Boat Profiles - Small Boats Magazine

Boat Profile

A handhold at the board's balance point makes carrying easy.

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.
With a reef in her 152 sq ft sail for a fresh breeze, LITTLE T's 9" draft allowed her to take a break in some protected but thin water.

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.
For Mary Sack, John's daughter, and her two brothers, rowing has been one of the pleasures visiting the family cabin on Clear Lake.

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.
The Thames waterman's stroke, the traditional form of rowing a skiff of this type, is described in the Sept/Oct issue of WoodenBoat.

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.
The garboards are built up of three planks joined with flush dory bevels and rivets. The seams between them are visible here with one running out at the transom and the other at the garboard's upper edge. To the far left is one of the butt blocks on the broad strake.

February 2015

The Mower Dory

Sailing again after a century in hiding

One day in the early 1990s, a local contractor visited my boatbuilding shop in Marblehead, Massachusetts, telling me he’d been hired to convert an old boatshop into a playhouse. “The museums and antique dealers have been through it,” he said, “Take anything you want or it’s going to the dump.” The building was mostly empty but in the long back room there was a planking bench with odd parts scattered around. Above the bench, tucked under the eave, the blackened end of a tight roll of paper caught my eye. I took the roll down, dusted it off, and put it in the truck. That evening, I unrolled my find.