Whitehall Tender

Whitehall Tender

Aboard Small Boats - A Video Series

"American Beauty" is a Whitehall Tender that was built by students at WoodenBoat School and designed by the Rice Brothers from East Boothbay, Maine.

April 2020

Social Distancing

Our editor is under a statewide stay-home order, but there’s an exemption for exercise, so he can still go out rowing, as long as he keeps his distance from other people. He was the only one at the launch ramp with a boat and trailer and very much apart from others while at anchor.

July 2019

Shenandoah Whitehall

Light enough to carry solo

Gentry’s Shenandoah Whitehall is a modern boat with traditional lines that’s large enough to take an adult and a kid camping, relatively seaworthy, efficient under oars, and light enough to toss on the roof of the car. For a few hundred dollars and a few dozen hours, it can provide a novice with both a manageable entry into boatbuilding and rowing adventures.

March 2019

Whitehall 17

A classic form, strip-built, from Glen-L

Glen-L is well known for designs for plywood boat building, but their 17’ Whitehall is designed to be strip planked. The lightweight cedar hull is easily driven, runs straight, and can easily sustain 4 knots with a solo rower at the oars.

May 2018

Catherine

Whitehalls in the Netherlands

A Dutch boatbuilding school that has taken an interest in American sailing and rowing craft launched its seventh Catherine. It’s a lapstrake boat in the Whitehall style that fits well in the canals, inland seas, and coastal waters of the Netherlands.

April 2018

Stretcher Steering

I’ve been rowing my Whitehall a lot, leaving the sailing rig and the rudder at home, but I decided that I could put the rudder to good use by making it possible to steer with my feet. Now I can devote my stroke to power instead of holding a course.

April 2018

From Father to Son

Five generations of boatbuilders

Nick Blake is a boatbuilder living on a plot of Mississippi land that has been in the family since the 1830s. Nick built a modified version of a Chapelle Whitehall with the help of his father, tools passed down from his grandfather, traditions established by his great-grandfather, and lumber milled from trees grown on his great-great-grandfather’s land.

February 2017

Tadpole Tender

Cottrell's 10' Whitehall

The Tadpole Tender from Cottrell Boatbuilding is a scaled-down Whitehall that can do well as a tender, a rowing trainer for kids, or a lightweight rowboat you can carry by cartop.

March 2016

Oars with Elbows

A Forward-Facing Rowing System

Rowing takes on a different look when you’re using a forward-facing rowing system. We put articulated oars to the test.

November 2015

Whitehalls on the Colorado

Following John Wesley Powell through the Grand Canyon

John Wesley Powell is well remembered for his daring descent of the Colorado River through the entire length of the Grand Canyon. The run is challenging enough in modern whitewater rafts; confronting the rapids, rocks and bus-sized standing waves in Whitehalls, boats once used as New York harbor taxis, made even experienced river guides nervous.

November 2014

Beaching Legs

A simple way to keep your boat upright

I prefer to anchor out when we are camp-cruising, but with Alaska’s 20’ tide range that isn't always an option in some of the shallower coves. Boats with flat bottoms wide enough to keep them upright will ground comfortably on a falling tide, but our Caledonia yawl, with its narrow keel, will come to rest heeled over. This is where beaching legs, also known as sheer legs, come in handy. This decidedly low-tech gear is just the thing to keep your boat upright on the beach, allowing the continued use of your boat as a base camp between tides.