From The Editor

October 2020

Twin Ponds

During the pandemic lockdown, when boat ramps were closed, our editor longed to get afloat and took his smallest boat, a 4-1/2’ folding coracle, to circumnavigate a pair of ponds hidden in an urban forest.

September 2020

Glory

Frank Prothero's GLORY OF THE SEAS, a 65’ schooner, is not a small boat, and Frank was a man who loomed larger than life, but his devotion to boatbuilding could leave a deep impression on anyone.

August 2020

The Mustached One

Breakfast with Brko

Our editor’s sea-kayak tour of islands off the coast of Croatia had more than its fair share of wilderness adventure, but his brief stop at a small costal village brought one of the trip’s most memorable moments, breakfast with a fisherman known as Brko, the mustached one.

July 2020

Lost and Found

A marlinespike knife that our editor had taken apart and then lost track of resurfaces after being missing for over a decade. He puts it back into working order and recalls its history.

June 2020

Projectlessness

Our editor, having discovered the word “projectlessness” and the possible connection between anxiety and immersing one’s self in projects, wonders what drove him to build boats that he didn’t need.

May 2020

Puttering Around

Under state-wide orders to stay home as much as possible, our editor resorted to puttering around in his shop to pass the time during the pandemic. The tool tote, rudder yoke, Viking chair, jigsaw table, and spinnaker he made weren’t things he needed but they provided welcome distractions.

April 2020

Social Distancing

Our editor is under a statewide stay-home order, but there’s an exemption for exercise, so he can still go out rowing, as long as he keeps his distance from other people. He was the only one at the launch ramp with a boat and trailer and very much apart from others while at anchor.

March 2020

Navigation

With a new virus spreading across the globe, our editor looks to the rewards and risks of building and using small boats to temper his approach to the health crisis.

February 2020

An Aleut Baidarka

During a visit to an anthropology museum in Berkeley, California, the frame of an Aleut-built baidarka collected in 1934 inspired our editor to build a usable copy of it to see what it could do on the water. He got a very fast kayak and a glimpse of the original’s sophisticated design and construction.

January 2020

Slip Thwarts and Side Benches

Sail-and-oar camp cruisers usually have thwarts spanning the cockpit, but those seats restrict where you can plant yourself and get in the way when you’re moving around. Slip thwarts and side benches provide nearly unlimited seating options and clear out the middle of the boat.

December 2019

Breaking the Ice

When winter comes, is it time to haul out or head out? When cold weather doesn't entirely freeze the water, boating offers daunting challenges and memorable rewards.

November 2019

Longevity

Among his fleet of small boats, our editor has a 130-year-old English river wherry collected decades ago and made rowable once again. The oldest of the boats that he has built is now 40 years old. Will anyone be rowing it a century from now?

October 2019

Getting Beneath the Surface

Small boats provide a close connection with the water, but we can’t often clearly see what’s below us. There are number of ways to bring that fascinating world into view and the simplest is a bathyscope.

September 2019

Hooper Bay

It’s easy to feel a connection with a boat, especially one that you’ve built or spent a lot of time with, or both. But if there comes a time when it sits idle for a long time, someone else might get more use of it and appreciate it more and it may be best to put it up for sale. Our editor parts with the Hooper Bay kayak he built 40 years ago but holds on to the memories.

August 2019

Anchored in Jeopardy

Dropping anchor in the dark, in a narrow channel near Prince Rupert, British Columbia, was the first of several mistakes that could have brought a rowing adventure up the Inside Passage to an untimely end.

July 2019

Suitable for Framing

The forms of boats and the things that move them—sails, paddles, oars, and propellers—may be determined entirely by their function, but shapes dictated by the flow of wind and water have a clear aesthetic appeal. Our editor takes a look at the connection between boats and art.

June 2019

Bishop’s Wake

Following a 19th-century adventurer

A decade after the Civil War, Nathaniel Holmes Bishop gained fame for two small-boat voyages that spanned the North and the South. His books—Voyage of the Paper Canoe and Four Months in a Sneak Box—written well over a century ago, haven’t lost their ability to inspire.

May 2019

Crossings

If, as the Viking proverb tells us, “bound is the boatless man,” then what does it mean, for those of us who have boats, to be unbounded? Distant shores and the unbroken curve of a watery horizon are within reach, and crossings are the quintessential boating experience.

Small Boats Annual 2020April 2019

What’s in your PFD pockets?

Does your PFD keep you afloat? That’s a start, but there’s more it can do for you. A PFD with pockets can carry all the tools you might need to get yourself and others out of a bind.

March 2019

Standing Water

Swell on the Adriatic Sea coming from two directions and rebounding off the cliffs of an island off the Croatian coast created a chaotic sea and an unusual phenomenon—spike waves.

February 2019

Testing One’s Metal

If you’ve set yourself up for a building a boat and invested in woodworking tools, but opt to purchase the metal parts a boat requires, you may be missing out on some very satisfying projects. Our editor recounts his serendipitous drift into metalsmithing.

January 2019

Caring for Tools

A tool that gets handed down from a friend or a family member is likely to have a special place in the shop. More important than its usefulness is the story comes with it, linking the user to someone remembered fondly. Do other tools also have stories to tell?

December 2018

Wagner Education Center

Seattle’s Center for Wooden Boats has nearly completed a long-awaited expansion of their facilities on Lake Union. We tour the Wagner Education Center, named in honor of the Center’s founders, Dick and Colleen Wagner.

November 2018

Phil Thiel’s Workshop

Phil Thiel designed many intriguing small boats, but he was also a professor, naval architect, artist, urban designer, community activist, and author. He passed away in 2014, but his basement shop, still very much as he left it, offers a glimpse of his work and his boats.

October 2018

Steamed

Steam-driven piston engines are a relic of the past, and while few practical uses remain for them, they are fascinating and appealing in ways that no internal combustion engine can match. We take a slow ride up a meandering slough, content to be going nowhere fast.