The story of the ELSON PERRY dates back to the late 19th century when Elson Perry, a lighthouse keeper, boatbuilder, and fisherman living in the coastal community of Port Medway, Nova Scotia, built a boat—a 20′ workboat carrying a handful of spars. It is believed that he built this boat for his own use and kept it for the rest of his life. It appears that a descendant kept the boat until 1929, when it was hauled up out of the water one last time and stored in a fish shack. There it rested until the 1960s when the house and land that included the fish shack were sold to the writer Calvin Trillin. Trillin donated that old boat to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, where it has been preserved to this day (See WB No. 163).

When the museum decided to build a boat to celebrate the millennium, they chose to build a new version of that old Port Medway boat. This new boat is the ELSON PERRY. She’s proven to be a very shapely and able craft built by the museum’s resident boatbuilder, Eamonn Doorly, and launched on Canada Day—July 1, 2000.

In the 19th-century Nova Scotia in which Perry lived, a fellow did any number of things to piece together a living, and in many ways Perry’s life and his Port Medway boat are reflective of that diversity. One of the unique mysteries of the boat is that there are three mast partners, one on each of the forward three thwarts, suggesting that she could be rigged in a variety of ways, perhaps for different uses. Sometimes the boat was used for hand-lining, other times for scallop raking, and with a boat so pretty I would hope that she sailed for the pure pleasure of it as well.

There are signs of influences from other boats in her design and construction, but the overriding truth is that she is unique and very much the product of one builder in one place and one time in history. Although Doorly was building a new boat, he was tethered to the history of that old Port Medway boat. The replica is proof that, although there have been many advances in design and construction in the past century, a simple well-thought-out and built boat is still a great pleasure to observe and use—and is every bit as capable today as it was when it was first built perhaps 140 years ago.

To state that Doorly was the builder is a little misleading; more accurately, one should say he was the lead builder, with every single employee of the museum contributing some of his or her time. The hours in the shop are now looked back on fondly, and with the boat in the water each summer in front of the museum, she is a source of pride for the staff.

Michael Higgins

The ELSON PERRY has mast partners at each of her three forward thwarts. The storage compartments under the thwart were not in the original boat.

The boat was lofted from lines recorded from the original Port Medway boat by Ed Porter. This provided patterns for the stem, keel, and transom as well as for the building molds. These molds still exist and are in storage at the museum. All of these components were assembled right-side up and faired before the boat was planked. Like most lapstrake boats, she was planked—seven strakes a side—before frames were bent into the boat. There is a lot of shape in this hull, particularly aft. As a result, much care should be taken in lining-off the planking to ensure that one does not try to force too much shape into a single plank.

The stem and keel assembly is made of oak, as are the frames, and the planking is pine. No doubt another builder of this boat might choose other suitable woods available locally to them. Perry simply did what all good boatbuilders of that time did: He used woods readily available to him. Doorly did the same but was able to stray a little from his historical predecessor by using mahogany for the sheerstrake, which has added to the resilience and stiffness of this boat. The boat’s narrow side decks and long coaming also add greatly to her stiffness and aid considerably in keeping the ocean out. She has four thwarts supported by plenty of grown knees, and above the sole boards there is a partial ceiling—all adding up to a strong little ship.

The rig is full of traditional details, such as boom jaws and table. Much pleasure and pride will be found in splicing the standing and running rigging. No one piece of the ELSON PERRY is too big; this is a fully realized boat, but on a manageable size. There are ample opportunities to stitch leather on chafe points, and to fabricate your own vintage ironwork. The six spars would provide a chance for experimenting with different construction methods. A few could be solid, others laminated hollow with “bird’s-mouth joints” or tapered staves. For a builder with sailmaking skills or a desire to learn them, a suit of handmade sails would be just the thing to complete the project.

Michael Higgins

There are enough lines aboard to keep three people busy sailing the ELSON PERRY; four is better in windy weather.

This is not an instant boat; she will not be built in a few weekends over a winter, and she will require a depth of commitment. Few things are as disheartening as having an incomplete boat hanging around for years. On the other hand, if you have a suitable space, some basic tools, and perhaps 800 or 1,000 hours with which to work—not to mention several thousand dollars—you could build a boat that will turn heads and hearts wherever you may sail.

Now, I suspect that none of us is going to build an ELSON PERRY today for the inshore fishery or scalloping, so we need to think a little about what sort of sailing we are apt to do, and what sort of sailing the PERRY is up to. Port Medway is a sheltered body of water, and this being an unballasted, open boat, we would want to use her in coastal waters with an eye on the weather. But, that being said, she is an able and responsive boat, capable of impressive speed, particularly given the age of her design.

On a breezy day, the ELSON PERRY would sail best with a crew of four or so, not just because there are a lot of fun pieces of rope to pull on, but she could also use the weight to help keep her upright. She has plenty of power, and on a gusty and blustery day one needs to be agile to keep her leeward rail out of the drink. The reward is a very enjoyable ride indeed. Doorly reports, “Sailing the ELSON PERRY as a ketch is the most fun way to sail; she is very responsive, fast, and requires at least three people to sail, four in windier weather. Her purpose at the museum is to familiarize staff with the basics of sailing, so keeping staff busy and engaged while sailing is very important. I’ve tried other rigs on her, but she seems to come into her own when sailed as a ketch.”

Michael Higgins

At 20’ long, the ELSON PERRY is plenty big enough for camp-cruising, but also fast and lively enough for daysailing.

I can see us now deciding if we are going to be the Swallows or the Amazons. The ELSON PERRY is exactly the sort of boat that would appeal to Arthur Ransome. (Please, if you have not read Swallows and Amazons, do yourself a favor and find a nice old copy in a used bookstore, or get it new at The WoodenBoat Store, and settle in for a tale that will inspire you to build a boat and sail about your neck of the world with a renewed sense of wonderment and imagination.) If you would ike to explore a tidal estuary full of islands or inland lakes such as the Norfolk Broads in timeless style and grace, then the ELSON PERRY is a boat for you.

Endless days could be spent in pursuit of privateers, or on the run from custom agents with a contraband cargo of cheese, crackers, and cold lemonade. For fun, or to disguise your boat, you might leave the mizzen ashore, move the mainmast back a thwart to the next maststep, and rig her as a sloop. The mystery of the extra maststep will probably never be solved, but it would be very interesting to see how many different ways you could rig her. She is big enough at 20′ LOA and 5′ 5″ beam to carry the gear required for a weekend on the island, but small enough to trailer to another destination next week.

This is a timeless boat, and as such she is limited only by your imagination. She is at home along with her sister, the original Port Medway boat, at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic but would also fit right in at any gathering of wooden boats today. The ELSON PERRY is the boat in which we wish our grandparents had taught us to sail and row, and the boat in which we might teach our own children to sail and row.

The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic no longer offers plans for the ELSON PERRY. The review appears here as archival material.

