Wallabout Channel Community Rowing--winter boat building project

This project is a collaboration between the Village Community Boathouse, which is based on Pier 40 in Manhattan; Benjamin Banneker Academy, which is a public high school in Brooklyn; and the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Last fall we launched a school and community rowing program at the Navy Yard using a boat borrowed from Manhattan; now the idea is to start a separate fleet in Brooklyn. Beginning in January, we hope to build a 25-foot wooden rowing gig--a traditional, fixed seat, four-oared rowing boat--either in or near the Navy Yard.

With a good workspace and a committed corps of builders, we should be able to complete a gig in 8-10 weeks. We plan to offer at at least two building sessions a week, one primarily for high school students and the other for adult volunteers. We estimate total costs to be around $2500.

Find a suitable workspace--ideally a vacant storefront--and make arrangements to heat the space during work sessions.  

Purchase the materials (plywood, epoxy and miscellaneous supplies).

Begin twice-a-week community building sessions lasting 8-10 weeks.

Sand, paint and name the completed boat.

Launch the boat at Wallabout Channel around the end of April or beginning of May.

Time frame: three months.

We want to introduce young people to the joys or rowing and boatbuilding; expand access to the harbor for residents of North Brooklyn; and foster the growth of a local stewardship movement that will result in the ecological restoration of what was once Wallabout Creek.