PHBYC Summer Messabout 2007 - Press Release

Amateur Boatbuilders Club Mess About at Taal Lake

“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing — absolute nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing... about in boats”
- "The Wind in the Willows", by Kenneth Grahame

24 March 2007, Talisay, Batangas - A local club of amateur boat builders gathered at the Taal Lake to showcase to the public the joys and possibilities of building and sailing home made boats. The group paraded a flotilla of 12 different kinds of homemade sailboats and motorboats of different sizes from 8ft to 22 feet in length.

The Club, known as Philippine Home Boatbuilders Yacht Club (PHBYC) held their first event for 2007 at the Taal Lake Yacht Club in Talisay, Batangas called “Summer Messabout 2007”. Aside from showing off the members’ creations, the Club also built a boat on site and completed it in one day to show visitors to the event how easy it is to build a boat.

Visitors to the messabout were treated to rides on sailboats that were built by members of PHBYC, while other visitors who were interested in building their own boats participated in building a 15-foot canoe. The canoe was finished, painted and launched on the same day. The lofting and pre-cutting of the plywood panels by PHBYC members prior to the event speeded up the building process. At the end of the day, the canoe-building participants were able to take turns paddling the canoe that they helped build around Taal Lake.

The PHBYC is an informal organization of amateur boat builders and boating enthusiasts, which aims to promote the sailing and boating to the general public through practical boat building. It is also the country’s first virtual yacht club.

Up until now most people thought of boating as an expensive hobby, primarily because the cost of factory built boats can be very prohibitive for the average income earner. Homebuilt boats however, are just as good as production boats and costs are way lower, especially if the owner uses locally available materials and does the building himself. According to Mr. Roy Espiritu one of PHBYC’s members; “Boat building and sailing are great activities for the whole family. Quality boat building materials such as wood and epoxy are available in the Philippines at much lower prices than it is in most parts of the World, and our country has great year-round sailing weather, these and the fact that sailing is the most economical way of seeing the Philippines 7000+ islands as there are no fuel charges or toll fees to worry about. With these facts in mind, not only does boat building and sailing in the Philippines makes sense, it makes you wonder why more Filipinos haven’t taken it up.”

Plans for various kinds of boats are available from various sources on the Internet, from simple canoes and kayaks to motorized runabouts to ocean capable cabin sailboats. Most PHBYC members built their boats from such plans purchased from the Internet, while some of the more seasoned builders designed and built their own.

PHBYC’s Summer Messabout 2007 is a prequel the Club’s next event in April, called the “Family Boatbuilding Weekend” wherein Families and groups of friends, all of whom have had little or no experience in boat building or carpentry for that matter, will be building a boat over the course of two days. That same boat that they built will also be launched in the water at the end of the weekend.