Boat Profile

March 2016

Fliptail 7

Wooden Widget's compact folding dinghy

If you live on an island, owning a small boat is as sensible as owning a car, unless you live on Manhattan Island, where neither makes sense. One apartment dweller discovered the Fliptail 7, a folding sailing dinghy, fits in his closet and aboard public transit.

March 2016

Eco 5 Power Cat

A catamaran for cozy cruising

While it’s sometimes said that the moment you’ve stepped aboard boat you’ve arrived, there are times when you’d like to go somewhere. The Eco 5 Power Cat can take you places quickly, quietly, and economically.

February 2016

Passagemaker Dinghy

A rich man's tender, a poor man's yacht?

What started out as a design for a motor-yacht tender finished up as a versatile pram that is as well suited for motoring, sailing, and rowing as it for gracing a pair of davits.

February 2016

Storm 23

A stylish and distinctive double-ender

Tacking off the timeless, craggy coast of Devon, the Storm 23 looked decidedly unconventional, even kooky, and yet there was something about her that inspired confidence: a purposeful air, a look of intent, almost of defiance.

January 2016

The Cackler

A 14' hunting skiff

The Cackler from Devlin Designing Boat Builders is a contemporary outboard hunting skiff that can carry a heavy load, manage rough water and get hunters, dogs, and decoys out and back at a good clip. Its uncluttered cockpit make it a versatile utility skiff.

January 2016

The Adirondack Guideboat

Strip-built in cedar, spruce, and pine

The original Adirondack guideboats were designed in the middle of the 19th century to take paying customers hunting and fishing the interconnected lakes, ponds, and streams of Upstate New York. The elegant strip-built version of this swift rowing boat makes rowing for its own sake a profitable venture.

December 2015

Calendar Islands Yawl

A boat that almost builds itself

Clint Chase’s new 15’ 6” daysailer, sized to get planks from pairs of scarfed-together sheets of plywood, is designed to make the most of its sailing capability without compromising the pleasure of rowing.

December 2015

Penguin

The comforts of home in a 21' trailer yacht

John Welsford designed this trailer-yacht to be a roomy and comfortable cruiser with aesthetic appeal and excellent seakeeping ability. The gaff rig elicits images from a bygone era, but there is nothing old-fashioned about the Penguin.

November 2015

Southwester Dory

A dory for sail, oars, and outboard

It’s unfortunate that “Jack of all trades” is so often followed by “master of none.” It is possible to do a number of things quite well, and versatility is often of more value than virtuosity. The new Southwester Dory from Chesapeake Light Craft was designed to serve not only as a sailboat and a rowboat, but also as a motor launch, and it does well in all three capacities.

November 2015

Inlet Runner

A versatile fisherman-friendly outboard

Kevin Agee wanted an easy-to-build outboard skiff he could use for catching baitfish in narrow inlet and shallow coves, so Dudley Dix came up with 16’ garvey that Kevin, a first-time boatbuilder, could build in his spare time over the winter and have ready to launch when summer rolled around.

October 2015

SCAMP

A little camp cruiser for big dreams

It's an odd duck, both in appearance, and in its strange synthesis of big and small, but it’s plenty of boat no matter where your interests lie, whether it’s puttering around a lake in a breeze or taking on the challenges of the Inside Passage to Alaska.

October 2015

The Caracal

Born by a beautiful bay

The customer's request was for a boat suitable for a crowd of kids, a cockpit with seating for eight, a cuddy with space for a portable toilet and room to take a nap, and inboard electric auxiliary power; a boat well suited to day-sailing, racing, and making the crossing to Martha’s Vineyard.

September 2015

Clam Skiff

A Bolger-designed workboat

The 18’ flat-bottom clam skiff Phil Bolger designed for Harold “Dynamite” Payson had to be “a solid skiff that could stand generous power, carry a big load, and have flat footing right out to the side. Nothing about it should be hard to explain.

September 2015

The Sand Bar by Tidal Roots

A Maine-built cedar SUP board

Kyle Schaefer and Kent Scovill are avid fly fishermen and four years ago, when a friend left a stand-up paddleboard with Kyle, they immediately used the board to give them a better way to find fish. A light went on: What if they designed a board for stability rather than speed, one that was built in Maine out of local materials, and built it of wood? They now make stand-up-paddle boards in a weathered, three-bedroom house in Eliot, Maine.

