Japanese Wooden Boatbuilding

Take a vicarious apprenticeship in the building of traditional Japanese wooden boats, wasen, with Japanese Wooden Boatbuilding. Douglas Brooks, a Rare Craft Fellowship awardee and specialist in the construction of traditional wooden boats, is a fascinating guide to this craft.But you’ll also find plenty to interest you if you are interested in Japanese culture or simply interested in how skills are transmitted via immersive apprenticeships.

Brooks chronicles how Japan’s 20th century modernization caused the demand for traditional boats to decline, leaving the last generation of boatbuilders without apprentices to carry on their craft. Enter Brooks, who embarks upon apprenticeships with five Japanese masters, each dedicated to building a distinct and endangered type of traditional watercraft. Serving as the sole apprentice to each craftsman, Brooks trained within a time-honored system where learning began with sweeping floors and sharpening tools, progressing primarily through observation and minimal direct instruction.

Part ethnography, part practical guide, and part personal memoir, the book chronicles one wooden boatbuilder’s passion to preserve a vanishing tradition. It fills a long-standing gap in the study of Japanese craftsmanship and will captivate boatbuilders, woodworkers, and anyone inspired by the artistry and precision of Japanese design.

Very sturdy trade paperback with full-color pictures throughout the book.

This entrancing book reveals a world of sleek, practical forms perfected over centuries, of dedicated craftsmanship practiced today by just a few. Douglas Brooks's precious record of that world is is dense with information, beautifully designed, and highly readable. - Louise Cort, Curator, Smithsonian Institution, and author of A Basketmaker in Rural Japan
An invaluable record of vanishing watercraft and the ways in which they are made, and a compelling record of a personal journey of dis-covery. Lavishly illustrated and lovingly wrought, it belongs on the shelf of anyone with more than a passing interest in the craft of wooden boat building.
- John Summers, WoodenBoat magazine