Williamstown High School students have hit the water in boats built with their own hands, using little more than a piece of plywood.
A group of year 9 students recently tested their rowing boats at Williamstown beach after completing a semester-long boatbuilding course.
Woodwork teacher Arthur Bersee said the students were challenged to build a boat from little more than a sheet of plywood, making their own adaptations and modifications.
Crafts created by the students included a one-sheet ply dinghy and a boat powered by an electric engine made from two windscreen-wiper motors.
“We launched two newly constructed rowing dinghies and displayed the powered and sailing versions of the same craft. This is an occasion in which our boatbuilders take immense pride.”
Boatbuilding has an added significance at Williamstown High, Mr Bersee said.
“The school motto reads ‘hold fast’, written underneath a symbolic anchor.’’
Mr Bersee got the idea to build boats with students while teaching maths and woodwork at another secondary college.
“The students were doing very good work in woodwork but weren’t so keen on maths,” he said.
“As most boatbuilding plans still specify measurements in feet and inches, I thought I could boost the students’ confidence and understanding of what measurement and units of measurement are by giving them a new start.
“While they hadn’t had much luck with the metric system, they learnt techniques and units of measurement that other students had never heard of.
“Boatbuilding has spin-offs for literacy also because it brings with it a vocabulary and terminology of its own.”
