Building my First Watercraft

Actually this was not the first boat that I built. Much earlier when I was a cadet in the Royal Military College (1975) I was drafted into the watermanship club and part of the project was to build a fleet of kayaks for some open day in the college . The sickening thing was it had to be done in our "spare time" ..a commodity that we NEVER so it was done over a few Sundays. Ten years later one of my friends, Dicky Cheah showed me a similar plan for a "Cnavas covered " kayak. I borrowed the plans and traced the full sized bulkheads. At that time I did not even have a jig saw but I know of a Dr Wee who had one. So after seeing the plans he decided that he wanted one as well. Over several evenings we cut the bulkheads and used cheap ceiling wood for making a basic frame. I got some old lorry canvas to be used as the skin of the kayak. Before long the kayak was ready. It was a very stable boat and I had a lot of fun with it. Sometime I would carry a passenger in the boat too. The total cost of building that boat was probably less than RM 100. So boat building need not be complicated or expensive! Just the will to do it!