Ancient Web: Hannu's Boatyard Squeezed Boats From Plywood Sheets

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.

Hannu Vartiala's boatbuilding site begins with a wonderfully unreasonable engineering challenge: can you make a usable boat from one sheet of plywood?

Visit Hannu's Boatyard

The collection is an archive of free plans, photographs, design arguments, construction techniques, and little boating stories. Most of the core pages give their own publication dates, many reaching back to 2003. The main page records its last update as December 20, 2017, but the old plans and commentary remain where readers can follow them.

The plans are grouped by appetite for plywood: one sheet, one and a half sheets, slightly larger boats, and extremely small boats. The site cautions that simple one-sheet designs are intended for protected waters, not ambitious offshore adventures.

How small can a boat get?

One early project is Simbo, a single-sheet boat whose first posted instructions are dated September 30, 2003. Another is an eighteen-foot one-sheet canoe nicknamed the Dug, listed in the same year. Other pages describe a sampan, little dories, a runabout called Sled, and the Micro Auray Punt.

The site does not offer plans without explaining the reasoning. An April 2003 project called Prism explores maximizing displacement from a single sheet, while a June 2003 stability discussion links to a downloadable righting-moment calculator. The tortured-plywood essay challenges common assumptions about bending sheet material into boat forms.

Vartiala's interests eventually extend beyond plywood efficiency. There are notes about sculling-oar length, curved handrails, paint, moisture movement in wood, boat leaks, and the structural behavior of wooden hulls. Several gallery links show results from people building or photographing the designs.

The footer identifies the author as Hannu Vartiala and preserves a 2002–2009 copyright period for the material. It explicitly restricts commercial reuse. The elaborate disclaimer also has a point: building and using boats carries real risks, and the plans are not a substitute for competence, safety gear, and judgment.

What makes Hannu's Boatyard memorable is its independence. No login, no subscription course, and no promise to turn a hobby into a hustle. Just a patient mind looking at a plywood sheet and wondering what might float.

Browse the one-sheet boat plans and Simbo's original instructions.

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.