Series

The Tolman Skiff

A boat for all seasons

From the 2007 Small Boats Annual - 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.

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.

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.

RASCAL

A playful runabout

From the 2007 Small Boats Annual - 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…

Stir Ven

A good sense of balance

From the 2007 Small Boats Annual - 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…

Skylark

A beautiful and practical daysailer

From the 2007 Small Boats Annual - 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.

The West Pointer 18

From workboat roots, a solid recreational boat

From the 2007 Small Boats Annual - 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.

PETITELISA

A simple girl

From the 2007 Small Boats Annual - 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…

Blackbird

A striking outboard cruiser

From the 2007 Small Boats Annual - 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,…

The Flatfish

An inspired daysailer

From the 2007 Small Boats Annual - 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…

Coho 17

Elegant and able home-built kayak

From the 2007 Small Boats Annual - 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…

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.

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.

The Boothbay Harbor One-Design

A fast and wholesome daysailer-racer

From the 2007 Small Boats Annual - 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 Christmas Wherry

A Maine example of a traditional design

From the 2007 Small Boats Annual - The Christmas Wherry possesses two characteristics that should be critically important to anyone looking for a small boat to use in open waters. It displays classic beauty and, as the boat’s designer, Walt Simmons of Lincolnville, Maine, says, “It will take you out, and bring you back home.”

February 2021

Waxed Canvas

Classic fabric for home-sewn projects

While waxed canvas has lost the important role it once had in military, maritime, and recreational activities, it is a handsome and durable material for DIY sewing projects for boat and workshop.

MARTHA

A soulful little pocket cruiser

From the 2008 Small Boats Annual - Sam (S.S.) Crocker designed the 19' 9" pocket cruiser Sallee Rover as a yawl in 1953; later, in 1955, he drew the sloop-rigged version seen in the accompanying photographs. Making just a few changes to her for aesthetic purposes, Joel White built this sloop in 1967 for his father, E.B. White, and named…

JOLENA III

An electric-powered “steam” launch

From the 2008 Small Boats Annual - "I’ve been the subject of a helluva lot of flattery over the past three days—not to say that I don’t appreciate it,” said Jim Hulm, beaming, while working his fantail launch alongside a floating dock at Connecticut’s Mystic Seaport. It was a Sunday in June, the third day of the 2007 WoodenBoat Show,…

Living with Little Boats

A guide to orderly storage and transport

From the 2008 Small Boats Annual - Little boats are...well...little. By my definition, they can be towed by four-cylinder cars and ride on trailers without brakes. They are usually less than 400 lbs and often are powered by only wind, muscle, or both. The smallest ones can be placed on roof racks and carried atop a car. They are the…

January 2021

Megaphones

DIY projects to make yourself heard

There are times when you need to make yourself heard over the noise of wind and waves or across distance. Cupping your hands around your mouth helps, but old-school megaphones are easy to make and surprisingly effective.

January 2021

PUDDLE DUCK

A pram started in 1945 and launched in 2020

Ritchie With’s father started building a plywood pram in 1945, but the plywood parts he cut out gathered dust for 75 years. Only when Ritchie’s daughter-in-law needed a pandemic project to keep his grandkids occupied did the pieces get put together.

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.

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…

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.…

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…