To the Black Sea

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Small Boats Annual 2008

The Melonseed Skiff

Daysailer and duckgunner

From the 2008 Small Boats Annual - This fine gunning skiff from the bays and coastal lagoons of southern New Jersey might have evolved from the lapstrake beach skiffs that worked the exposed Atlantic beaches of the Garden State. Similarities of line and construction between the beach skiffs and the melonseeds seem too powerful to ignore.

Small Boats Annual 2008

Dad’s Ol’ Outboard Skiff

A dreamboat for the rest of us

From the 2008 Small Boats Annual - In a sea of wooden boats that are out of reach for many of us, here is one that offers some respite—Dad’s Ol’ Outboard Skiff. She’s the brainchild of Michigan builder Mike Kiefer, who has been building boats and teaching wooden boat building at the Great Lakes Boatbuilding Company, for well over 20…

Small Boats Annual 2008

The Moosabec Reach Boat

New life for a striking 14-footer from the 19th century

From the 2008 Small Boats Annual - I never met John Gardner, but I’ve spent many an afternoon with him. Leafing from one chapter of his books to another, it’s easy to get distracted by the down-to-earth practicality, the enthusiastic descriptions of traditional boats, and the ringing call to action to see these boats built anew and put to use.…

Small Boats Annual 2008

Night Heron

A fast and handsome 18' kayak

From the 2008 Small Boats Annual - Have you noticed all of those kayaks riding along atop cars and trucks on their way to waterborne adventures? Their owners have seen the light. These slender double-ended boats require little initial investment, not much maintenance, and can be put on the water in seconds. In them we’ll cross open water, and when…

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December 2020

A Skiff to Fill the Time

Boatbuilding during a lockdown

Richard Nissen lives on the River Thames and has surrounded his houseboat home with a fleet of small boats. Working on them is half the pleasure of owning them, so when the pandemic lockdown started, Richard started building a new skiff.

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December 2020

ResQFlare

A USCG-approved substitute for pyrotechnic flares

ACR recently introduced the ResQFlare, a floating, battery-powered, SOS-flashing distress signal that meets U.S. Coast Guard requirements, and, when paired with the distress-signal flag it’s sold with, replaces pyrotechnic flares.

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December 2020

DeWalt’s Cordless Air Inflator

Quick, precise tire inflation

Kent and Audrey Lewis have a fleet of boats that requires a fleet of trailers and dollies to move them around. A digital rechargeable air inflator helps them keep all of the tires pumped to the proper pressure.

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December 2020

A Quarantine Cruise

Wisconsin’s West Coast by sail and oar

When travel restrictions prevented Tom Pamperin from getting to his usual cruising grounds, he looked for possibilities closer to his Wisconsin home. Over half of the state’s western border is created by the Mississippi River, so he set out to cruise a section of Wisconsin’s “West Coast.”

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December 2020

Atlantic 17 Dory

Jon Persson's fast double-ender

Jon Persson’s Atlantic 17 Dory is a 17’ double-ended pulling boat with plenty of speed, the seakeeping qualities of a gunning dory, and very simple plywood-on-frame construction. Christophe Matson reports on the Atlantic 17 he built.

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December 2020

Good Little Skiff

Pete Culler's perfect boat

The Good Little Skiff is Pete Culler’s response to a call in 1970 for rowing enthusiasts to design the perfect boat. Ben Fuller takes a look at the 13’ version of this versatile flat-bottomed skiff for sailing, rowing, and sculling.

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December 2020

Five Practical Tips

A handful of useful projects

Five of our readers share tips they came up with for sailing without steering, rowing with better visibility, restoring rusted steel tools, making a portable vise, and making trailer launching easier.

Small Boats Annual 2008

Skerry

A Norse-inspired kit boat

From the 2008 Small Boats Annual - My penchant for Scandinavian boatbuilding techniques once prompted Matt Murphy at WoodenBoat to tell me that it seemed as though I was trying to “get in touch with my inner Viking.” But when I look around, I see that I am hardly alone. Some aesthetics—think of Japanese architecture, Italian stonework, New England barns—have…

Small Boats Annual 2008

The Long Point

A center-console skiff

From the 2008 Small Boats Annual - There’s something nearly archetypal about the Long Point skiff. This 15-footer has high sides and a flat bottom, and is driven by a small four-stroke outboard motor. “It used to be that everyone had one of these things,” said the designer, Tom Hill, as we skipped across a modest chop on Penobscot Bay…

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November 2020

A Kinney Dory

From Skene's Elements of Yacht Design

Dave Reynell, who lives in a coastal town at the southern tip of Africa, rescued a plywood rowboat that was languishing in a local boatyard. He took it home, and underneath a delaminating layer of fiberglass and polyester resin, found a gem of a dory built to the drawings in Skene’s classic, Elements of Yacht Design.

