A Teaching Boatwright

In addition to working day in and day out as a professional woodworker, Eric has been teaching traditional boatbuilding skills since the mid 1980’s, in particular, traditional lapstrake construction. 

His teachings have taken him to Canada, Maine, and the Netherlands, as well as Seattle and Port Townsend. 

He has led dozens of student teams through the entire process of lapstrake and carvel boatbuilding, from design and lofting, template making, backbone construction, planking, framing, interior joinerwork and small boat rigging.

Eric shares with his students the same passion and affinity that he found for wooden boatbuilding as a trade school student many years ago.

Hvalsoe is available for private tutelage, as well as seminars. He encourages people to consider designing their own class based on a particular skill or set of skills that they wished to learn, such (but not limited to) as varnishing, painting, lofting, setting up a backbone, cold-molding, fitting out a boat, sparmaking, steam bending or laminating frames or planking.

Hvalsoe has taught at:

• The Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle, Wash.
• Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding, Port Townsend, Wash.
• The Wooden BoatSchool, Brooklin, Maine
• Cowichan Bay Maritime Centre, Cowichan Bay, British Columbia
• MeanyMiddle School, Seattle, Wash.
• Zuiderzee Boat Workshop in Enkhuizen, Netherlands.

 

 

 (Above) Everybody loves lapstrake boats.