Adventures

October 2024

A Solar-Powered Cruise on Lake Nipigon

A two-week cold-water cruise through the islands

Two friends set out in a Whitehall-style open boat for a 15-day, early-season island-hopping cruise on the chilly waters of Ontario’s Lake Nipigon.

September 2024

A Sail-and-Oar Cruise in the San Juans   

Two days away in a Haven 12 1⁄2

A fair forecast provided the ideal opportunity for an early-season shakedown cruise in a Haven 12 1⁄2 through the northern chain of the San Juan Islands.

August 2024

Return to the Texas 200

In 2017, Roger Siebert took part in his first Texas 200 and completed the challenging 200-mile course. While he returned in 2024 with more experience and first-hand knowledge of the waters he would be sailing, it was no guarantee of success.

Small Boats Annual 2008

The 2007 Small Reach Regatta

A portfolio of small boats

For the 2007 Small Reach Regatta, the waters off WoodenBoat swarmed with small boats for three days. Read the recap of that inaugural event.

July 2024

Boatbuilding in the Woods

Off the road and off the grid, a scow takes shape in the forest

First-time boatbuilder Greg Goodman set up camp on a family-owned piece of land in the heart of a western-Michigan forest, created a workshop under a tarp, and built a flat-bottomed scow of his own design, learning valuable lessons along the way.

June 2024

The Erie Canal by Canoe

A solo voyage along the 19th-century commercial waterway

Hugh Rand launched his solo canoe at the westernmost end of the Erie Canal and paddled the 363 miles to its easternmost end. The 19-day voyage took him through 19 guard gates and 35 locks.

May 2024

A Faering of His Own

Pursuing Viking traditions in upstate New York

Craig Hohm’s affection for Viking ships and Norwegian workboats led him to build a 19’ faering, starting with trees from his woodland lot and using many traditional methods.

April 2024

CROW’s Last Sail

Building a boat fit for a voyage into the unknown

A lifelong dream to sail the Atlantic will become real, posthumously, in a purpose-built, self-steering, square-rigged adaptation of the Bolger-designed Micro.

March 2024

The Åland Islands

Sailing Finland's labyrinthine archipelago

The Åland archipelago is a small-boat paradise, with hundreds of islands and little traffic. The summer days are long and the nights cool. A German couple live out their voyaging dream under sail and oar.

February 2024

Backcountry Boatbuilding

Marooned on a Maine island, two cousins build an escape vessel and sail home

Tyler Sauter and Ross Beane wanted to see if they could use minimal tools and supplies to build a boat seaworthy enough to carry them both safely home if they were stranded on an uninhabited island off the coast of Maine.

January 2024

Lake Roosevelt

A summertime singlehanded cruise

For Bob Van Putten, traveling down the Columbia River’s Lake Roosevelt was a voyage of discovery through remote landscapes and scorching summer heat.

December 2023

The Heart of a Cruiser

One man's journey from long-distance rowing to shorter motor-sailing cruises

For many years, Alex Zimmerman has enjoyed long-distance solo rowing adventures along the British Columbia coast, but he was forced to rethink both the boat and the voyage plans when he was diagnosed with AFib.

November 2023

SEVENTY48

A race of endurance in the Pacific Northwest

Sam Hendrix entered the SEVENTY48 for a second time in 2022 and rowed solo from Tacoma to Port Townsend, covering roughly 70 miles of Washington’s Puget Sound.

October 2023

An Electric Journey to Knight Inlet

Exploring the wild beauty of British Columbia

Two friends explore the islands and inlets of the British Columbia coast in a solar-powered 20’ Whitehall.

MUSTELID – Episode 7

Introduction to the Venture

In this installment, we are getting ready to cruise, intending to row and sail around Chichagof Island, a distance of about 450 nautical miles—if we were to limit ourselves to the straight and narrow. But first we recap a change of venue, from the Southern Admiralty Wilderness site where we built MUSTELID to our home port of Tenakee Springs, Alaska,…

September 2023

Jim Schroer

An inexhaustible spirit

The late Jim Schroer took the road less traveled and gathered a wealth of skills and experiences that far exceeded what most would even dream possible.

August 2023

From Birchbark to Trucker’s Tarp

A traditional canoe with a contemporary twist

One man’s passion for birchbark canoes led him to make his own tools and to handcraft a canoe in a traditional manner but without the bark skin.

July 2023

MUSTELID

An unconventional Alaskan camp-cruiser

A couple in Southeast Alaska built a 24’ sail-and-oar plywood cruiser to pursue a life among the islands and waterways that are their home.

June 2023

Pontchartrain and Maurepas

Sailing the estuarine lakes of Louisiana

Peter Sawyer takes his Norwalk Islands Sharpie sailing across Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas, two vast brackish lakes trapped in Louisiana’s Mississippi River Delta.

May 2023

My Texas 200

A five-day sail-and-oar raid along the Texas coast

David Zumwalt joined a fleet of 80 sail-and-oar boats in a five-day raid along 200 miles of the Texas coast. Sailing his home-built cat-ketch, REDWING, on her first long voyage, he endured equipment failures and mud banks.

April 2023

Sunlight’s Wake

An inland cruise aboard SOUL CAT, a solar-powered catamaran

Phil Boyer takes us along on his west-to-east return journey on Ontario’s Trent-Severn Waterway, becoming the first to do the out-and-back trip, solo, in an all-solar-powered boat.

March 2023

A Sneakbox on the Gulf Coast

Rowing and sailing from New Orleans to Cedar Key, Florida

After rowing down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, Christopher Cunningham arrives at the Gulf of Mexico for the last leg of his 2,400-mile sneakbox adventure.

February 2023

A Sneakbox on the Mississippi

850 miles from Cairo, Illinois, to New Orleans, Louisiana

After rowing his sneakbox down the Ohio River, Christopher Cunningham continues on the Lower Mississippi River, hoping to outrun the advance of winter’s cold.

January 2023

A Sneakbox on the Ohio

980 miles from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Cairo, Illinois

Inspired by “Four Months in a Sneakbox,” Nathaniel H. Bishop’s account of a 2,500-mile cruise in the winter of 1875, Christopher Cunningham built a sneakbox and followed Bishop’s route from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Cedar Key, Florida. In this first of three installments he takes on the 980 miles of the Ohio River.

December 2022

Rowing the Broughton Archipelago

A British Columbia cruise

The myriad islands between Vancouver Island and the intricate mainland coast of British Columbia provided a rower and a paddler with unspoiled waterways shared with orcas and humpback whales.