Boat Profile

Small Boats Annual 2008

The 18′ Mower Dory

A boat for fine rowing and sailing

From the 2008 Small Boats Annual - The 18' Mower Dory is an evolution of the beach-launched fishing boats of Swampscott, Massachusetts. Fishermen were skeptical of these boats when the type debuted in the early 1900s; these dories gained respect rapidly, however, for their windward ability and dryness.

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Small Boats Annual 2022May 2021

Jiffy V-22

An outboard cruiser with a lobsterboat look

The Jiffy V-22, designed by Arch Davis, is an outboard-powered V-bottom cabin cruiser with comfortable accommodations for two and a cockpit roomy enough for several guests.

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Small Boats Annual 2022May 2021

Sandpiper

An easily built skiff for sail and oar

Conrad Natzio’s Sandpiper is a 14’ skiff for oar and sail that’s designed for quick construction by amateur builders. Its removable leeboard keeps the cockpit clear to make more room for the crew.

Small Boats Annual 2008

CARPENTER

A beach-explorer tender with a design pedigree

From the 2008 Small Boats Annual - Paul LaBrie is new to professional boatbuilding, but the design he chose for his first commercial project is one of the oldest in this publication. CARPENTER was drawn up by L. Francis Herreshoff in the summer of 1929—his Design No. 41—and featured in his book Sensible Cruising Designs.

Small Boats Annual 2008

Freestone Classic Drift Boat

Wooden boats for whitewater

From the 2008 Small Boats Annual - The basic drift boat form evolved from various sources: among the boats that made their way from the East Coast to the West Coast in the 19th century were log-driving bateaux and fishing dories. These flat-bottomed types were later adapted for use on Oregon’s McKenzie and Rogue Rivers, where they were given considerably…

Small Boats Annual 2007

Zephyr

Nostalgia with 10 coats of varnish

Already a monumental success in 1950, Chris-Craft thought to use up their mountain of mahogany scrap by cutting kits for handsome plywood power skiffs. It must have been some mountain; Chris-Craft claims that between 1950 and 1958 they shipped 93,000 boat kits in 13 different models sized from 8' to 31'.

Small Boats Annual 2007

The Ness Yawl

A thoroughbred’s blend of ability and beauty

Few boats developed from a traditional working boat are as adaptable to small boat sailing as a Ness Yawl, and few are as much fun. It’s worth remembering, however, that it can be adapted to different requirements. The Oughtred Ness Yawl is light, and her 15' 8" waterline length gives her speed and also safety. Even as she comes up…

Small Boats Annual 2007

ELF

A small cruiser for going just about anywhere

Paul Gartside's plans for modest-sized cruising boats inspired by the Falmouth cutters of his native England should all come with one of those warnings from the Surgeon General, this one about the risks of indecision and the dangers of addiction. To look at one of the profile drawings too long leads to certain wanderings of the mind that can all…

Small Boats Annual 2007

The Tolman Skiff

A boat for all seasons

Renn Tolman designed his eponymous skiff as a workhorse for rugged Alaskan environs. The boat has proven to be adaptable to a wide range of locales—and to a wide range of configurations.

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Small Boats Annual 2022April 2021

Surf Crabskiff

A Bolger Instant Boat

Dynamite Payson, champion of Instant Boats, wrote that Bolger’s Surf “is my favorite and it seems to me about as perfect a blend of overall proportions I could ever expect to see in so simple a shape.”

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Small Boats Annual 2022April 2021

Marissa 18

An economical center console outboard from B&B Yacht Designs

Marissa, an 18’ center-console plywood skiff from B&B Yacht Designs, was the winner of a WoodenBoat design contest titled The Pursuit of Pleasure at Two Gallons per Hour.

Small Boats Annual 2007

RASCAL

A playful runabout

RASCAL sped across the riffled waters of Long Island Sound. Her mahogany foredeck glowed from the depths of its varnish, and her stainless-steel cutwater sparkled through drops of water streamlining into mist. Driver and passenger sat low on a simple rolled leather seat, legs stretched out nearly parallel to the cockpit sole. A tall person could reach over the side…

Small Boats Annual 2007

Stir Ven

A good sense of balance

With his Stir Ven design, a 22' LOA center- boarder, François Vivier took first place in the “neo-traditional” category of a 1997 design competition organized by the French magazine Le Chasse-Marée. His main design objective was to balance the aesthetics and appeal of a purely traditional sailboat with a modern hull’s efficiency of construction, maintenance, and overall performance. Nine years…

Small Boats Annual 2007

Skylark

A beautiful and practical daysailer

Skylark was designed by Paul Gartside for day-sailing in the sporty estuary and ocean waters off the Oregon coast. With a 14' length and a 5'8" beam and tipping the scales at 550 lbs, Skylark is one big, little boat with plenty of freeboard and stability.

