CLC – microBootlegger

A decked canoe with a Roaring Twenties flair

Nick Schade of Guillemot Kayaks combined the function of an 1880s Rushton double-paddle canoe with the look of a 1920s speedboat, to create an elegant strip-built tandem paddlecraft.

CLC Chester Yawl – ARGUS

A family-built Chester Yawl

ames Fullton grew up in Alabama. His dad, Jim, grew up on the banks of Dog River, an estuary that rises and falls with the tides of Mobile Bay, and...

CLC – Annapolis Wherry Tandem

o build a boat is truly a breathtaking achievement, mastered by a special breed of people. But when I reached the point in life when I wanted to “build” my...

CLC Northeaster – PETRICHOR

f all human senses, it is said that smell is the most evocative: the unexpected waft of perfume that brings back the long-missed presence of a loved one, the subtle...

CLC Noank Pulling Boat

A sliding-seat pulling boat

While Nick Schade of Guillemot Kayaks has been building boats since 1993, the strip-built Noank is his first boat with a sliding seat. With watertight compartments in each end and generous freeboard, it is designed for light and fast camp-cruising and recreational rowing in exposed and choppy water.

Downriver in a CLC Northeaster Dory – Part 1

n a clearing rain and soft mist LITTLE JOY slid through calm water to the middle of the Mississippi River, about 2 miles below Lock and Dam #1 in Minneapolis,...

CLC Pocketship

Echoes of a British pilot cutter

Chesapeake Light Craft’s PocketShip is under 15’ long and trailers docilely behind a compact car and yet offers comfortable sleeping quarters for two in the cabin or cockpit and carries a powerful sailing rig. Stitch-and-glue makes construction amateur friendly.

CLC Lighthouse Tender Peapod

A Maine classic updated

The original Maine peapods were well adapted to fishing and hauling lobster traps, but their full, round bilges made them difficult to build. Designer John Harris took an interest in the type decades ago, and recently drew his 13’ 5” Lighthouse Tender Peapod; Chesapeake Light Craft now offers his peapod in an easy-to-build kit.

DERRY – 15′ CLC Skerry

A project for the pandemic

Most serial boatbuilders don’t really need another boat, they just need an excuse to build one. The pandemic provided just that for Gary Hardy of Melbourne, Australia: building a Skerry would be an important mental-health measure during a lockdown.

CLC Passagemaker Dinghy

A rich man's tender, a poor man's yacht?

What started out as a design for a motor-yacht tender finished up as a versatile pram that is as well suited for motoring, sailing, and rowing as it for gracing a pair of davits.

A Portage To Far In Our Northeaster Dory

A tidal rapid, a beaver dam, and an impossible haul

CLC Nesting Dinghy

PT 11, a fine balance of form and function

By extensive ocean cruising, Russell Brown came to know what he valued in a nesting dinghy, and his PT 11, which weighs just 85 lbs, balances conflicting purposes of sailing, rowing, light weight, and compact stowage while still remaining a handsome boat.

CLC Tool Box Kit

A plywood tool-tote kit from Chesapeake Light Craft that’s a snap to assemble

any years ago, I took an adult-education entry-to-woodworking course. The once-a-week evening classes were held at a local high school over 10 weeks. I made a mahogany hinged-lid box with...

CLC Rhode Runner

Shop Chesapeake Light Craft Rhode Runner Kits wanted to build an outboard boat that would be fun to use in Florida, something eye-catching and different. I had always been drawn...