The ELSON PERRY carries six spars, making possible a variety of rigs. Ketch, cat ketch, sloop, and cutter rigs are all possible. These plans were drawn by Ed Porter and taken from the original boat owned by Elson Perry. The museum’s new version has a few modifications not shown here.

ELSON PERRY Particulars: LOA 20′, LWL 18’1″, Beam 5’5″, Draft 1’2″ board up 3’6″ board down, Sail area 210 sq ft

Under oars or sail, the Heritage 23 is a bewitching sight. The ketch-rigged double-ender, 23′ LOA, is English designer Richard Pierce’s contemporary interpretation of a classic Great Lakes Mackinaw boat, with a sweeping sheer, plumb stem, and raked sternpost. She is the prototype for a comely new one-design class intended to promote rowing and sailing along Michigan’s Sunrise Coast, bordering Lake Huron.

The idea for the Heritage 23 was conceived at East Tawas, Michigan, in 2011. A small cadre led by David Wentworth founded Heritage Coast Rowing and Sailing, Inc., a nonprofit organization. The group’s mission, inspired by the success of the St. Ayles skiff program in Scotland (see Small Boats 2012), is to encourage community boatbuilding, preserve classic regional boat designs, and encourage rowing and sailing. The group commissioned Pierce to adapt a traditional 19th-century Great Lakes boat design to a kit-buildable craft, using marine plywood and epoxy resins. Several boats were considered—among them the Collingwood, Huron, Tawas Bay One-Design, and Bateau—but in the end, the Mackinaw was selected.

Mackinaw boats originated on the Upper Great Lakes sometime in the 1800s, but exactly when has been in dispute for decades. The American Fur Company used Mackinaws on Lake Superior as early as the 1830s. Fishermen on Isle Royale near the lake’s North Shore worked aboard 20′ to 30′ versions of the boat from the 1850s to early 1900s. These Mackinaws were robustly built and heavily ballasted for operating in open waters. Early models, which primarily featured pointed bows and sterns, varied greatly in style, depending on the builder.

Once commissioned by the Heritage group, Pierce studied various plans, including Nelson Zimmer’s 20th-century version of the Mackinaw boat, in preparation for completing his design. Although based on historical Mackinaw lines, the Heritage 23 is designed to be constructed with lightweight modern materials. It weighs just 350 lbs and carries no ballast. With four rowing stations, each for an oarsman handling a single oar, and a coxswain seat, the boat is ideal for competitive coastal racing under oars. As a sailboat, she is best suited for protected waters. Overall, she performs like a large dinghy, rather than a deepwater workboat.

George D. Jepson

Rowing is a particular emphasis of Heritage Coast Rowing and Sailing, and the teamwork involved in having four oars and a coxswain will serve the goal of building community interest in boats and boatbuilding.

After the Heritage 23 plans were drawn, Pierce turned to Alec Jordan at Jordan Boats in Fife, Scotland, to design the prototype kit, as well as the boat’s interior layout, which favors the rowing configuration. Jordan already had a longstanding relationship with Hewes and Company in Blue Hill, Maine, to produce boat kits in North America, and the Heritage 23 has been added to the lineup.

Last April, six amateur boatwrights, regulars who would see the project through to completion, gathered with Jordan in a small building near the East Tawas waterfront. They constructed the Heritage 23 mold, glued garboards to the keel, and the modern Mackinaw began to take shape. During the course of the project, at least two dozen volunteers contributed to the building effort. Four experienced wooden boat builders dropped by almost daily to offer guidance.

As a warmer-than-usual spring hinted at the coming summer, the shop buzzed with activity. The team worked steadily to hang 9-mm okoume marine plywood planks, 12 to a side, gluing the laps with epoxy. “To have consistently hung two pairs of planks a day with a team who mostly had not been involved in building boats is a fantastic achievement,” Jordan said. When the sheer-strake—the “whiskey plank”—was fitted and glued, Jordan and the boatwrights celebrated with “a wee dram” of single-malt Scotch. Although there was much work ahead, it was a major milestone for the boatwrights and their mentor.

In addition to planking, bulkheads, thwarts, and flotation tanks were fashioned from CNC-machine-cut okoume. White oak was used for the keel, keelson, stem, sternpost, inwale, gunwale, tiller, rudder, steering yoke used when rowing, and bowsprit. The centerboard trunk was constructed with a white oak frame, an okoume body, and a sassafras cap. Spars, which included masts, yards, and booms for the standing-lug fore and main sails, were shaped from Douglas fir. The centerboard was cut from 3/4″ aluminum. The boat-builders cut cleats from a white-oak-and-carbon-fiber sandwich that they had laminated.

The Heritage 23 has a traditional-looking finish. The topsides are coated with white epoxy paint. The sheerstrake, thwarts, centerboard trunk, foredeck, spars, yoke, tiller, and rudder are finished bright. The boat is fitted out with off-the-shelf stainless-steel hardware, except for the pintles and gudgeons, which were custom-made locally from aircraft aluminum. Doyle Sails of St. Clair Shores, Michigan, cut Heritage 23’s white Dacron sails.

Raising the Heritage 23’s standing-lug rig is a rather simple matter, and even a novice can do it in about 20 minutes. The two identical unstayed masts (fore and main), with halyards attached, can be seated in their maststeps by one person. Preparing the yards to be sent aloft, the halyard is attached with a rolling hitch. The jib snaps quickly to the bowsprit and the halyard. Connecting the two downhauls, one forward and one just aft of the foremast, and threading the sheets through blocks completes the setup. Breaking down the rig takes even less time. The boat is easily towed or stored on its custom trailer, which Pierce also designed.

George D. Jepson

When the Heritage 23 is under oars, the tiller is removed and a rudderhead yoke with steering lines is installed to permit the coxswain to sit amidships all the way aft.

By late July, the Heritage 23 was ready to launch Pierce arrived in East Tawas from his home on an island off the coast of Scotland six weeks earlier to shepherd the project through its final steps; Alec Jordan returned to his business in Scotland. On an early August morning, a leaden sky darkened Tawas Bay, while a stiff 15-mph southeasterly breeze whipped the seas into a lively chop. The Heritage 23, with Pierce at the helm and three crew aboard, sliced across the bay under full sail. Emerging from the gloom, she was an apparition from somewhere in time. Turning into the wind, the crew lowered the mizzen, a precaution against potential damage. Even under reduced sail, the boat charged across the cresting waves, heeling to the wind but keeping her lee rail out of the water.

Returning to the harbor behind the protective breakwater, the Heritage 23 glided into her slip. There was water in the bilge and the crew was damp from the spray of the choppy seas. A bit of bailing set things right, while the sailing rig was stowed. Pierce suggested adding a canvas bucket to the regular gear list.

At high noon, the Mackinaw was rigged for rowing, with a steering yoke fixed atop the rudder in place of the tiller. A five-man crew was aboard, including a coxswain. The rowers each grasped a stout 12′ oar. With a word from the coxswain, the pulling began, while he steered by pulling ropes attached to either end of the yoke. Clearly, the pulling crew will need training to achieve a competitive edge, but for the moment they were pleased—along with Pierce—that the hull slid smoothly through the water.

