From The Editor - Small Boats Magazine

1

November 2024

The Can-Do of Small Boaters

Why small boats challenge, unify, and enrich our lives.

5

October 2024

Living with Small Boats

The new editor reveals an inherited affinity with small boats.

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September 2024

Our 10th Anniversary and a Change of Watch

From September 2014 to September 2024

Small Boats made its debut with the release of the September 2014 issue. We begin the second decade with a change of watch.

6

August 2024

Hand-Me-Down

A welcome diversion

A newly acquired Bolger pirogue, built in 1995, needed more work than anticipated, but it promised to be a welcome diversion.

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July 2024

Maligiaq

Greenland’s longest-reigning kayak champion

Maligiaq Padilla, the grandson and great-grandson of Greenlanders who hunted from kayaks, started on his way to become the country’s longest-reigning kayak champion when he was just 16 and since then he has been preserving and promoting native skills at home and abroad.

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June 2024

A Rainy Sunday Afternoon

On a dull and rainy afternoon, an outing with a coracle and an umbrella provided a restorative break from a day spent indoors.

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May 2024

To Dream, Perchance to Sleep

Bedding down in a lapstrake canoe

When a long-anticipated outing on a small pond didn’t go at all as planned, the thought and preparation for it were not for naught.

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April 2024

The First Caledonia Yawl

The prototype of Iain Oughtred’s classic double-ender

The editor recalls the first ever Caledonia Yawl, which he rowed 20 years ago, and finds his way back to the noteworthy boat and her current owner in northwest Washington State.

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March 2024

Iain Oughtred

1939–2024

On February 21, the small-boat community lost Iain Oughtred, the designer of over 100 boats, many of them popular with amateur boatbuilders around the world.

February 2024

Rowing into Gray

The radiance of a dreary day

An overcast January afternoon might have looked uninviting, but rowing in the dim and fading light turned out to be illuminating.

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January 2024

Getting Lost

Cruising before GPS

Taking months-long cruises in the ’80s, long before the proliferation of GPS-equipped devices, our editor usually knew where he was, but for days and weeks on end no one else did.

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December 2023

Orphaned

A lapstrake canoe with a lost lineage

When a Piccolo canoe, given up by a couple moving to a new home, became the latest addition to his fleet, our editor grew to appreciate its unknown builder.

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November 2023

Accidental

A Piccolo lapstrake canoe made by an unknown builder falls into the editor's hands.

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October 2023

To the Rescue, After a Fashion

The only casualty was pride

Knowing what to do in an emergency isn’t the same as putting a practiced response into action. The two approaches can produce very different results.

5

September 2023

Brother Jim’s Paddle

A featherweight beauty

When Jim Schroer passed away, his wife was left with his life’s work and more boats than she could keep. The canoe paddle our editor bought from her is a fine example of Jim’s extraordinary work.

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August 2023

Bark

Beautiful materials from windfalls

While making a birchbark canoe was beyond our editor’s aspirations and abilities, he enjoyed working with bark harvested from downed birch and cedar trees.

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July 2023

Memorable

Seattle’s Duwamish River

An industrial river, a muddy island, and an unseasonably cold downpour were the unlikely makings of a pleasant afternoon outing.

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June 2023

Galápagos Islands

Differing with Darwin

During a kayaking cruise in 2005, the Galápagos Islands were very much as they were when Charles Darwin landed there in 1835.

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May 2023

Purposeless

Leaving the to-do behind

There are times when the most rewarding boating is going nowhere and doing nothing.

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April 2023

ISLAND BIRD

A chance encounter leads to an exciting sail

A canoe outing in 1988 near St. Michaels, Maryland, led to chance meeting with Judge John C. North and an invitation to sail aboard ISLAND BIRD, a Chesapeake log canoe built by North’s grandfather in 1882.

March 2023

Risk-Taker?

Finding value in adversity

Looking back on being presented on TV as a “risk-taker” after completing a solo 2,400-mile voyage in a 14’ boat in winter

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February 2023

Launched

From backpack to bicycle to boat

A life devoted to boats and writing, let alone a career as an editor, wasn’t what our editor had in mind during or after his schooling, but getting hit by a car during a bicycle ride sent him flying in that direction.

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January 2023

Forlorn

Languishing under the eaves

Tucked under the eaves, a skin-on-frame Greenland kayak built decades ago has been a constant presence and yet all but forgotten.

December 2022

#100

It has been more than eight years since WoodenBoat Publications launched Small Boats Monthly, now Small Boats Magazine. This December edition is the 100th issue.

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November 2022

Menorca

A coast of caves

The south coast of Menorca, one of Spain’s Mediterranean islands, is a 25-mile-long stretch of limestone cliffs and caves, a landscape that can only be explored and appreciated by kayak.