A Brief Encounter

One evening in late May 1994, my phone rang. Standing by the kitchen door, receiver in hand, I heard an unfamiliar voice with an American accent.

“Jenny Bennett? This is Carl Cramer. Will you be at the Wooden Boat Show in Greenwich next weekend?”

When I didn’t immediately respond, the voice repeated, “Carl Cramer…WoodenBoat magazine…hello?”

For some years before that phone call, I had been working first at Classic Boat magazine and then at The Boatman in Cornwall, England. Now, I was back in my home county of Devon, working for a large book-publishing house. Like most people in marine publishing at that time, I was familiar with WoodenBoat, but the name of its publisher, Carl Cramer, had passed me by.

“I’ll be there,” said the voice. “It’d be good to meet you.”

Why, I wondered, would the publisher of WoodenBoat magazine want to meet me?

“I think I’ll be there,” I said.

“Great, I’ll see you on the Saturday.”

And with that the call ended.

A week later, I was in the grounds of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, chatting with old friends, admiring new boats, and hearing about forthcoming projects. As I made my way around the annual show, I asked if anyone had seen Carl Cramer from WoodenBoat. The oft-repeated answer was: “Yes, you’ve just missed him.”

As the day wore on, I came to think that our paths would never converge, and that our meeting would become one of my life’s “might-have-beens.” But then, in the gloom of the small-exhibits tent, there he was: a slight man with wild dark hair, a short but unkempt beard, a crumpled suit coat above a pair of jeans and, on his feet, well-worn boat shoes without socks.

“Aha,” he said, “there you are. There’s no time now, but I’m having dinner with friends, come join us.”

I did. We sat together and talked magazines, and boats, and books that we had read, and books that I had not read (Carl seemed to have read every book ever published), and Maine, and why I had never been to America. We closed the restaurant, shared a taxi, shook hands as I got out at my stop, and went our separate ways. It had been an amusing and frenetic encounter, and I stored it up for later anecdotes, unaware that there would be a postscript.

Photographs courtesy of Aaron Porter

Carl taking a break during set-up at the International Boatbuilder’s Exhibition and Conference (IBEX), which he established after he launched Professional BoatBuilder in 1989.

He called the following Tuesday.

“Hi, it’s Carl Cramer. Do you remember the name of the restaurant? I left my glasses there.”

I didn’t, but I would find out.

And then he asked the question that would change everything. “Do you want the job?”

Job? What job?

It was only weeks later, after I had visited the WoodenBoat offices in Maine, been toured around the area by Carl for three days, gone for a sail in a Herreshoff 12 1⁄2, eaten countless American pancakes, and been treated to a front-row “seat” at a small-town Fourth of July parade, that I understood: the London encounter had been an hours-long interview for the position of managing editor, and the unorthodox approach had been typical of the man.

In the three years that I worked alongside Carl in Brooklin, Maine, and later when I returned to England but continued to work with WoodenBoat remotely, I was never aware of him taking time off—unless it was to go for a sail, or to step outside for a smoke. His energy seemed boundless as he kept tabs on all the comings and goings in the magazine’s offices. He’d move from art department to editorial department to advertising department without pause. He seemed to have the pulse of every aspect of WoodenBoat and Professional BoatBuilder, somehow managing to be in control while giving his staff free rein. He could talk boats with passion, loved them all, but never preached or forced his opinion on others. Endlessly curious, he could strike up a conversation with anyone. And his laugh—a loud infectious bark made raspy from his lifelong cigarette habit—was ever accompanied by a twinkling eye, owl-like behind his glasses.

Carl Cramer, 1946–2025

I had worked in magazines for five years before joining WoodenBoat, and yet it was from Carl that I learned the importance of the finer details of producing a magazine…how to choose between one front-cover image and another; how to say more with fewer words; and above all, how to love the job.

Carl passed away on April 10, 2025. He had been publisher at WoodenBoat Publications from 1989 to 2014, stepping down just as Small Boats was beginning. He had changed the trajectory of my life, championed my position at the magazine and, ever in the background, had offered advice, good humor, and kindness to me and all who worked with him. Like everyone connected with Small Boats and WoodenBoat, I have much to thank him for.