George D. Jepson

The Heritage 23 draws on the famous Mackinaw boat of the Great Lakes, with its straight and plump stem, its shapely lapstrake hull, and its two-masted rig with plank bowsprit. The design requirement for glued-plywood kit construction, however, necessitated developing new plans from the bottom up.

By early afternoon, the wind moderated. Once again, Pierce rigged the Heritage 23 with just the jib and foresail, in yet another test of the boat’s capabilities, this time in a light breeze. Clearing the pierhead, we set off on a starboard reach. Tawas Point Lighthouse was visible off the port bow. The designer, still at the helm, was delighted with the boat’s response. In these conditions, a two-person crew could easily handle the Mackinaw for a leisurely daysail. In a heavier blow, with three sails aloft, at least one more hand, if not two, would be preferable.

Taking the tiller from Pierce, I found the helm responsive to my touch. In the light air, there was no weather helm. Pierce remarked that this was also his experience in heavy winds earlier in the day. Coming about, the boat is sluggish due to the long, straight keel that helps her track well under oars. Gaining speed once again, we sailed through the wind and headed off on a port tack. Pierce suggested that I let go of the tiller. Surprisingly, we continued sailing in a straight line, a display of the craft’s tracking ability.

Under sail, the helmsman must sit aft on either the port or starboard bench, just forward of the coxswain’s seat. In this boat, these side seats narrow significantly near the stern, leaving the helmsman with precious little room to comfortably perch. The layout is understandable for rowing purposes, but perhaps a removable thwart would answer.

Heritage Coast plans to build a second Mackinaw this winter, offering an opportunity for a new group of amateur builders to become involved. Along the Sunrise Coast, at least four other community groups are interested in building Heritage 23s.

As more Mackinaws are christened, windows will open to the past—a poignant reminder of the sailors and fishermen who plied these inland seas in small boats a century and more ago.

Plans and kits are available from Hewes and Company, Marine Division.

The Heritage 23 is an international effort: English yacht designer Richard Pierce paid homage to the Mackinaw boat heritage, but worked in modern elements such as an easy-to-handle standing lug rig, then worked with the Scottish kit-boat developer Jordan Boats to work up specifications for parts cut by Hewes and Company in Maine for a sailing and rowing association based in Michigan.

Heritage 23 Particulars: LOA 23′, Beam 5’6″, Draft (db/cb up) 1’2″, (db/cb down) 3′, Weight 350 lbs, Sail area 233 sq ft

Skimming across Copper Harbor, the Manitou 18 summons memories of lazy summer days in the 1950s on waterfronts across America. Built for coastal running on the Great Lakes and the region’s large inland waters, the eye-catching runabout—18′ LOA, with a 6′ 7″ beam—features a deep-V hull, substantial deadrise, and a sweeping sheer. Based on the Downeaster 18 by Charles W. Wittholz, the boat is a contemporary rendition by Copper Harbor Boat Works, a small shop on the tip of Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula, which juts into Lake Superior.

After building two small runabouts, the Boat Works sought a design that was better suited for the often choppy waters along the Lake Superior shoreline. Research led the shop’s founder, Ray Chamberlain, to the Wittholz runabout. In 1986, WoodenBoat Publications commissioned Graham Ero to build a Downeaster 18 (see WB Nos. 73, 74, and 75). Contacting Ero in Still Pond, Maryland, Copper Harbor boatwright Jeff Coltas inquired about the boat’s performance and solicited suggestions regarding its construction. Satisfied with the design and Ero’s feedback, Chamberlain decided to move ahead with the Manitou 18 project.

On a blustery midwinter day, with snow swirling in the north woods near the Lake Superior shore, the three-man crew commenced lofting the Manitou 18 in the shop’s snug confines, a small barn warmed by a fire crackling in the wood-burning stove. Lofting proved to be the most difficult step in the process, according to Chamberlain. The plans contained a table of offsets, but no patterns, requiring full-sized plywood templates to be fully developed for each part. While working straight from offsets may seem daunting to some, a builder with intermediate skills or an amateur who is very dedicated can build this boat. Of course, familiarity with lofting is also a good idea.

George D. Jepson

A storage compartment separates the two stern seats providing space for the fuel tank.

With Wittholz’s plans to guide them, the team began the hull’s plank-on-frame construction. Frames sawn from 3⁄4″ marine plywood and secured to the strongback hinted at the hull’s eventual shape. The frames were paired with pieces of red oak, providing a better surface on which to fasten the planks. The builders cut the 13⁄8″ keel and the keelson from mahogany, the stem from ash, and the sternpost from red oak. While white oak is generally accepted as a better boatbuilding wood than red oak, because of red oak’s known porousness, Chamberlain reasoned that encapsulating the wood in epoxy should provide sufficient protection against decay. Some builders will feel safer using white oak instead. They laminated two layers of 3⁄4″ mahogany plywood to form the transom.

Coltas reported that the Downeaster 18’s hull had a tendency to flex with the 9mm plywood planks specified in the plans. To strengthen the hull, the crew added one more frame and hung thicker, 12mm okoume side and bottom planks. Two additional Sitka-spruce stringers—six in total—further stiffened the bottom. Turning the hull upright, they noticed that the bow was a little high, but Coltas and crew liked the look, so rather than cutting it back they simply put a little more sweep in the sheer than was called for in the plans.

George D. Jepson

The runabout handles Lake Superior nicely, providing a dry, comfortable ride.

Once work began on the interior, the builders adjusted the seating plan. Moving the forward bench aft a few inches provided greater legroom and comfort for the helmsman and a passenger. Two stern seats, separated by a storage cabinet, completed the arrangement. Outboard fuel tanks are stored under the seats, which were fabricated from mahogany plywood. Most internal parts, including the seats, are fastened with stainless-steel screws, making them easy to remove. The sole is attached with bronze screws. This simple helm-forward plan provides ample space and storage for one to six on a daylong cruise.

The Manitou 18’s elegant interior and decking are among its most stunning features. Pinstriped fore and aft decks, built with 1⁄4″ bird’s-eye maple over 6mm okoume, add to the boat’s charm. The builders made the ceiling from quartersawn red oak and the sole from black walnut and red oak, and framed the windshield in maple.

The Boat Works sealed everything in epoxy before finishing, and paid careful attention to details when they applied the finish. They gave the entire boat—inside and out—two to three coats of clear epoxy, then painted the topsides with four coats of pale yellow, two-part polyurethane. Below the waterline, they applied four coats of white Teflon bottom paint. Interior surfaces and the decks were finished bright, with at least five coats of varnish. The team expended over 700 hours on this project.

In addition to the helm-forward layout, the boat is also available with a center-console configuration. The versa tile design accommodates multiple power options. This particular boat is driven by a 90-hp Evinrude E-Tec outboard, but was designed for 40- to 100-hp outboard motors. Other alternatives include an inboard/outboard or jet drive, as well as an inboard engine. Instrumentation includes a speedometer, tachometer, fuel gauge, and ammeter.

