IBTC Portsmouth

IBTC Portsmouth - building better boatbuilders: training a new generation of students in the techniques of traditional boatbuilding and other related skills, still very much required today.

Originally set up to supply skilled workers to the Norfolk and Suffolk yards, IBTC Lowestoft has been a boatbuilding training college since 1975.

We now have our new school, IBTC Portsmouth, in the cathedral like space of Boathouse 4 - building and conserving wooden vessels, re-skilling and career changing - all within the amazing Boathouse 4 building, in the Historic Dockyard, Portsmouth. From day one students will work with their tools on real projects including the opportunity to take one of the course units at the Shipwrights School in Buckers Hard on the Beaulieu Estate.

Our graduates apply their shipwright skills all over the world, not only in wooden boatbuilding but in a host of other applications including green frame timber construction and furniture making. Visit Boathouse 4 free of charge to see what our students are working on and to find out more about our hands-on courses.

A major element of the Boathouse 4 project is to link the dockyard with its local community; the Naval Base and Historic Dockyard were in the past, the major employer for the local Portsmouth area. Over the next two years we will have a varied and wide reaching programme of events and outreach workshops. If you know of an organisation which would like to be involved contact us, if you are an individual wanting to see what we are up to, come in and take a look.

As a charity, volunteers are an essential part of the team within the Boathouse 4 Project – leading demonstrations within the workshop, hosting group visits and supporting community events. Please do get in touch if this is something you’d like to be a part of too.

And don’t forget we are free to enter! Please do come into Boathouse 4 to see what our students are working on, talk to our knowledgeable volunteers about our small historic craft collection and tools involved in keeping the traditional skills alive.

UPDATE - IBTC Portsmouth due to financial reasons will be closing the collage down. Boathouse 4 will continue being open as usual.