then it’s just a nice boat and you can get on with enjoying the water.
Kayaks and small boats will accumulate scratches and assorted contusions in the course of a season. What to do once you’ve gotten the first scratch, or the hundredth scratch?
Short answer: Not much.
Long answer? Read on.
Chesapeake Light Craft maintains an in-house fleet of some seventy kayaks, canoes, and small boats. They are display models, demo models, and prototypes. And they get used A LOT. A kayak or rowing boat in our fleet might slide on and off a gravel beach 400 times in one season. This causes shallow scratches, which we ignore for as long as we can. Usually two years.
There’s a threshold for what kinds of damage we bring into the shop for repair and what we send on to the next show. It’s an easy distinction: did the damage pierce the fiberglass and expose bare wood, or not?
How to deal with shallow scratches
If the scratch or ding doesn’t expose the bare wood, we put off repairs as long as possible. Since all ...continue reading at CLCboats