Reader Built Boats

May 2023

TAMO

How a boatbuilding project led to the race of a lifetime

One-time varsity sculler Henry Billingsley was in search of a rowboat that had the style of a Whitehall but was equipped with a sliding seat and outriggers for performance. The Cosine Wherry was just the boat to bring those elements together. Helped by friend and mentor, Ed Neal, he embarked on a boatbuilding odyssey that led the pair to a 70-mile, overnight rowing race.

April 2023

YEAH BUOY

A plywood skiff built for drift-fishing and family boating

Geordie Pickard designed and built an outboard skiff to take his family out on Puget Sound, plane easily at low speed, have a large, open, uncluttered cockpit, and be comfortable while drift-fishing.

March 2023

MUSE

Building on indigenous experience

Jeremy Kyncl was looking for a new family boat that was light enough for him to lift onto the car roof, could take the whole family on lake excursions, and handle hauling crab traps in Puget Sound.

February 2023

SEA BESTIA

A race boat built for a holiday challenge

Seafaring friends working in the Scottish Isles occupied their time off by building small boats for a friendly race. SEA BESTIA's builder may have broken the rules, but his boat had the look of a serious contender.

January 2023

PERIWINKLE

A boat built for singlehanded cruising

Downsizing from boats used for family cruises led a serial boatbuilder to add a kit-built sail-and-oar double-ender to his Maine-coast fleet. He made some modifications as he was building, launched PERIWINKLE, and is now all set for solo cruising.

December 2022

MEASURE AGAIN

Building a boat and a friendship

A chance meeting at a wooden-boat festival brought together two couples who quickly bridged the broad gap in their ages, experience, and resources.

November 2022

AL DEMANY CHIMAN

A skin-on-frame outrigger canoe

Tim Shaw grew up by the water in Manchester, Massachusetts, and has never drifted too far from boats. After building a few small boats, he was intrigued by the outrigger canoes he saw in Hawaii and years later designed and built one for his family.

October 2022

DERRY

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.

September 2022

DREADNOUGHT

A tarred-canvas curragh

When James Baker of England decided he needed a second tender for the 42′ wooden gaffer he built, a paddling curragh native to County Donegal in Ireland was his inspiration.

August 2022

WAYLO-WAYLO

A peapod built by family and friends

In retirement, Richard Honan of Winthrop, Massachusetts, turned his attention to building boats and spending time with his grandchildren. A peapod is the latest family-built boat.

July 2022

MEGOLA

From corrugated roofing and rusty nails to cypress strips and epoxy

Ernest Pattillo cobbled together his first boat at the age of 10 and built his last, MEGOLA, an electric runabout, at 78. Although his six boats may come and go, his memories of them remain.

June 2022

Thrown for a Curve

A second step, a leap forward

Reader Built Boat alumni Joe Lanni is back with his second boatbuilding project, an 11′ plywood double-paddle canoe

May 2022

The Education of a Serial Boatbuilder

When the work is its own reward

A Florida man confesses he’d rather build boats than go boating. With a half-dozen boats in his largely unused fleet, he’s running out of room to keep them.

April 2022

LAZY LIGHTNING

An electrically adorned strip-built kayak

When Dave Feder built his first boat—a cedar-strip kayak—he wanted to give it some personal artistic touches and did what any other electrical engineer might do. He had high-voltage electricity do the work.

March 2022

HOPEWELL

Staying afloat

When an artist with an affection for boats suffered a heart attack, he was in the midst of a multi-year project of building a small outboard runabout. The challenges he faced in building boats gave him valuable insights about meeting the unexpected challenges of life.

February 2022

TRIO

Divide by three and conquer

A small living room for a shop and a small car for storage and transport didn’t stand in the way of Paul Sesto’s dream of building a boat; he designed and built a sectional boat with three nesting pieces.

January 2022

RIPPLE

A good-natured dory skiff

Sean Russell is the author several novels about naval warfare in the days of sail, but RIPPLE, the dory skiff he designed as a tender to his sailboat, is meant to lead a more tranquil life.

December 2021

A Twin Cities Boat

A tale of two cities and a boat in three parts

When Matt Morris of Waterloo, Ontario, learned that the restoration of a silted-in lake in the middle of town would include a boat launch, he began to design a sectional boat he could tow to the lake behind his bicycle.

November 2021

HIYU and CLATAWA

Pondering pedal power

After taking a few liberties to improve upon a classic Edwin Monk design, inveterate tinkerer Clay Wright equipped the 9’ skiff with a pedal drive of his own design with twin props and on-the-fly shifting from forward to reverse—a masterpiece in pulleys, pillow blocks, and copper pipe.

October 2021

Meeting in the Middle

A strip-lapstrake hybrid

Paul and Sharon LaBrie have been enjoying boating together for their 40-plus years of marriage; a difference of opinion between the two led to a novel hybrid hull that combines two different types of construction.

September 2021

Patrick’s Scow

A boat for Bliss Creek

Patrick Blake of Vicksburg, Mississippi, is 11 years old and the sixth generation of his family to take a serious interest in boats. In the company of his little brother, father, and grandfather, he built a little scow for the creek that runs through the family land.

August 2021

Metamorphosis

The elevation of a jet ski

Dale Brevik is a dedicated amateur woodworker who enjoys a project that will challenge and add to his formidable repertoire of skills. His latest was to give a 2002 jet ski a mahogany makeover with all the elegance of a classic runabout.

July 2021

CARACOLE

Far beyond a floating hut

A couple living on the coast of Brittany had already accumulated a small fleet of boats when they decided to build an Escargot Canal Cruiser designed by Phil Thiel. It would be a boat they enjoyed using even without leaving the dock.

June 2021

A Tubby Tug

From lumber to launch in 33 hours

John Lee, his father, and three friends rose to the Edensaw Boatbuilding Challenge to build a boat during the three days of the 2018 Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival. Their Glen-L Tubby Tug turned out to be a charming keeper.

May 2021

AVANTI

On plane with a single sheet of plywood

Riley Hall, a shipwright leading the restoration of a 96-year-old purse seiner, spent his free time recently designing and building an outboard skiff that required only one sheet of plywood to build and could get on plane with a 2.5-hp outboard.