RiversWest Small Craft Center
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What's New

2025 Family Boat Build and Wooden Boat Festival

Our annual event, where 8 families will each build a 12 foot rowing skiff in a weekend, will be June 28 and 29 this year. A very popular weekend event, signups usually fairly quickly. If you are interested in participating, or in learning more, visit our boat build page.
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Boat kits for sale

RiversWest has recently received generous contributions of boat building kits, and a few other miscellaneous items. These are all available for purchase to RiversWest members, pricing is negotiable though we generally sell as-new items at 1/2 retail price.

If one of these boat kits strikes your fancy, you can easily save the cost of our annual membership dues (which will cover the remainder of 2022 and all of 2023). Also, if you wish to build one of these kits at our shop, we can make a special deal on the cost of renting building space
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"Eureka Canoe"

“The Eureka Canoe is the result of a collaboration between Duck Flat Wooden Boats in Adelaide and Michael Storer Design. It is built stitch and glue - a simple method where the panels are cut out and stitched together temporarily while the joins are sealed with fibreglass tape.

Generally fibreglass boats come in at about double the weight of this one and don't come anything close to being classic paddling boats. The Eureka has demonstrated that it goes a long way with modest effort and tracks well when the waves and wind are up.”

Plans from Ductworks, below. We are selling a kit of parts cut from these plans.
 
https://duckworks.com/eureka-canoe-plans/

Event calendar

And - here is another event calendar you might be interested in, published by Oregon Coots

http://coots.org/mb/index.html
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Donate to RiversWest

You can make a tax deductible donation to RiversWest right here on our website, using PayPal or a credit or debit card.

Become a member

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2010 Family Boat Build
Learn now to become a member here.​​

Since 1991, RiversWest Small Craft Center has been promoting the use of sustainable, beautiful boats built to operate on the human scale. For some of our members, that means restoring historically correct wooden boats. For others, it is a chance to design and build with the support and input of a like-minded group.

Many enjoy the camaraderie of "messing about" on the water. We all benefit from the chance to learn from one another. We are often inspired to get our hands busy building, paddling, rowing, motoring, or sailing small craft. 

RiversWest members enjoy:
  • Access to a wood shop and rental spaces for boat building and repairs.
  • Workshops in boat building, maritime crafts, and tool making.
  • Boating related social functions

RiversWest Library catalog online

RiversWest has an extensive library of books in our boat shop, oriented mainly to maritime topics. Books are available for members to borrow at any time.

We are in the process of creating an online catalog of titles to make it easier to find a title that you might be interested in. Check back occasionally as our catalog grows.

Member payments

Space rental payments click here.
​Membership renewal here

Boat Plans at RiversWest

RiversWest owns a large collection of boat building plans which are available to members. We have recently completed a catalog of the plans which can be viewed. Contact the club for a spreadsheet of this catalog if you want to more easily search for plans that might meet your build criteria.

Visit the RiversWest YouTube channel

We have a small number of videos in our channel, but we will be adding more as we record demonstrations at the shop. Visit the channel here.

Subscribe to our mailing list

You can unsubscribe at any time!

Open House
First and Third Saturdays

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The RiversWest shop is open to all every First and Third Saturday. Stop by to talk to our members, tour the shop, and get a free cup of coffee and a donut.

Some Open House meetings will also include a demonstration. These will be announced in an email a few days before the meeting, and will be listed on our calendar.

If you aren't on our email list, you can subscribe up above.

Newsletters

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You can find our newsletters here

Links

Oregon Maritime Museum
Crosscut Hardwood
​US Distributing
​Tacoma Screw
Columbia Willamette Antique Classic Boats

Connect with us on Facebook, or via email
Our boat shop address is 
8940 N Bradford St
​Portland, OR 97203

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