The seating and propulsion options will meet a variety of boating needs, from coastal cruising to pulling water skiers to picking up groceries at the local marina market. Easily trailered and simple to launch at public ramps, the Manitou 18 can be kept dry and under cover on its custom trailer—a good idea for any fine boat—or moored in front of the family cottage.

George D. Jepson

The Manitou’s attractive lines should earn some second looks at the launching ramp.

On a late-summer morning, I drove northeast on U.S. 41 toward Copper Harbor, a small, picturesque town. Under a brilliant clear-blue sky trees already displayed splashes of color, a sure sign that the boating season on Superior—called the “Big Lake” by those living near its shores—was nearing an end. At Copper Harbor Boat Works, the Manitou 18 sat on her trailer near the boat ramp. Less than five minutes after I saw her, she slid into the crystal water, reflecting her lustrous natural woods under the northern sun.

This is a charming little showboat, displaying impeccable workmanship from stem to stern. Chamberlain chose to trim the Manitou 18 with these special woods and the bright finish, but, in my opinion, she would also look comely with less brightwork and a painted finish. The latter option would hold up better against heavy use, too.

As we stepped aboard the runabout at the Boat Works dock, a light zephyr rippled across the water’s surface. Otherwise, all was still in the vast harbor, which stretches for nearly 3 miles and opens into Lake Superior. The Manitou 18’s chrome wheel and steering knob are throwbacks to the days of rock-and-roll and hot wheels, from customized roadsters to the early muscle cars, and reflect Chamberlain’s passions for speed and music with a classic ’50s beat.

As I edged the throttle forward, the boat literally flew over the water, streaming a clean wake. Momentarily, my mind drifted back to the late ’50s and early ’60s. Strains of Doo Wop tunes played in my subconscious, recalling endless summers on the water, pulling skiers or cruising along the beach. I was at the wheel of our old family runabout again, with the wind in my hair and Superior’s blue water spread before me.

The ride was smooth, even as we approached 40 mph. The boat and motor were relatively quiet. Powering into turns, the Manitou 18 responded with ease. As we accelerated on the straightaway, the stern barely squatted and the boat once again rose up on plane. It sliced through a building chop with minimal buffeting. At cruising speeds, the Manitou 18 is level and balanced. Chamberlain plans to add trim tabs to further balance the relatively light boat when there is just one person aboard.

Conditions were nearly perfect on this day, hardly challenging the Manitou’s capabilities. During earlier sea trials, the boat proved her mettle, powering through 2′ to 3′ seas in Lake Superior with her V-bow. The boat’s narrow entry makes her a bit tender side-to-side, but that’s the trade off we make for speed. The runabout is well suited for coastal waterways, whether fresh or salty. She handles Lake Superior nicely, providing a dry, comfortable ride.

George D. Jepson

The Manitou is rated for 40- to 100-hp outboard motors. With a 90-hp Evinrude E-Tec outboard, she flew across the water, giving a smooth ride at speeds up to 40 mph.

Overall, the Manitou 18 is simple to operate and is roomy enough to fit two additional seats just aft of the forward bench seats. Custom-made seat and back cushions give added creature comfort to the helmsman and passengers. Storage cabinets behind the forward seats are handy and suitable for towels or extra gear, such as binoculars. The boat is an extremely versatile modern classic, offering years of enjoyment with minimal maintenance.

Whether viewing the Manitou 18 moored dockside or sweeping through a sharp turn, boaters with a touch of gray will recall the time a half century ago when vintage wooden runabouts turned heads on waterfronts from coast to coast.

Plans for the Downeaster 18 can be ordered from The WoodenBoat Store.
Copper Harbor Boat Works is no longer in business.

These plans by Charles Wittholz appeared in WoodenBoat No. 73 as the first part of a three-part article by Graham Ero called “Building the Downeaster 18.” Copper Harbor’s modifications included raising the sheerline at the bow, using 12mm planking, and installing two additional stringers and one more frame. Particulars: LOA 18′, Beam 6′ 7″, Draft 1′ 1 1⁄2″, Displacement 1765 lbs (dry), Power 40–100 hp.

FAIREHOPE is a 21′ gaff-rigged sloop designed by Nelson Zimmer. In my correspondence with him during the time FAIREHOPE was being built, he wrote, “I designed the little shallop in 1946 for a man in Auckland, New Zealand, as a stout coastwise cruiser.” The design was featured in The Rudder, National Fisherman, and, finally, in the design section of WoodenBoat No. 58, with a commentary by Joel White, which is where I first saw her.

Being boatless at the time and eager to have another boat, as well as the experience of building one, I was immediately taken with her straightforward and strong look, which harked back to less complicated and saner times. The very favorable comments of Joel White completed the process of convincing me. Accordingly, I purchased a set of plans from The WoodenBoat Store and began my quarter-century relationship with FAIREHOPE.

I cannot say that the construction was without significant effort, but it was relatively simple work. The hard-chined sections and sawn frames eliminated the necessity of a steambox. After two-and-a-half years of mostly weekend work, with paid help from an experienced boatbuilder friend and six months of paid weekly assistance from another friend, she was launched in June 1985.

In keeping with her designer’s intent, she is stoutly built with locally sourced live oak for the keel and backbone, and natural live oak crooks for the quarter knees and breasthook. Her design also includes a full set of lodging and hanging knees, which I laminated from mahogany. FAIREHOPE is planked with 7⁄8″-thick juniper, with a 1-3⁄8″-thick mahogany sheerstrake for additional strength. Her topsides construction is batten-seam, using mahogany battens that cover the inside of the planking seams, and copper rivets for fastenings. We also installed 1⁄4″-thick pine ceiling planking, leaving 1⁄4″ between the strakes for ventilation. Instead of caulking the topsides, we epoxied juniper splines between the planks, creating a smooth and stable surface for painting. Below the chine, she is fastened with silicon-bronze screws and caulked traditionally. The decking is plywood covered with Dynel set in epoxy, with a teak overlay for a traditional look.

With Zimmer’s blessing, we changed the design by replacing the deep cockpit with a bridge deck and a self-draining footwell. In addition to improving seaworthiness in the event of taking a wave over the stern, this configuration allowed us to tuck a two-cylinder diesel engine under the deck. The Beta 14 engine, which is offset to port so as not to weaken the keel and dead-wood, has functioned quite well. I am presently using a two-bladed folding prop to reduce drag. Maximum speed under power is 61⁄2 knots with an easy cruising speed of 51⁄2 knots. Another change was the construction of a small bulwark to replace the toerail, raising the sheer height enough to allow us to clandestinely raise the cabin height to allow greater sitting headroom below while respecting the pleasing as-drawn profile.

