News

VENDIA marine plank has been popular material among boatbuilding courses in Finland. One of the courses was held in Suonenjoki, in Northern Savonia. During last October and November the course had completed seven wooden boats made of VENDIA marine plank. The course lasted a month and the participants made all the boats together. Surface finishing for the boats will be done in the spring when they also will be raffled among the builders. At the beginning of summer the course participants will get to try the new boats to the Savonian lake scenery.

Canadian-born boatbuilder Jorma Hangas fiddled VENDIA marine plank on VENDIA´s presentation stand in Sulkava Rowing Race on July 2014 and he said: “Oh, I wish this had been invented 45 years ago!” The owner of the Finnish boatyard Juvan Veneveistämö Ky Jorma Hangas started to build wooden boats in 1966 and since then he has been building numerous wooden boats for customers in Finland, Nordic countries and Germany. At best, he has built 30 boats per year. To this day he has built altogether honourable number of approximately 1000 boats.

VENDIA has drawn attention on the international markets once again. Wooden Boat magazine published a very interesting article about VENDIA marine plank in November/December 2014 issue. The article was written by Richard Jagels, an expert in a field of woodworking industry and emeritus professor of forest biology at the University of Maine.

Students of Etelä-Kymenlaakso Vocational College, Paavo Koivisto and Jouko Pohjolainen, are currently building a coastal rowing boat made of VENDIA marine plank. The goal of boatbuilders is to get the boat ready for the Helsinki International Boat Show in February 2015.

VENDIA has drawn attention also on the international markets. Recently a British Water Craft magazine published an article about VENDIA marine plank. Chairman of the Wooden Boatbuilders Trade Association, Nick Newland contacted us to make this article about the new interesting product for wooden boatbuilding. In this article Nick compares the differences between VENDIA marine plank and traditional rotary cut plywood and also tells his own opinions about this new marine plank.

In early August we introduced a wooden boat made by Boatyard Ruotsalainen from Nurmes, Finland. In late summer Ruotsalainen also built a motorboat of 9 mm VENDIA marine plank. Therefore, VENDIA is also very suitable for building a wooden motorboat.