A worker wearing a bandana sands a large curved panel on a wooden workbench in a woodworking shop.

Boat Building & Repair

Bates Technical College Builds Boat Builders

Spring 2009

By Mike Barker

Above: At Bates Technical College, their vacuum infusion project is still in the tooling stages. Student Shawn Hanna fairs the hull plug—a labor-intensive job and a tough one to get the students to focus on.

Boatbuilding instructor Chuck Graydon of Bates Technical College sent these photos of some projects that its students have been working on using WEST SYSTEM® Epoxy.

Bates Technical College is located in Tacoma, Washington. They offer several boatbuilding and repair programs designed to prepare students for apprentice-level employment in the boat building industry and ultimately fill positions in shipyards, marinas, and private boat building companies.

Object: a long curved hull (likely a surfboard) on a wooden stand. Action: a man in a cap smooths/finishes it with a tool. Context: bright workshop with tables and tools.

Tall, striped wooden surfboard stands upright as a person lifts and examines it in a spacious workshop filled with tools, tables, and curved foam forms in the background.

Their students obtain experience through extensive hands-on training in the construction of wood and fiberglass boats and are prepared for employment as aluminum fabricators, fiberglass laminators, wood and fiberglass tool makers, joiners, and marine carpenters. The program also provides extended learning opportunities for persons previously or currently employed in the industry.

Man stands in a woodworking shop beside wooden canoes on stands; he rests a hand on the canoe as sawhorses support boats, with shelves and tools visible in background. Text seen: on the man's shirt, large red letters read "SPD" (small text above is illegible).

One of the students is building a plywood-hulled hydrofoil, with high-density foam and WEST SYSTEM Epoxy. It has fiberglass composite struts and wings.

They offer an Associate of Technology Degree and Certificates of Competency that cover basic boat building design and construction, and either fiberglass boat building and repair or wood/composite boat building.

Shorter programs are available that target the specific training areas of basic boat building design and construction, fiberglass boat building and repair, or wood/composite boat building. And, they offer continuing education classes, providing individual evening courses to cover specific topics related to boat building.

Graydon says students enjoy the versatility of being able to use appropriate hardeners for different situations, and various fillers and thickening agents mixed to customize to the project. “Our students have come to rely on the predictability and consistency of results they get for any number of applications on a daily basis.”

Visit the Bates Technical College website for more details.