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November 2020

The Tiller Comb Stop

A hinged version from Victory

If you’re looking for a way to hold the tiller in place while you tend to other duties or just relax, the stainless-steel Tiller Comb Stop from Victory Products is an elegantly simple device that is there when you need it and instantly out of the way when you don’t.

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November 2020

Edge Hotknife

Cutting and fusing synthetics

For sewing your own sails or boating and camping gear, a hot knife is an essential tool for heat-sealing synthetic fibers to keep them from unravelling. We take a look at the Edge Hotknife from Sailrite.

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November 2020

A Quick Tick Stick

An Evolution from the Joggle Stick

A joggle stick is a shopmade tool for creating a pattern for a complex shape, but the sawtooth design was cumbersome to use and could create a confusing jumble of tracings. There’s a better way—the quick tick stick.

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November 2020

Bainbridge Island

A Puget Sound solo circumnavigation

Although August is usually a month of doldrums on Puget Sound, our editor’s summer solo circumnavigation of Bainbridge Island offered good sailing as well as torrential rain and a sudden squall that put a capsized daysailer in need of a rescue.

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November 2020

12′ Clinker Dinghy

Paul Gartside's Design No. 130

Paul Gartside designed his 12’ Clinker Dinghy as training exercise in traditional lapstrake construction. The performance it delivers under oars and sail— as well as its visual appeal—make it a project well worth the effort.

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November 2020

RowCruiser

A solo expedition rowboat

Colin Angus drew upon his thousands of miles rowing both open ocean and coastal waters to create the fast and light RowCruiser. A sliding seat and outriggers make it powerful underway and its compact cabin provides a comfortable refuge at anchor.

Small Boats Annual 2007

Endeavour 17

A kayak for just about everybody

The Steve Killing–designed Endeavour 17, a kayak built of cedar strip planks and fiberglass, combines beauty, fast lines, load-carrying capacity, and relatively easy construction. Let’s have a look at each of these points—the last one, ease of construction, in some detail.

Small Boats Annual 2007

The Gloucester Light Dory

A classic design for plywood construction

In the early 1980s, I bought Phil Bolger’s plans for the 15′ 6″ LOA Gloucester Light Dory. I was living in an apartment at the time, and I was intending this boat to be my first built to an “official” design. I had built furniture in my living room, and in those single-man days my dining room table was a…

Small Boats Annual 2007

The Lake Oswego Boat

A small lapstrake gem

Few joys in life are simpler than a morning row. Oars over the shoulder, hollow footsteps along a wood-decked float, the boat quivering with the first step aboard, the sharp ring of the oarlocks as they slip into place, the soft purling of water against lapstrake planks as they leave the first wake of the day...all these seem to require…

Small Boats Annual 2007

Fiddlehead

A solo canoe for double paddle

Harry Bryan, a boatbuilder and designer from New Brunswick, Canada, designed the Fiddlehead, a 10 1⁄2' double-paddle canoe, in 1992 after his sister-in-law introduced him to her Wee Lassie. The Wee Lassie is a small double-paddle canoe designed by J. Henry Rushton around 1893. Bryan had always rowed small boats, rather than paddled them. He had “never faced forward in…

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October 2020

Kestrel 2000

Measuring wind speed and temperature

If you sail, you need to pay close attention to the wind, and an anemometer takes the guesswork out of assessing wind speed. The Kestrel 2000 provides accurate readings of wind as well as air and water temperature.

Series

The Melonseed Skiff

Dad’s Ol’ Outboard Skiff

The Moosabec Reach Boat

Night Heron

A Skiff to Fill the Time

ResQFlare

DeWalt’s Cordless Air Inflator

A Quarantine Cruise

Atlantic 17 Dory

Good Little Skiff

Five Practical Tips

Skerry

The Long Point

A Kinney Dory

The Tiller Comb Stop

Edge Hotknife

A Quick Tick Stick

Bainbridge Island

12′ Clinker Dinghy

RowCruiser

Endeavour 17

The Gloucester Light Dory

The Lake Oswego Boat

Fiddlehead

Kestrel 2000

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