In late September, students at Sweet Tree School launched a 16-foot-long catamaran at the Hobbs Pond public landing. The boat is the newest addition to the school’s growing flotilla of three student-built boats. Paul Cartwright, who teaches our woodworking class, A.K.A. the Tinker Lab, has helped build the two previous boats and had the idea for the catamaran as a long-term project.

Seamus Kelly and I, along with help from other students and parents, began designing in April and built the boat in Tinker and on weekends over the summer.  

A catamaran is a boat that has two hulls instead of the usual one. You might have seen the big one that docked in Camden Harbor this summer.

Ours has mirrored asymmetric hulls. There were problems we had to solve as we built the boat. Paul, for example, wanted to try out a new rigging design for the sail. Instead of swinging from left to right, like a sail usually does when it tacks, our catamaran’s rig does jibes only. Basically, the entire sail flips 270 degrees over the top of the mast and comes around to the other side.

Pretty cool, right?

The boat, which has a 10-foot mast, is made of plywood and local spruce and pine. To cut the wood, we used pedal-powered bandsaws made for the school by Paul out of recycled bicycles. 

The sail we used for the launch is made out of a tarp — it’s just a test sail that let us make sure the measurements are correct. It worked well, but the material is loud in the wind and one of the seams began to tear in our second outing over the weekend. We’ll continue to use it until the final sail is sewn. 

The figureheads — a snail on each of the two bows — were made by yours truly. The boat is officially named The Sail but since puns and humor are necessary to build a boat, it has an N crossed out between the S and the A, making it The Snail. 

The other two student-made boats are the Dental Floss, which is an umiak-inspired design, and the Creativity Dragon, which is a sailing skiff.

On the day of the launch, it was rainy, so we wore raincoats and bathing suits. The launch was a success: Most of the school came to watch. Making a boat is tons of fun. I would definitely recommend it.