Divided into three parts: Building to your own design; The pleasures and perils of plywood; A miscellany of simple solutions.

This book is packed with how-to and know-how, as well as photos and drawings. Originally published in 1987, the book still has a place near and dear to many followers of the late Dynamite Payson, who still inspires folks to just get to the process of building a boat they can actually use.

Part One: Building to Your Own Design

• Learning boats
• Go Build Your Own Boat!
• Early Catastrophes
• Feeling Your Way
• Down the scale
• Subtracting the Third Dimension
• Setting up the backbone
• Molds, transom and transom knee
• Ribbands, rabbets, and frames
• Planking her up
• Striking the waterline
  
  Part Two: Pleasures and Perils of Plywood
• Why I took up with Plywood
• Dangers of the dory design
• Building the Gloucester Light Dory
• The Thomaston Galley: triple treat
• Lofting the Thomaston Galley
• The Thomaston Galley: planking up
• The Thomaston Galley: the sailing rig
  
  Part Three: The miscellany of simple solutions
• Taking her off, in fiberglass
• Tools and their maintenance
• Paints and finishes
• Sticky subject
• Spars
• Scarphing plywood
• A suit of glass armor
• Start small
• A boat owner's guide to a good night's sleep
• Signing off
  
  Glossary of Terms, and Indexby Harold "Dynamite" Payson
  114 pp., softcover