Traditional boatbuilding course at Escuela Pancho Lasso, Arrecife, 5-30 October

Traditional wooden boatbuilding, known in the Canaries as carpinteria de ribera, is returning to the classroom in Arrecife. The Orden del Cachorro Canario has set up an intensive course with the Escuela de Arte Pancho Lasso, titled Trazado y Maquetismo Naval, aimed at passing on the techniques of a trade now practised by only a handful of people on the island.

The teacher is Agustin Jordan Romero, one of the last master shipwrights in Lanzarote, who has designed and built close to forty traditional wooden vessels during his career. The syllabus begins with the fundamentals of naval lofting, the drawing out of a hull's lines, and moves into hands-on work: students will help assemble the frames of a two-metre boat, built in marine sheet.

The course runs to eighty teaching hours, spread from 5 to 30 October 2026, Monday to Friday, in the afternoon, from 16:00 to 20:00. There are twelve places, open to anyone interested regardless of age or previous training.

Enrolment is open and closes on 30 September. Registration must be done in person at the Escuela de Arte Pancho Lasso, between 09:00 and 13:00, with a single fee of 30 euros. If applications exceed the number of places, they will be allocated strictly in order of arrival. Materials and insurance are covered by the organisers.

A craft that never had a textbook

Boatbuilding on this coast was learned standing next to the master, on the sand, watching how a plank was bent and how a curve was drawn by eye. Once fishing boats stopped being built by hand, that chain of transmission broke. That is what makes eighty hours alongside someone who has built forty boats worth the thirty euros. Anyone living on the island with free afternoons in October should apply early: with twelve places assigned on a first-come basis, the queue matters more than the application.