To the Black Sea

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Small Boats Annual 2007

ELF

A small cruiser for going just about anywhere

Paul Gartside's plans for modest-sized cruising boats inspired by the Falmouth cutters of his native England should all come with one of those warnings from the Surgeon General, this one about the risks of indecision and the dangers of addiction. To look at one of the profile drawings too long leads to certain wanderings of the mind that can all…

Small Boats Annual 2007

The Tolman Skiff

A boat for all seasons

Renn Tolman designed his eponymous skiff as a workhorse for rugged Alaskan environs. The boat has proven to be adaptable to a wide range of locales—and to a wide range of configurations.

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Small Boats Annual 2022April 2021

Surf Crabskiff

A Bolger Instant Boat

Dynamite Payson, champion of Instant Boats, wrote that Bolger’s Surf “is my favorite and it seems to me about as perfect a blend of overall proportions I could ever expect to see in so simple a shape.”

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Small Boats Annual 2022April 2021

Marissa 18

An economical center console outboard from B&B Yacht Designs

Marissa, an 18’ center-console plywood skiff from B&B Yacht Designs, was the winner of a WoodenBoat design contest titled The Pursuit of Pleasure at Two Gallons per Hour.

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April 2021

Fox Islands

A Maine coast island cruise

Christophe Matson and John Hartmann launched in Rockland, Maine, to begin a wandering oar-and-sail cruise of North Haven, Vinalhaven, and the myriad of small islands and waterways that surround them.

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April 2021

Stropping

Leather and compound for sharper tools

A simple leather-faced block and a few stropping compounds are capable of doing much more than remove the burr left by a sharpening stone. The combination can bring the edge to a shaving-sharp mirror finish.

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April 2021

ProMariner’s ProSport HD6

A marine battery tender

Batteries that power electrical systems aboard boats need special care. A smart battery tender installed in the boat can continually maintain a battery’s state of charge and give it only what it needs to provide reliable performance and a long life.

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April 2021

Natas

Japanese hatchets

The Japanese nata is a tool that looks like a machete but is used as a hatchet. Designed for gardening, pruning and forestry, it has the weight and edge to be useful for campcraft.

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April 2021

C H K

A Down East workboat

Barry Jensen lives on Canada’s west coast but he was drawn to the lobsterboats of the east coast. He built John Gardner’s Down East Workboat, added a low cabin and an upright wheelhouse, and had his lobsterboat cruiser.

Small Boats Annual 2007

RASCAL

A playful runabout

RASCAL sped across the riffled waters of Long Island Sound. Her mahogany foredeck glowed from the depths of its varnish, and her stainless-steel cutwater sparkled through drops of water streamlining into mist. Driver and passenger sat low on a simple rolled leather seat, legs stretched out nearly parallel to the cockpit sole. A tall person could reach over the side…

Small Boats Annual 2007

Stir Ven

A good sense of balance

With his Stir Ven design, a 22' LOA center- boarder, François Vivier took first place in the “neo-traditional” category of a 1997 design competition organized by the French magazine Le Chasse-Marée. His main design objective was to balance the aesthetics and appeal of a purely traditional sailboat with a modern hull’s efficiency of construction, maintenance, and overall performance. Nine years…

Small Boats Annual 2007

Skylark

A beautiful and practical daysailer

Skylark was designed by Paul Gartside for day-sailing in the sporty estuary and ocean waters off the Oregon coast. With a 14' length and a 5'8" beam and tipping the scales at 550 lbs, Skylark is one big, little boat with plenty of freeboard and stability.

Small Boats Annual 2007

The West Pointer 18

From workboat roots, a solid recreational boat

Six River Marine based this tough and shapely skiff on a highly regarded workboat designed and built by Alton Wallace. Chip Miller gave the new boat more freeboard, less flare, greater breadth, and slightly increased length.

