Houdini / Luke Evans
Started in Luke's Bedroom
One of the boat designers who's work we see more and more of is John Welsford. He is responsible for a range of very attractive boats that lend themselves to a modern approach to boatbuilding.
One that is in progress in the shed at the moment is a "Houdini". Being built by Luke Evans, it is a practical and shapely boat. Luke commenced building it at home and completed all the items that were possible in a limited space, bulkheads, panels and so on. The day came however, when more space was needed to put it all together and he brought it into the Wooden Boat Centre. The work he has done so far, despite the limited facilities at hand, is of a very high quality and as the parts go together it promises to be a fine boat.
At present we can see the base in place and the bulkheads being erected. Luke is working to high standards of accuracy and as time goes by and we progressively add pictures to this introduction we will see the details of very well thought out system of boatbuilding.
A Welsford boat, by its nature, lends itself to CNC cutting and it would be possible to greatly shorten the total building time by going down that road. But Luke is demonstrating that it can all be done by hand with excellent results.