Boat Profile

Small Boats Annual 2010

Grey Seal

A Norse spirit in modern wood construction

Grey Seal is a comfortable pocket cruiser. Her double-ended shape, strong sheer, and lapstrake planking hearken to her Scandinavian influence. Glued lapstrake construction makes her accessible to the home builder.

Small Boats Annual 2010

The Morris 17′ Model A

The height of romance in the wood-and-canvas canoe

After World War II, aluminum canoes chipped away at the wood-and-canvas canoe’s popularity, and by the mid-1960s fiberglass ruled the market. However, in the mid-1980s, a few impassioned builders led a wood-and-canvas revival. Among them was canoe-builder Rollin Thurlow. He chose the Morris 17' Model A as one of the designs to help lead the charge.

Small Boats Annual 2023January 2022

Sand Dollar

A skiff for oar, sail, and outboard from Arch Davis Design

Arch Davis designed the Sand Dollar as a boat that a novice woodworker could build. The flat-bottom skiff can be rowed, propelled with a small outboard, or equipped with one of the three sailing rigs detailed in the plans.

January 2022

Port Aransas Skiff

A shallow-draft outboard

The Port Aransas Skiff was developed in a Texas Gulf Coast fishing town for fishing and duck hunting in the flats and shallows of the nearby barrier islands. Originally designed for sailing and rowing, the skiffs are now built for outboard power.

Small Boats Annual 2010

North Star Kayak

A modern take on an ancient design

Basing his design on the skin-on-frame baidarkas used by the Aleutian hunters, sculptor and boatbuilder Rob Macks developed the North Star kayak, a stripped version of the type.

Small Boats Annual 2010

Biscayne Bay 14

Genius on a small scale

The Biscayne Bay 14, designed by N.G. Herreshoff, is a delightful, low-cost daysailer that transports easily and is a good performer. Jim Austin built his for exploring Muscongus Bay, Maine, with his wife, Darcy.

Small Boats Annual 2010

Zimmer Utility Launch

Sleek—and silent.

The Zimmer utility launch, designed by Great Lakes area designer Nelson Zimmer, can comfortably carry six to eight passengers. At the Great Lakes Boat Building School in Cedarville, Michigan, instructor Pat Mahon and students built this launch over the course of a year.

Small Boats Annual 2010

KATIE

Harry Bryan’s 20' cruiser

Inspired by N.G. Herreshoff’s Buzzards Bay 12 1⁄2-footer and Joel White’s Flatfish, the 20' cruiser KATIE, designed and built by Harry Bryan, cuts a handsome profile underway.

Small Boats Annual 2023December 2021

Ptarmigan 17

A Selway Fisher pocket cruiser

Created by Paul Fisher of England’s Selway Fisher Design, The Ptarmigan 17 is a pocket cruiser with a comfortable cabin with berths for two and the choice of a gaff sloop or gaff yawl rig.

Small Boats Annual 2023December 2021

66 Canoe

A canoe-building system from Cape Falcon Kayak

The 66 Canoe from Cape Falcon Kayak was not designed as a set of plans for a single canoe, but as a system to create canoes of different sizes and for different purposes.

Small Boats Annual 2010

The Chebacco Boats

A trio of options

From the 2010 Small Boats Annual - There were three original Chebacco boats, all designed by Phil Bolger for Brad Story. Story was a friend of Bolger’s and a boatbuilder, now retired, of considerable talent in Essex, Massachusetts. All three boats feel very much alike on the water.

Small Boats Annual 2010

The Ladybug Pram

It’s a wheelbarrow, and it’s a boat

The Ladybug pram, a small dinghy with a wheel permanently fixed in a case in its bow, allows for a nearly seamless transition from the water to a beach, all the while keeping its passengers’ shoes dry. The boat can be built in either a 6' or a 7' model.

Small Boats Annual 2010

Swallow Boats SeaRaider

A purpose-designed Raid boat

The SeaRaider, a design from the UK-based kit boat manufacturer Swallowboats, was purpose designed for point-to-point small-boat racing events called Raids.

Small Boats Annual 2010

The Kingfisher Power Dory

A self-bailing power dory

From the 2010 Small Boats Annual - Kingfisher is an outboard-powered skiff whose lineage can be traced back to New England dories. Her topsides are planked in lapstrake plywood, and she has a double bottom that provides both flotation and self-bailing capability.

Small Boats Annual 2023November 2021

Devon Scaffie

A trailerable keelboat for camp cruising

The Scaffie was designed by John Watkinson, founder of the Drascombe line of small boats, and has been in production in the U.K. since 1978. It is 14′9″ long with a beam of 5′9″ and, at 462 lbs fully rigged, ideal for trailering behind even small vehicles.

Small Boats Annual 2023November 2021

Deblois Street Dory

Clint Chase designed the Deblois Street Dory in the spirit of New England’s dories. The lapstrake hull, graceful curve of the bow, the tombstone transom, and low sweep of the sheer are all Swampscott dory.

Small Boats Annual 2010

The AF4 Beach Cruiser

A weekend cruiser from Jim Michalak

AF4, an outboard powered beach cruiser with 4" of draft, can boldly go where most boats can't.

Small Boats Annual 2009

The Hvalsoe 16

On its way to becoming a Northwest classic

Although its construction is substantially different from the classic Whitehall pulling boat, representing as it does a compromise between good rowing and sailing performance, the Hvalsoe 16 is squarely in the tradition of the historical type.

Small Boats Annual 2009

GRACE’S TENDER

Easy to love, easier to build

GRACE’S TENDER is a kindly little plywood boat that Arch Davis designed to build with his daughter, Grace. This handsome and capable craft is an exceptionally good first boatbuilding project.

Small Boats Annual 2009

The Hird Island Skiff

Comfortable—and quiet

The reedy shallows of Georgia call for a shoal-draft boat that can easily navigate the channels—and with its electric motor, the Hird Island Skiff can do so without disturbing the peace and quiet.

Small Boats Annual 2009

Sunshine

A much-admired yacht tender

With excellent load-carrying capacity and rowing characteristics, low weight, and great looks, the Sunshine makes a wonderful yacht tender.

Small Boats Annual 2009

MARCUS NOER

A Danish four-sail double-ender

MARCUS NOER is a particularly fine example of a traditional double-ender from Denmark, with a shapeliness to her hull that will take your breath away. The design is one descendant—one of many—of a Nordic boatbuilding tradition that should properly stand beside the great cathedrals of the world and the sculptures of antiquity as among the loveliest creations ever made by…

October 2021

Alamitos

An outboard V-bottom skiff from Spira International

The Alamitos is a 15’ V-bottom dory designed by Jeff Spira for quick and affordable construction. Its ample 7’ beam provides plenty of stability for fishing and taking on a bit of offshore chop.

Small Boats Annual 2022October 2021

The Rhodes 19

An uncommonly enduring one-design

The Rhodes 19 didn’t catch on when the design was introduced as a wooden boat in the late ‘40s, but when it was reproduced in fiberglass in the ‘50s by George O’Day, the daysailer gave rise to a popular and enduring one-design class.

Small Boats Annual 2009

RETRO-ROCKET

Glen-L’s Super Spartan makes a splash

RETRO-ROCKET was built from Glen-L Marine Design’s plans for Super Spartan, a three-point hydroplane. Constructed in marine plywood, RETRO-ROCKET weighs less than 100 lbs and darts across the water, mostly on a cushion of air.