The Boydtown Shipyard has entered into a sponsorship arrangement with Eden Marine High School (EMHS) to begin building a wooden boat at the school - of a design resembling the traditional whaling vessels.

Peter Ayling, secretary and treasurer of the Boydtown Shipyard, said the objective is to teach boat building skills and ultimately provide boats that can be rowed by students or community members in rowing competitions in an international rowing class.

"The Australian Coastal Rowing Associations currently conducts such competitions," Mr Ayling said.

"The St Ayles Skiff is a 22-foot four-oared rowing boat, a design which resembles whalers that were used on Twofold Bay.

"We have underwritten the $10,000 cost of the boat to be built, commencing in term 1 of 2021," Mr Ayling said.

Interested students in years 7-10 are targeted to participate in the project, which is anticipated to take the whole school year to complete, if not part of 2022 as well.

"Assembling a kit of this size is quite a big task, students will learn many skills such as shaving edges, painting and epoxy coating and constructing the oars," Mr Ayling said.

EMHS industrial arts teacher Brendon Richards said the project would be good for confidence building.

"They're going to get woodworking and boat building skills out of it, plus a little bit of a history lesson as well, seeing as the boats are like those local whalers used to use," Mr Richards said.

Assistance is sought from community members with wooden boat building experience to mentor small groups of students, either for a morning or afternoon session on Wednesdays this term.

Please contact Peter Ayling if you would like to be involved in this community project: 0429 061 234.

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