In addition to the engine weight to port, which is offset by placing her two batteries to starboard, we added about 600 lbs of cast-lead ingots as inside ballast. Although she performed well and was relatively stiff with this ballasting, I eventually removed about 500 lbs of the inside ballast and instead gave the keel a 4″-thick, cast-lead shoe, which was bolted through the floor timbers and centerboard trunk bed logs. This placed most of the ballast as low as possible, but I retained 100 lbs of ingots for use as trim ballast. By blind luck, FAIREHOPE retained her wonderful motion and became noticeably stiffer.

D. Turner Matthews

Thin ceiling planking, spaced for hull ventilation, gives FAIREHOPE a simple, spare appearance down below, and her accommodations permit one or two people to cruise comfortably enough.

Although FAIREHOPE is only 21′ on deck, with a 2′ bowsprit and waterline length of 16′, she sails and feels like a much larger boat. Her motion is steady and solid, with no whip-like reactions in gusts, or bouncy motion such as you might experience in some 20′ fiberglass or plywood counterparts. Rather, FAIREHOPE, in gusts, just buries her shoulder a little more and increases her forward motion proportionate to the increase in wind velocity, continuing to rise and fall to the waves with a steady and predictable motion, easing her rail slowly upward when the gust ceases.

I frequently liken her to the 1955 Buick Super we had when I was a youth. As with the Buick, which gave a smooth, solid, and secure ride, you need to pay attention to the helm, particularly in windy conditions. Also, as with the Buick, FAIREHOPE has none of the stability safety features with which modern cars are fitted to keep incompetent drivers out of trouble—rather, you must rely upon your own skills. Unlike modern fin-keel boats, for example, she will not round up if overpowered by a gust. She depends upon her helmsman to point her in a safe direction and ease her mainsheet in stiff winds, and if you do not direct her otherwise, she will continue to bury her shoulder ever deeper and hold her course to the end.

That having been said, in general, her sailing qualities are impeccable. She will heave-to if necessary; seldom, if ever, misses stays; and is relatively fast given her 16′ waterline length. Being gaff-rigged, she is not particularly close-winded, but if properly trimmed will sail herself to windward, allowing me to leave the helm unattended for brief periods if necessary.

D. Turner Matthews

A great advantage to the 21-footer’s design is that it can be hauled out by trailer, which not only makes maintenance by the owner practical but also allows her to be taken easily to find new and even far-off cruising grounds to explore.

I originally had one moderate and one very deep reef in the main. A friend and I once took her out in storm conditions (gusting to more than 40 mph) to see what she would do. With the second reef in the main and the working jib, we managed to stay in control for the time we were out. On another occasion on the Gulf Coast Intracoastal Waterway between Venice and Boca Grande, Florida, I averaged 4 knots solely under the working jib. On that occasion, I was comforted by the running backstays, as it was a very broad reach in about 30 knots of wind.

I now have a set of Dabbler sails, with both reefs much shallower, making their use more practical in reasonably normal conditions. In a significant test, before a Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival in St. Michaels, Maryland, a friend and I did a double-reefed, 8-mile beat into 20 knots of wind, with higher gusts, down the Miles River to reach the pre-festival camp-out on the Wye River (see page 18). Although it was a very wet ride, we had sufficient sail area to maintain our momentum through the very steep chop, whereas with the other sails I would either have been overpowered with one reef, or too underpowered with the second reef to keep way on into the waves.

D. Turner Matthews

Nelson Zimmer designed his 21’ gaff-headed sloop to be comparatively simple and inexpensive to build.

For the most part, I have used FAIREHOPE for the role for which she was designed. Her simple but adequate accommodations allow for one or two people to camp-cruise in comfort. I have made numerous cruises along the Gulf Coast of Florida both alone and with various friends. I also do a lot of daysailing in the Manatee River and lower Tampa Bay.

FAIREHOPE is at her best in 10 to 15 knots of wind without any reefs, or in 15 to 20 knots with one or two reefs. I usually sail with the full main and working jib, which is club-footed and therefore self-tending. Tacking, then, is effortless, requiring me only to put the helm down and move to the high side. In light winds of 5 to 10 knots, I use a 120-percent genoa, which I had made several years ago, and with this, she maintains a reasonable speed. It does, of course, require retrimming with each tack, and with changing wind directions. With no winches aboard, however, handling the genoa requires significant effort when the wind gets much above 10 knots. As for the main, I rigged it with a classic double-ended mainsheet. With all this leverage, trimming the mainsail has never been a problem.

One of the great advantages of a deadrise centerboard boat, depending on her size, is the ability to launch and retrieve it from a trailer. During the summer hurricane season, I now pull FAIREHOPE out of the water onto her trailer, and using our local yacht club hoist, pull the mast, which stores easily aboard the boat. This also has allowed me to trailer her to faraway places, not only to St. Michaels, Maryland, but as far away as Southwest Harbor, Maine, for the 1994 WoodenBoat Show. The sailing out to the Atlantic through all the wonderful boats in Southwest Harbor remains one of the highlights of my time with FAIREHOPE.

When you sum up all of the good qualities I have mentioned, which have been learned and refined over a 27-year period, you are left with what I consider a timeless classic, regardless of when it was or will be built. I can truly say that for someone seeking a traditional, shoal-draft, small coastal cruiser to build or own, I can think of none better.

Full plans (and also study plans) for the 21’ Zimmer gaff sloop are available through The WoodenBoat Store.

Designed in 1946, the Zimmer 21’ sloop’s shallow draft—only 2’ with the centerboard up—promises easy access to shoal waters for island exploration and camp-cruising. Her accommodations are somewhat spartan, but adequate for the purpose, and her ample cockpit makes cruising under sail a pleasure.

Zimmer 21′ Gaff Sloop Particulars: LOA 21’1 1/2″, LWL 16′, Beam 7’2″, Draft (board up) 2′, (board down) 4’3″, Displacement 3110 lbs, Sail area 261 sq ft

If you are born with the name “Seaman,” your career path is almost preordained. Somewhere in the past, by definition, there are wooden boats in the bloodline. Dave Seaman may have come by the inclination to build boats naturally, but the lines and construction of his latest boat, ZEEK, are the product of study and experience. ZEEK is a 21′ LOA Alaska Sea skiff specifically designed and built for the short chop and steep gravel beaches of Alaska’s Kachemak Bay.

The south side of Kachemak Bay is a roadless area of snow-covered peaks where the only transportation is by boat. It has some of the largest tides in the world, and the rips and currents are a challenge. The early settlers there used dory-like rowing boats, with lots of rocker and flare—boats designed to survive in tough conditions. As engines replaced oars, transoms got wider and planing boats became the norm, but many of the design characteristics remained the same.

During the first years of his boatbuilding career, some 30 years ago, Seaman was part of a small group of self-reliant men and women who lived in those same remote coves and harbors. Builders like Seaman, Dick Dunn, Jim Landis, and George Hamm built the boats that people needed to travel year-round in the Bay’s sometimes harsh weather. They collaborated on designs, learning from each other’s boats and figuring out the details that make boats fit a particular combination of sea and shore. Materials often came from the Sitka spruce that covers the slopes or the cedar logs that would wash up on the beaches, flotsam from Japan-bound log barges. Logs were cooperatively cut on a one-man mill and sorted into two piles—construction lumber and boat boards.