Small Boats Annual 2007

The West Pointer 18

From workboat roots, a solid recreational boat

Six River Marine based this tough and shapely skiff on a highly regarded workboat designed and built by Alton Wallace. Chip Miller gave the new boat more freeboard, less flare, greater breadth, and slightly increased length.

Small Boats Annual 2007

PETITELISA

A simple girl

PETITELISA is a synthesis of Gilles Montaubin’s long experience with sail-and-oar boats. Unlike many boats of this type, she is not reminiscent of any traditional working boat type. Instead, she incorporates some very contemporary features. Montaubin, for example, has intensively tested the use of water ballast on many boat designs, and its use on PETITELISA allows her displacement to be…

Small Boats Annual 2007

Blackbird

A striking outboard cruiser

Conceived in the early 1980s by Ken Bassett, Onion River Boat Works, and massaged into her final form by Phil Bolger, BLACKBIRD embodies the spirit of carefree mobility found in the lyrics of the Mort Dixon/Ray Henderson song “Bye Bye Blackbird,” “Pack up all my cares and woe, here I go, singin’ low, bye bye blackbird.” BLACKBIRD evolved on the…

Small Boats Annual 2007

The Flatfish

An inspired daysailer

Every sailor has his own vision of the perfect daysailer. For many, this ideal boat is based on the Herreshoff 12 1⁄2, Nathanael G. Herreshoff’s iconic daysailer, which debuted in the summer of 1915. For others, it’s the larger Fish class or the still-larger Alerion—two more masterworks from the hand of Herreshoff. These boats have been the subject of imitation…

Small Boats Annual 2007

Coho 17

Elegant and able home-built kayak

People are always drawn to the warmth and the visual texture of a varnished wood kayak, but the beauty of a plywood kayak can and should be more than skin deep. Not only do the sweeping curves of the Coho 17’s multichined hull and beveled deck offer up an elegance that sets a kayak like the Coho apart from main-…

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Small Boats Annual 2022March 2021

Down East Workboat

Blending seakeeping ability with speed

John Gardner’s Down East Workboat is an 18’ version of a type that has proved useful on the Maine coast for vessels in many sizes up to 30’. With a 25-hp outboard at one-third throttle, it planes easily at 12 knots.

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Small Boats Annual 2022March 2021

The Crawford Melonseed Skiff

From a 19th-century gunning skiff to a classic sailer in fiberglass

Roger Crawford was once asked to repair an aging wooden sailing skiff and was so impressed by its sailing abilities when he had it afloat again that he used it as a mold to produce the boat in fiberglass. Decades later, his Melonseed Skiff is a classic.

Small Boats Annual 2007

The Boothbay Harbor One-Design

A fast and wholesome daysailer-racer

The Boothbay Harbor One-Design, a short-ended Burgess, moved to mid-coast Maine and hired Geerd daysailer with a long waterline, is a particularly handsome boat that has proven itself in the choppy waters off Boothbay and Pemaquid, Maine. It’s an easy boat to sail, while being both maneuverable and fast, and its design is the product of some of the best…

Small Boats Annual 2007

The Christmas Wherry

A Maine example of a traditional design

The Christmas Wherry possesses two characteristics that should be critically important to anyone looking for a small boat to use in open waters. It displays classic beauty and, as the boat’s designer, Walt Simmons of Lincolnville, Maine, says, “It will take you out, and bring you back home.”

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Small Boats Annual 2022February 2021

Savo 650D

Fast rowing, Finnish style

Finland has so many lakes that it was inevitable that people living on their shores built fast rowing boats to make a living and get from one place to another. The contemporary Savo 650D is a speedy double with deep roots in the country and the culture.

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Small Boats Annual 2022February 2021

The Wittholz Catboat

A classic adapted for plywood

In the 1960s, Naval architect Charles W. Wittholz drew several catboats including a 17-footer with a classic catboat profile, a beamy single-chine plywood hull, and the option of a marconi or gaff rig.