Dan Wendt and the Craft of Becoming a Boat Builder

Recently certified Boat Builder Dan Wendt with a work in progress - a Wherry Yawl - built using the skill of lofting, taught in the apprenticeship program

When Dan Wendt talks about becoming a certified Boat Builder, he’s quick to laugh at the paperwork still catching up with him. He does have his NSBA "Certified Boat Builder" hat, awarded upon completion of the curriculum. "The hat, though," he points out, "for me, that's the thing. When you can wear the hat, then you're a boat builder," he jokes. For Wendt, who works in the boat shop at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, certification is less a finish line than a milestone along a much longer path.

Wendt completed his certification through the wooden boat building stream, bringing with him years of experience in heritage carpentry and museum work. A graduate of NSCC's heritage carpentry program, Wendt says there's an emphasis on "treating old structures carefully and respectfully to try and retain their value." This translated well into wooden boat building, where treating old things as something worth saving rather than replacing has become his full-time job.

His heritage wood work consulting and contracting work led to a tour guide job at the Maritime Museum. "I always was interested" in boat building, he says. He started to visit the boat shop to watch and question Eamonn Doorly, himself a boat builder, while he worked.

Over time, curiosity turned into mentorship. Learning to sharpen chisels, helping with restorations, and eventually building small boats with kids planted the seed. “That’s where I got the bug,” he says.

Formalizing that interest into an apprenticeship came naturally once he was working full-time on museum programming. His apprenticeship was completed alongside real museum work: repairing the main mast yardarm on Acadia, shaping massive laminated timbers with scarf joints, steam-bending ribs, lofting hulls from plans, and building a traditional wherry from start to finish.

Wendt steam-bent the ribs on this vessel, called Electron, as part of his apprenticeship

Other projects ranged from historically faithful wooden boats to modern stitch-and-glue designs made from CNC-cut plywood—perfect for teaching young people core boatbuilding concepts without intimidating joinery.

Wendt describes wooden boat building as both technical and deeply intuitive. Plans and manuals can only take you so far. "In wooden boat building," he says, "there's so many things that aren't on the page that you kind of have to stand back and get experience to train yourself to see if it looks 'right' or not." Looks are inseparable from function: if a boat doesn’t look right, people won’t trust it. That's the intuitive part of boat building, and it depends on sharing knowledge and experience between boat builders. "That's kind of the magic," says Wendt, "I find it's an oral tradition as well...I'm talking to another boat builder, and there's not necessarily one way of doing a thing, right? So that's what I find really cool about wooden boat building."

Wendt builds these Bird-class dinghy sailboats with groups of kids as an introduction to wooden boatbuilding and woodwork

Despite earning his certification, Wendt is candid about feeling in some ways like he’s just starting. "I really have to say this: I feel very much at the beginning of my boat building career," he says. "I've got a good foundation and good building, and I have the confidence to do it, but there's so much problem solving as you go that you can't prepare for it unless you've done it a hundred times."

Teaching has become a crucial part of his growth. Working with kids forces him to slow down, explain instinctive actions, and be intentional about every cut and tool choice. In doing so, he’s become a better builder. Solidifying his knowledge is improving his current and future work.

"I feel the rest with be just experience," he says, "it will come."

And when the sun comes out at the Halifax Harbour waterfront, Wendt will reach for his new hat.