South Bay celebrations sometimes had a dozen elegant home-built boats pulled up on the beach or rafted out on a running line. Like New England and Puget Sound, Kachemak Bay became a focal point for wooden boats. That heritage survives in the annual Kachemak Bay Wooden Boat Festival, which takes place in the small town of Homer each September.

Will Rice

ZEEK’s V-hull cuts through the chop, while her flaring bow and ample freeboard make her a dry boat.

One of Seaman’s earliest boats was built from a set of Pete Culler plans, and Culler’s influence has continued throughout Seaman’s career. Culler summarized his own design philosophy by saying, “To be successful at sea, we must keep things simple.” Capt. Culler’s philosophy shows in the clean lines and uncluttered structure of ZEEK.

Seaman’s construction details have been developed by years of fixing boats that he had built, restoration jobs on old boats built by old-timers, and keeping up a traditionally built, wooden, commercial fish boat. Fishing is a business where you learn the hard way about what breaks and what works. Fishing boats are built to take a beating, and Seaman incorporated the best of those design strengths into his own boats.

The addition of stitch-and-glue construction into the toolbox, along with customers who have believed in the process, has allowed Seaman to experiment, and usually that ends up back at simple. The hull shape, light weight, lack of appendages, below-decks engineering, and ease in cleanup make for user-friendly service for the long term. This design makes highly efficient use of wood fiber, still recognized as the most resilient of boatbuilding materials.

Kachemak Bay opens onto Cook Inlet, not the hard waters of the North Pacific. Consequently, it rarely produces big seas during the summer season, but the afternoon day breeze means that a 3′ chop is a standard operating condition. Given the temperature of the water, a wet boat is a serious design flaw. Seaman, who now lives in Homer, understands the importance of bad-weather handling. Twice a week, year round, he uses his 24′ boat to deliver the mail to places on the other side of the bay. It gives new meaning to the phrase “through rain and sleet….”

Seaman has built 25 boats, all of them designed for Kachemak Bay. ZEEK is a product of that evolution. Seaman collaborated with the boat’s owner, Kirk Vasey, in the design and construction of boat. Intended as a recreational runabout, she would also be suitable for various other operations, such as a water taxi for carrying up to six passengers.

Once he had the design parameters in mind, Seaman drew the lines on grid paper and generated a table of offsets. He then lofted and corrected the offsets. Patterns and molds were made from the lofting. Six molds were used, plus a stem pattern and a transom pattern. ZEEK is built with a low deadrise—13 degrees from ’midships aft and 25 degrees from the bow for about a quarter of the boat’s length. With a hard chine, a lot of freeboard, and significant flare in the sides, she is a dry boat. There are no skegs or other projections to interfere with the flow of water under the hull, so she is fuel-efficient.

Will Rice

The Alaska Sea Skiff can be built with a center console or a deckhouse.

ZEEK gets her strength from a monocoque design, in which the structural load is carried by the outer skin, much like a modern jetliner. The floor and bottom form a rigid triangle, the most stable geometric shape. She has no cross bulkheads, but instead relies on three longitudinal stringers under the floor. Two stringers run about halfway between the keel and each chine. The third runs down the center and provides direct support for the keel. The stringer configuration helps equalize the stresses and stiffens the hull with additional triangular shapes. The floor sits above the design waterline and, with a pair of 4″ scuppers, it is self-bailing.

The stringers, the hull, and the floor are tied together with double layers of ’glass cloth, providing rigidity fore-and-aft. The construction provides enough torsional give to dissipate the energy that a planing boat absorbs when it is pounding in rough water. The design avoids the popped bulkhead seams that are one of the most common repair problems in the Bay. Seaman says the concept is similar to the natural knees used for framing on the old wooden fishing boats. The roots used for those knees were flexible and resulted in a boat that could take years of heavy use with only minimal repair issues.

Construction is stitch-and-glue, with 1/2″ and 3⁄8″ marine fir plywood. Three sheets of plywood were scarfed together and steam-bent into shape. Every plywood surface inside and out is covered with a layer of 6- or 10-oz ’glass cloth and epoxy. The inwales are open and constructed from single pieces of wood, without scarfs. The rails are an integral design element in an open boat without obstructions for walking about. The inside rail is ironbark—a heavy, dense eucalyptus. The outside rail is fir. The open design means that cleats are not necessary, and the single-strip construction adds strength and rigidity to the hull.

With the huge tides that are the norm in Kachemak Bay, few places have docks (boats are typically kept on a mooring or a running line). Landings at the remote cabins that dot the bay are typically on a gravel beach. During the winter, ice is an issue. Needless to say, the bottoms of boats here take a beating. To protect ZEEK’s hull and provide the necessary strength, everything under the floor, and the bottom of the hull, inside and out, is covered with a double layer of cloth and epoxy. The center stringer provides strength to the keel. A strip of “Keelguard,” a polymer, self-adhering composite, provides additional protection. A bow deck facilitates loading and unloading onto a beach.

The boat carries two 20-gallon fuel tanks, which provide plenty of range. These in-seat tanks have waterproof covers. Wires and hoses are located under the deck in waterproof chases. GPS, VHS, and depth-sounder have waterproof switches and breaker panel. Kobelt hydraulic steering controls the Honda 90-hp four-stroke outboard. ZEEK has a stand-up console, but a sister boat with identical lines is fitted with a house. Seaman said, “All boat designs are a compromise, but there was no compromise on the materials or systems.”

With a displacement of only 1,200 lbs—1,700 with a 90-hp Honda outboard—she can be a bit tender, but fast and comfortable in the typical chop. However, she is also quick and maneuverable, and Kirk Vasey, the owner, reports that in 10′ rollers the combination of light weight and lots of power means that she is easy to steer through the troughs. And in flat conditions, she will jump up on plane and do 30 knots. Her light weight means that she can be towed on a single-axle trailer.

Seaman has built three boats from the design and molds. The construction took Seaman and Kirk about 15 months.

Seaman said that his goal was to build a boat that was faster, prettier, stronger, and lighter than the competition. ZEEK appears to meet those standards.

Will Rice is a widely published Alaska writer and the author of Fly Fishing Secrets of Alaska’s Best Guides, and co-author of Fly Fisher’s Guide to Alaska.

For Zeek plans and information about other designs from Dave Seaman, email him at [email protected].

Alaska Sea Skiff Particulars: LOA 21′, Beam 8′, Displacement 1700 lbs, Power 90 hp, Maximum speed 30 knots

In the year when Finland celebrates its position as design capital of Europe, the issue of how to preserve tradition in the face of ever-challenging technology is as topical as ever. In a country once economically dependent on processing its “green gold,” woodcraft comes with mother’s milk. At the annual gathering of “traditional wooden rowing boats” in the eastern province of Savo every summer, the Sulkava rowing event attracts between 6,000 and 7,000 rowers, with three main categories of small boats, comprising several hundred craft.