August 2015

Saajuu 470

A craft for many purposes

In a country riddled with thousands of interconnected lakes, it’s no surprise that rowing would be a time-honored tradition. The glued-lapstrake Saajuu 470 is a modern take on workboats once rowed by Finland’s farmers, fishermen, and loggers.

August 2015

The E.M. White Guide Canoe

A classic design from the 19th century

Sharon and Paul LaBrie celebrated their first wedding anniversary with a canoe trip on Maine’s Narraguagus River. For years they paddled an aluminum canoe but in the 40th year of their marriage they worked with canoe guru Jerry Stelmok to build the canoe they had always wanted, an E. M. White Guide.

July 2015

The Mallard

A voyage from fantasy to reality

Inspired by SWALLOW, a boat that first gained fame in children’s fiction in the 1930s, Andrew Wolstenholme’s Mallard measures up to adventures in the real world. A “boat-shaped boat which will genuinely sail” it has “considerable visual appeal to inspire the builder in the first place and along the way.”

July 2015

The SailZO

A new kit boat from Bristol, Rhode Island

The sailZO is a 15′8″ double-chined skiff with a beam of 4′5″, designed to perform well under both oar and sail, carry three adults, and afford a couple or a small family the opportunity to explore coastlines and lakes, whether for an afternoon, or an overnight camp-cruise.

June 2015

The Somes Sound 12½

An amateur-friendly update of a Herreshoff classic

A century ago Nathanael Herreshoff designed a 16′ keelboat known widely as the H 12½ after her 12′6″ waterline length. She was intended to handle the steep chop and strong winds of the Eastern Seaboard, and to serve as a sailing trainer John Brooks, after many requests from his students at WoodenBoat School, drew up plans for a glued-lapstrake version, and in 2002 launched the first Somes Sound 12½.

June 2015

The Marsh Cat

Everything from gunkholing to open-water sailing

Simplicity is certainly one of the Marsh Cat's most appealing traits. The single sheet and sail make solo sailing a breeze. There is no interior furniture to get in the way: The sole is the seat and the coaming is the backrest. The Cat can handle heavy loads and stay out when the rest of the fleet is heading for shelter. Its spacious accommodations are a delight when camp-cruising; the rig's reasonable setup time at the ramp isn’t an impediment to frequent use or going sailing on a whim.

May 2015

A Lapstrake Livery Boat

A Whitehall for quick construction

What was left of the boat rotting in the brambles on the north shore of Clear Lake in Western Washington was once a very fast under oars. Back in the 1930’s John Thomas “could row it across the lake, fill up two gallon jugs with spring water and row halfway back on one cigarette.” When John Sack, Thomas’ nephew, took over the lakeside family cabin in the 1960s the boat had been sitting at the base of the largest pine tree on the property, unused for a decade.

May 2015

ROSINA MAY

A Thames River Skiff

Within the pages of Eric McKee’s book on British working boats there are drawings of a 24’ Thames skiff attributed to W.A.B. Hobbs at Henley-on-Thames in the very early part of the 20th century. Thames skiffs were an evolution of the wherries used to transport cargoes and passengers up, down and across the Thames for many years before bridges and other forms of transport put them out of business. Although the vast majority of skiffs have been used for leisure purposes many of them have earned a living by being hired out.

April 2015

The Escargot canal cruiser

As a wooden boat, the Escargot is an unlikely charmer. It has a hull like a shoebox, only one curve to speak of, and is entirely bereft of brightwork and brass. Nonetheless, it has an ineluctable appeal inside and out. The cabin with its arched roof and stovepipe has the look of a gypsy wagon and the lure of running away from it all, in comfort. My father said of it: “The moment I step aboard, I’ve arrived.”

April 2015

The Candlefish 13

Three Men in a Boat (to say Nothing of the Moose)

Sam Devlin drew up plans to a customer’s specs and in the process imagined how he might adapt the design the boat for his own use: “a couple of weeks of moose hunting on a far northern lake with my friends Sven and Ollie.” To that end, the Candlefish 13 he’d build for himself would be able to carry three successful hunters and a half ton of moose meat, and still have about a foot of freeboard.

March 2015

The International 12-Foot Dinghy

100 Years as a Class

In 1913 England’s Boat Racing Association, a small club of sailing enthusiasts, called for a design to comply with the following requirements: length 12’, beam 4’8”, and a single 100-sq-ft sail with no battens; she should be a capable rowing boat as well as a good sailing craft, suitable as a tender for larger yachts. The winning design was submitted by an amateur designer named George Cockshott.