I have taught lofting workshops across the United States and in Japan. I recognize both the difficulty of mastering lofting and the tremendous advantages it offers the boat builder. In the last few years there has been a proliferation of boat plans commercially available that include full size paper patterns in lieu of lofting. I feel it is unfortunate how this limits amateur boat builders to a narrow selection of published plans, especially in light of the thousands of traditional boat designs available in books and museum collections. Furthermore, a complete lofting provides far more information than a set of patterns. The most important details include planking bevels and stem and keel rabbets.

My lofting workshops have been from two days to one week in length. At a minimum I prefer a three-day workshop. Usually with 8-10 students, in three days we can loft up to three boats. In five day workshop I have had students take a day and make a half hull model, the precursor to modern lofting, but still a useful tool when building a boat.