Along with Finnish naval architect Terho Halme, a former Dutch marine engineer, Ruud van Veelen, is doing his level best to infuse modern design and construction techniques into these categories while still adhering to the less-than-precise rules of the competition. While basic dimensions such as the height of the sheer at the stem and stern are specified, builders also are obliged to maintain “traditional features,” such as raking the stem slightly and fitting oarlocks so that their pins do not extend over the gunwales.

The adoption of plywood in traditional boatbuilding predated the establishment of the Sulkava races, although originally even the 40′, multiple-oared “church boats” that have a long history in the region and were usually built from hand-sawn pine. The use of multilayered veneers for light weight has improved performance, and today finding any sawn-timber boat at a rowing gathering is rare indeed. Van Veelen has introduced non-local plywoods, such as okoume, which particularly challenged the race committee tasked with guarding “traditional style.” More particularly, he has pushed for the use of ultra-light construction, using epoxy resins and glued joints instead of tar, glue, and copper rivets.

Anthony Shaw

Ruud van Veelen, a marine engineer from Holland now living in Finland, was inspired by the popularity of rowing to develop epoxy-plywood boats of light weight and high performance.

Hence the birth of the ultralight and fairly easily reproduced craft featured here, the Savo 650S rower. Living so near the venue of the Sulkava race, van Veelen had the demands of the local environment in mind: 60 kilometers of mainly sheltered inland waters where shallow draft and a long waterline are obvious advantages. His original design was a 21-footer that can be rigged for either single or double rowing, with the extra displacement adding only fractions of an inch to the depth of the load waterline. The Savo 650 is broader than his other design, the idiosyncratic “shift-rower,” in which one of the crew sits aft, wielding a long-handled paddle, and the two exchange places regularly to bring fresh energy to the sculls.

Apart from their sweeping chines, these two designs also share innovative hardware. Under the racing rules, the oarlock pin for the non-feathering oars cannot extend outside the line of the gunwale, but van Veelen developed a hinged pin that can be conveniently folded away during transportation. The sliding seat is of equally radical appearance when compared with traditional wheel-and-groove systems used on all other craft at the Sulkava gathering. Wheels are still required under the seat, but they have a pulley-like concave shape and run on top of two 7⁄8″-diameter stainless-steel tube rails running full length between beams attached to the two centermost frames. As well as looking very trim, the system is easy to adjust, since the footrests slide along the rails and are fixed in position by set-screws.

Anthony Shaw

A simple sliding seat runs on stainless-steel tubes; the footrests are adjustable with set-screws.

Apart from the strictures of the race handbook, the Savo 650S is also very adaptable for non-competitive rowers. The longest major rowing event in Finland is actually the 200-km (124.3-mile) Karelia Marathon Row, held annually in the same lake as Sulkava at its northern extremity and finishing near the town of Joensuu. This also attracts a wide variety of craft and includes five overnight lakeside stops. Two of van Veelen’s customers use this design not only for the five-day event, but also for the 350-km (217.5-mile) round-trip there and back to Imatra, their home just 35 km (21.7 miles) from the Russian border. Although van Veelen is quick to insist that this design is not a cottage “runabout,” he points out that any rowing trip is easier when the craft has better hydrodynamic and steerage features, giving greater reward for energy expended.

My short outing in the four-strake version of the Savo 650S underscored these features. Given that most recreational rowing takes place under reasonably fair weather conditions, the disadvantages of light construction are somewhat relative. One keenly competitive customer even found that removing the 1.5-cm (0.6″) external “keel,” which runs along the whole length of the hull, did not radically affect the craft’s tracking characteristics, but reduced the wetted surface by 5 percent and saved an extra 1 kg, or about 2.2 lbs. Weighing less than 40 kg (88 lbs), the boat that I rowed got up to cruising speed very quickly, and even in a steady side wind held her course surprisingly well. She is less responsive to radical course changes, but with such low displacement can be maneuvered quite easily. My only surprise was the considerable overlap of the oar grips when in the resting position, about 30 cm (10″). This rowing overlap takes some getting used to, but this is actually a feature of all Sulkava racers, all of which are slender craft that do not use outriggers.

Anthony Shaw

In Finland, competitive rowing events are taken seriously. At Savo, the namesake of Ruud van Veelen’s design, races draw as many as 8,000 competitors, in a wide variety of pulling boats.

Construction of this model has so far been a professional task. “This is not a multiple-piece jigsaw puzzle to assemble, but it does require accurate initial cutting,” says van Veelen, who is so far the sole builder. He uses CNC, cutting from two-meter plywood sheets (6.6′) to precisely shape pieces that are then scarf-jointed to their full length after the initial cutting. Van Veelen also recommends the use of jigs for precise alignment, especially along the centerline. This enables creation of the simplest of lines without any chine battens and even without stitching, relying instead solely on epoxy gluing, using clamps every 10 cm, or about 4″. “Most home builders probably won’t have 120 clamps at their disposal, but there are ways around that, like temporary screwing and then filling,” he says.

Inspired by a comparatively small and light female customer, van Veelen has developed a slightly shorter version of his basic design. At 19′, this Savo 575 has proved quite maneuverable both on and off the water, yet it has retained good directional stability. She has proved that, like her forerunner, good handling qualities and minimum weight can be achieved by shrewd design and a construction technique that is simple but secure—and without using any fiberglass at all!

Contact Puuvenepiste in Finland for more information on the Savo 650. Old Wharf Dory in Wellfleet, MA, is an authorized builder of Puuvenepiste boats.

The Savo 650S is a lean and efficient machine designed for competitive rowing. Its construction is all modern, using lightweight plywood-epoxy techniques. However, its inspiration goes back to the Scandinavian “church boats,” so named because they were used for Sunday racing to and from church. In fact, one of designer Ruud van Veelen’s boats, similarly built, accommodates 14 oarsmen and a coxswain. Particulars: LOA 21’4″, Beam 4’2″, Draft 3″ (at a combined boat and crew weight of 265 lbs)

There is no such thing as a short conversation with Tom Wylie. A ten-minute conversation with the yacht designer will last an hour and a half and will range from sail airflow to carbon-fiber mast construction. Along the way, the conversation will drift past the economics of small boats, touch upon the maximum curvature of the bilge that is consistent with laminated frames, and linger on his passion for ocean conservation.

On this day in September 2010, Wylie is describing the design considerations behind the Spaulding 16, a boat originally sketched by Myron Spaulding in 1923 but reinterpreted by Wylie in collaboration with naval architect Doug Frolich. The new design is not only a tribute to Spaulding, one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s premier yachtsmen, boatbuilders, and sailors, but also the signature craft of the youth boatbuilding program at the Spaulding Wooden Boat Center in Sausalito, California.

The design brief called for a boat that would be moderately challenging to build, fun to sail for both experienced and less-experienced sailors, and a good boat to introduce neophytes to the sport. It would introduce 10- to 18-year-olds to Spaulding’s boats and the history of wooden boat building in Sausalito.

