Tips from a Shipwright

Tips from a Shipwright is a channel about classic wooden boat building. The videos are produced by Halsey Fulton and feature master shipwright Louis Sauzedde, known to viewers as Lou, at work in his boat shop.

Most videos follow a single boat from bare timber to finished hull over many episodes. Lou explains each stage as he goes: lofting the lines at full size, making moulds, fitting the stern post, planking and fibreglassing. Alongside the long build series there are shorter tips on tools and woodworking technique, such as setting up a power planer. The pace is calm and practical, and the camera stays on the work.

Some highlights include:

An episode from the build of the boat Orca, in which Lou shapes and fits the stern post, one of the key structural parts of the hull.

Part of the build of a 23 foot V-bottom skiff, covering the first layer of fibreglass over the hull.

A complete build of a simple 15 foot plywood boat in two days, filmed as part of a maker camp.

The channel has around 199,000 subscribers.

Boat building is engineering in its oldest form. Watching a hull come together shows how drawings become full-size parts, why tolerances matter and how materials like timber, epoxy and glass fibre behave. It is a good way into marine engineering and naval architecture, and a reminder that skilled trades and apprenticeships sit right alongside engineering degrees.