Take a few sheets of plywood, cut them to shape from scaled up, carefully drawn plans, smear on a little glue, drive a couple of handfuls of small nails, stir up a mess of paint, and presto!-you have built an Instant Boat.

 Read the first page

See all of Harold Payson's designs at Instantboats.com.

In this post you will see that I have begun glassing the bottom of the Corsair 13.  As I stated in earlier posts, I initially used 8" tape on all of the outer seams.  Afterwards, I proceded to cutthe hole on the bottom for the daggerboard. 

Because of the cold weather and many other distractions, I haven't been able to devote as much time lately as I would have liked.  However, I am back to work again and this past weekend I was able to complete the application of fiberglass cloth on the entire hull of the boat.  In the pictures that I have attached, you will see photos taken from different angles depicting the completion of the first coat of epoxy. So far I am very pleased with my joints and especially the bow joint. At the bottom of the bow stem you will probably notice that the epoxy is a little thicker.  I actually mixed up a batch of epoxy and thickened it so that I could shape the area where the bow joint and the bottom of the boat meet.  This extended the length of the bow point by about 1.5" from the point of the bow down to the front point of the bottom panels.

Terri helped pound ring nails in to secure the side decks. I put some waterproof RTV in between the deck and coaming to keep water out. I will putty the nail heads and get the deck ready for painting.

If you're like me, Woodenboat magazine is a favorite read. Their web site has lots of articles and great information but it also has full downloads for some of their back issues. The photography is top-notch and the boats are great. Some say that the magazine caters to east coast builders but it could be that there are just more of them back there.

 Web site for the magazine, Small Craft Advisor has a great message board, photo gallery and web articles. You can also download back issues for $5.95.

I came across this site while reading about Charlie Whipple's wooden boat Resolution. Whipple built a Sundowner, a 21' plywood composit boat which tragiclly was lost on the rocks on her first voyage. You can read about what happened and see video on the Duckworks site here.

With Terri's help, I was able to get the patterns made and cut out the 2 pieces of 3/8" thick marine plywood that will become the froward deck.

Before we glue, screw and nail the deck down, I want to put the side deck pieces on so they can all be done on the same day.

Mounting the side coamings was hot, sweaty work because they were rather thick (7/8", a bit thicker than the nominal 3/4" I was expecting!). After some persuasion, I got the side ones into place and mounted the forward coaming.

They will be cut down to conform to the lines of the deck and give a more unified appearance.

For now, I am going to concentrate on getting the mast support in between frames 1 & 2 at the deck level so OI can start getting the deck into place.

I began work on the deck beams and have been planing them down to receive the deck and planning ahead a little.


There is a lot of details to consider and one thing that I had over looked was to put the mast step in before I put the deck beams in. This is not a problem but I stopped wok on the beams to get it in today.

Trimmed down the sides, cutting the excess plywood above the shear and the excess frame. Working on the very front of the boat, the bow stem. Trying to decide how high to leave it.

Terri helped me paint the inside and apply 2 coats over the last 2 days. It looks great and is ready for the next step of cutting the excess from the side panels and frame pieces. This will allow me to prepare the sides to receive the deck beams. More on that later.


Not sure why the camera gave it 2 different shades but the true color is the bottom pic.