VENDIA sails to the seas

Students of Etelä-Kymenlaakso Vocational College, Paavo Koivisto and Jouko Pohjolainen, are currently building a coastal rowing boat made of VENDIA marine plank. The goal of boatbuilders is to get the boat ready for the Helsinki International Boat Show in February 2015.

Picture from the left, boatbuilding student Jouko Pohjolainen and the teachers Tapio Lindholm and Pasi Hietala.

Koivisto and Pohjolainen are currently building the boat of 12 mm VENDIA marine plank. The boatbuilders are of the opinion that the thinner VENDIA, such as 9 mm would be also suitable for this kind of boat. However, thickness of the marine plank increases the stability of a coastal rowing boat and therefore they decided to go with the 12 mm VENDIA. Experiences of the boatbuilders have been positive. Beautiful appearance and workability came first to mind of Koivisto and Pohjolainen. They also liked the knot-free surface since there is no need to patch up branches like in the normal plank board.

Comments of the boatbuilding teachers from the Etelä-Kymenlaakso Vocational College were also positive. “Good looking material”, said the teachers. According to the teachers high-quality traditional plank boards are very hard to find and VENDIA marine plank is considered as a welcome novelty for wooden boatbuilding. When building a wooden boat it is ideal to find marine planks as long as the boat is. Unfortunately in case of six-meter-long wooden boats this is not possible in most cases. This was a concern of the teachers.

There are two restrictive factors to get the six-meter-long marine plank. First, there isn’t such long slicer in the world. Another limitation is related to the delivery costs. Costs of packaging and transportation of six-meter-long planks would rise up to fivefold compared to three-meter-long packages.

VENDIA marine plank is available in lengths of 2 600 mm and 3 000 mm. Scarf jointing is easy and simple way to lengthen a marine plank. Thanks to VENDIA’s thick face veneer the scarf joint is quite undetectable. From the pictures above you can easily see the appearance of scarf joints when VENDIA marine plank is used.