By
Eve Wackett
Buffalo State
College Watercraft Studies, an 18-hour academic
minor incorporating watercraft research, design, and construction
has grown from an idea to offer an alternative to furniture
design to a major part of a proposed Maritime Center.
John S. Montague, PhD, professor
of technology, teaches boat building and design techniques
to college students and other community members as well.
One day in 1988, Dr. Montague asked his basic furniture
design class if they would prefer to build a kayak to practice
the traditional dovetail joints, and the class, including12
women said yes.
“The next semester we built 15 kayaks,”
Montague said. “Each student, at the end of the semester,
had a 15-foot kayak they were able to take from the class.
It became very popular; we eventually developed a boat building
minor, including boat design and naval architecture.”
The Center
for Watercraft Studies worked with Bayfront
Center for Maritime Studies (BCMS) of Pennsylvania to
build replicas of the Erie Boat;
a 28-foot, two-masted wooden boat that was an indigenous
fishing boat along Lake Erie's southern
shore in the mid to late 19th century. BSC’s Erie
Boat took its maiden voyage November 2002. BSC and BCMS
plan to race the two boats this summer. The center is involved
in several other community projects also.
Since the early 1990s the center has helped
at-risk inner-city children to build self-esteem through
boat building. Sea Fever, a non-profit
organization for at-risk-youth, is the name of one of the
programs Dr. Montague is helping to develop.
“We have worked with several organizations
including the Native
American Magnet School-P.S. 19 and Children’s
Hospital,” Montague said.
The Maritime Center plans
include the development of a boat-building facility to provide
space for the construction of watercraft projects by the
college and community groups and a historic watercraft museum
to preserve the region’s nautical heritage and the
college’s significant historic watercraft collection
for future generations.
“We have a collection of about 30 boats
that will form the core of the museum,” Montague said.
“As soon as the space on the waterfront is available,
we have many more pieces from around the community to add
to the collection.”
The plans for the Maritime Center will broaden
the ability for the college and community outreach programs
to succeed providing waterfront access with educational
and environmental influence on several levels.
The adult boat-building project is currently
working on a prototype for a 27-foot solar-electric powered
harbor taxi to be used along the Buffalo waterfront. They
first worked on a launch for the Lifeboat, a replica of
the first 1850 Americas Cup sailboat.
The center plans to have several programs
revolving around the arrival of a replica of the freedom
schooner Amistad
sponsored by Mystic
Seaport. The freedom ship is scheduled to arrive in
the Buffalo Harbor September 10 –
14. For more info click here: http://www.amistadamerica.org
“We plan to bring in a group
of foster children and build half models around the Amistad
theme.” Montague said. “Hopefully, when the
ship gets to the harbor, we can take the foster kids on
the actual boat.”
Dr. Montague has contributed to the books
“The Six Hour Canoe” and “The Weekend
Skiff” as well as maintaining a relationship with
Wooden
Boat Magazine.
For some additional information on wood boat
building see the following links:
http://www.boat-links.com/six-hour.html
http://www.herknperk.com/
myboatsweekendskiff.htm
http://www.herknperk.com/id25.htm
http://www.oswego.edu/~waite/
sixhourcanoe/welcome.html
(List of needed materials)
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