I'm working with 18 kids from my high school to build 8 McKenzie River Drift Boats this year. Each year we teachers have one week where we can lead special projects. I've always wanted to build boats with kids so I decided to give this a try. Frankly, it's an ambitious project and I'm not sure how we'll get it all done in one week but I am sure we'll learn a lot and have a good time.
I picked the McKenzie Drift Boat because I wanted the kids to have something really useful at the end of the week. Here in Oregon there are lots of places where you can use a boat like this for fishing or drifting. It's an easy boat to build requiring no interior framing and it's all done with stitch & glue.
I picked the Riverman Design by Jeff Spira because it seemed to be just the right size and looked to be simple enough for a first time project for the kids.
Our first step was to build scale models of the boat using poster board. I gave the kids 6 sheets of 4in. x 8in. boards and we transfered the lines to cut the panels for the boat. They used the same construction sequence in building the scale boats that they'll use when they build the real ones. We first scarfed up 4 pieces to make the bottom of the boat and we used butt blocks to create the sides. Those of us who were exact with our measuring and cutting got perfect fits with our panels when they were put together. Those who were a bit sloppy got very mixed results. A good first lesson learned.
Our next steps will be to get the wood (60 sheets of 1/2in. ply) and setup shop in the school gym. That will happen next month. Meanwhile, we can all dream of lazy summer days drifting Oregon's rivers.