Small Boats Annual 2007

PETITELISA

A simple girl

PETITELISA is a synthesis of Gilles Montaubin’s long experience with sail-and-oar boats. Unlike many boats of this type, she is not reminiscent of any traditional working boat type. Instead, she incorporates some very contemporary features. Montaubin, for example, has intensively tested the use of water ballast on many boat designs, and its use on PETITELISA allows her displacement to be…

Small Boats Annual 2007

Blackbird

A striking outboard cruiser

Conceived in the early 1980s by Ken Bassett, Onion River Boat Works, and massaged into her final form by Phil Bolger, BLACKBIRD embodies the spirit of carefree mobility found in the lyrics of the Mort Dixon/Ray Henderson song “Bye Bye Blackbird,” “Pack up all my cares and woe, here I go, singin’ low, bye bye blackbird.” BLACKBIRD evolved on the…

Small Boats Annual 2007

The Flatfish

An inspired daysailer

Every sailor has his own vision of the perfect daysailer. For many, this ideal boat is based on the Herreshoff 12 1⁄2, Nathanael G. Herreshoff’s iconic daysailer, which debuted in the summer of 1915. For others, it’s the larger Fish class or the still-larger Alerion—two more masterworks from the hand of Herreshoff. These boats have been the subject of imitation…

Small Boats Annual 2007

Coho 17

Elegant and able home-built kayak

People are always drawn to the warmth and the visual texture of a varnished wood kayak, but the beauty of a plywood kayak can and should be more than skin deep. Not only do the sweeping curves of the Coho 17’s multichined hull and beveled deck offer up an elegance that sets a kayak like the Coho apart from main-…

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Small Boats Annual 2022March 2021

Down East Workboat

Blending seakeeping ability with speed

John Gardner’s Down East Workboat is an 18’ version of a type that has proved useful on the Maine coast for vessels in many sizes up to 30’. With a 25-hp outboard at one-third throttle, it planes easily at 12 knots.

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Small Boats Annual 2022March 2021

The Crawford Melonseed Skiff

From a 19th-century gunning skiff to a classic sailer in fiberglass

Roger Crawford was once asked to repair an aging wooden sailing skiff and was so impressed by its sailing abilities when he had it afloat again that he used it as a mold to produce the boat in fiberglass. Decades later, his Melonseed Skiff is a classic.

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March 2021

A River Row

Oregon’s Willamette River

Jordan, Jon, and Hart were all on the same crew when they were in college, training for years to row as fast as humanly possible. Two decades later, with their 30s now trailing astern, they were content to lower the stroke rate and enjoy the scenery on Oregon’s Willamette river.

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March 2021

Making a Mock-Up

Trying a boat on for size

When Tom Hepp designs a boat he wants to build, the best way he has found to avoid unpleasant and expensive surprises is to build a mockup. For his 17’ pocket cruiser, it allowed him to try the boat on for size, work out the bugs on inexpensive materials, and create a full set of templates.

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March 2021

Spur Grommets

Sturdy eyelets with bite

Small boat cruising can involve a lot of fabric: sails, dodgers, covers, and tarps. The grommets that work best for outdoor use are spur grommets, with teeth that grip the fabric. They’re stronger than ordinary grommets and have their own tools to set them.

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March 2021

nCamp’s Multi-Fuel Stove

Cooking with gas, alcohol, wood, and more

This sturdy stove, made of aluminum and stainless steel, folds to make a compact package, is easily stowed, and can burn a wide variety of fuels. You can use liquid or gas fuels for clean burning and wood when there is nothing left in the cans.

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March 2021

SKIMMER

A rowing skiff with an auxiliary diesel

For his first boatbuilding project, John Carswell took on a boat with a complex strip-built hull that has a box keel to keep the boat upright while the tide’s out and a tunnel to protect the propeller when motoring across shallows and weeds.

Small Boats Annual 2007

The Boothbay Harbor One-Design

A fast and wholesome daysailer-racer

The Boothbay Harbor One-Design, a short-ended Burgess, moved to mid-coast Maine and hired Geerd daysailer with a long waterline, is a particularly handsome boat that has proven itself in the choppy waters off Boothbay and Pemaquid, Maine. It’s an easy boat to sail, while being both maneuverable and fast, and its design is the product of some of the best…

Series

ELF

The Tolman Skiff

Surf Crabskiff

Marissa 18

Fox Islands

Stropping

ProMariner’s ProSport HD6

Natas

C H K

RASCAL

Stir Ven

Skylark

The West Pointer 18

PETITELISA

Blackbird

The Flatfish

Coho 17

Down East Workboat

The Crawford Melonseed Skiff

A River Row

Making a Mock-Up

Spur Grommets

nCamp’s Multi-Fuel Stove

SKIMMER

The Boothbay Harbor One-Design

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