Craig Southard/Spaulding Wooden Boat Center

In keeping with the mission of the Spaulding Wooden Boat Center, the Spaulding 16 was built with traditional lapstrake planking of Alaska yellow cedar, fastened over laminated frames of the same species.

As the first Spaulding 16, AVATAR, hangs from a crane in anticipation of its official launching, Wylie tells me about turning a simple drawing into a boat. “We aren’t really sure what Myron intended, so I had to improvise. There is no way that sheer is Myron’s sheer, but I think I have captured the spirit of the boat that Myron was sketching.”

As we are speaking, Andrea Rey, the Associate Director of the Spaulding Center, starts the official launching ceremony for AVATAR, built by 25 teenaged apprentices over the course of 12 months. This was not the first boat built in the youth boatbuilding program, but it is by far the most complicated. The round-bilged, lapstrake-planked hull provided the challenges of shaping the curved stem and carving the rabbet, spiling planks, cutting “gains” at the ends so that the planks meet flush at the stem, and fitting deckbeams and carlins to support the deck.
I study the sheer as the boat is lowered into the water. I do not know much about Spaulding’s work, but it looks like a Wylie boat to me. The boat floats high in the water, and it looks fast with its carbon-fiber mast and the square-headed mainsail. Wylie is known throughout the West Coast and the world for designing high-performance sailboats that are fast and handle well, and AVATAR is no exception. Wylie started his long career in boatbuilding and design as an apprentice under Spaulding himself, and to this day he has the same restless inquisitiveness and willingness to try new things that Spaulding was known for. Some of his designs, most notably RAGE, which was built by Steve Rander in Portland, Oregon, and set records for California-to-Hawaii Transpac races in the 1990s, are cold-molded. However, he has enthusiastically pursued composites in his yacht construction, so the Spaulding 16 represents a nod to his roots at Myron Spaulding’s boatyard.

Craig Southard/Spaulding Wooden Boat Center

Students in the Spaulding Center’s youth boatbuilding program built the prototype Spaulding 16, which they christened AVATAR. The boat was launched in 2012.

Seeming larger than her 16′, the Spaulding 16 has seating on the side decks or on the floorboards. A single thwart straddles the daggerboard trunk. Because of its beam and high freeboard, its single rowing station will require long oars and tall oarlocks. A single scull mounted on the aft deck might be a reasonable alternative.

The boat weighs about 350 lbs and was designed to float on its lines with 450 lbs of crew weight and gear. The relatively slack bilges make the hull initially tender, although it stiffens up as it heels. Sailed light, she will reward experienced sailors with a fast and exciting ride. But to make her more forgiving for education and training, which are central to the Spaulding Center’s mission, ballast may be necessary. Wylie is examining water bags or a weighted daggerboard to add ballast without permanently altering the boat’s sports-car-like performance.

AVATAR was built of 7⁄16-inch-thick Alaska yellow cedar planking screwed to laminated frames. The plank laps are fastened with copper rivets backed up with a bead of poly-sulfide caulking. Plywood was used for the transom and decks to simplify construction and prevent leaks. The daggerboard and the rudder were traditionally fashioned from solid wood, edge-glued and drift-bolted.

Two decisions made early in the building process came back to haunt the builders. The first was to cut out full-sized paper templates rather than lofting the boat, and the other was to use eight strakes per side instead of ten. Jim Labidoa, a cabinetmaker and adult volunteer, said the apprentices had to engage in a full-scale wrestling match to get the paper half-templates to lie flat and true while their outlines were traced onto plywood mold stock. Making them symmetrical proved nearly impossible. I had to laugh as Jim was waving his arms and describing the unruly templates, because I have had the same experience myself, which is why I now loft every boat I build.

Reducing the number of strakes made each of them less flexible than the narrower ones would have been, and as a result the planks would not lie flush to the mold at station No. 1 forward. Craig Southerd, the Youth Program Director, noted that the crew broke several planks trying to fit them to the slender bow. Lofting could have exposed this problem earlier. As it is, the boat is a little fuller in the bow than the plans call for, but nevertheless the plank lines are fair and the shape of the bow blends in beautifully with the rest of the boat.

Traditional materials and techniques fit the Spaulding Center’s mission. But if I were to build this boat, I would likely strip-plank or cold-mold the hull and sheathe it in fiberglass so it would be light and perpetually tight. A few broken strips during construction would not be a financial burden.

The carbon-fiber mast and the square-headed rig, though not traditional, are in keeping with Wylie’s thinking about rigs. The sail is controlled by a single sheet and is easily reefed. These are important elements for a sail-training boat that will also take some Spaulding Center visitors daysailing. The slender, unstayed mast is designed to bend off to leeward in puffs, spilling wind to keep the boat on its feet. The square-headed rig carries quite a bit of sail, 111 sq ft, with a single halyard on a relatively short mast. Reefed, the sail is 80 sq ft. The mast is made of the top of a windsurfer mast joined to a custom-made carbon tube. A wooden mast would work, but at the cost of additional weight aloft. At the foot of the sail, where weight is not as critical, wood is used for the boom.

Craig Southard/Spaulding Wooden Boat Center

AVATAR is a handsome addition to the Sausalito waterfront, bringing Myron Spaulding’s youthful vision into life and providing an exciting sailing option for the Spaulding Wooden Boat Center.

Rides were hard to come by on launching day, so I had to content myself with secondhand performance reports. Craig Southerd, smiling broadly, said that on the first sail, the boat planed out of the harbor with two people aboard and a reef in the main in 15 knots of wind. The sailors were Gordie Nash, a Bay Area boatbuilder and one of the best racing sailors on the Bay, and Frolich, the architect and an accomplished sailor in his own right. “It’s typical of a Tom Wylie boat: lively, easily balanced with a light helm, quick to tack, and responsive in fluky winds that ranged from 10 to 25 knots,” Frolich said. Even with two aboard, he would not have added ballast. “This boat is really fun to sail. Extra weight would just slow it down. I wouldn’t hesitate to take my wife and two young children out on day sail around Angel Island right now. That would be a great ride!”

The Spaulding 16 would be a challenge to build but would reward the careful builder with an exciting boat that will be a delight to sail. Although building times are highly variable, I estimate that 1,100 hours would be required to build a cold-molded version, which is a substantial investment of time and effort. But very few of Wylie’s designs are suitable for an amateur builder, and the Spaulding 16 might very well be the quickest and least-cost way to get into a Wylie-designed boat. Also, the Spaulding Center can build completed boats for paying clients in traditional, cold-molded, or strip-construction.

As I watch AVATAR sail out of the harbor with the first group of young apprentices aboard, I am impressed by the way the boat slides through the water, even with five people aboard. I hear nervous laughter from a couple of students who helped build the boat but have never been sailing. AVATAR is a tangible tribute to Myron Spaulding, the realization of a project begun in 1923. But an even greater tribute is the way this little craft has united four generations of Bay Area boatbuilders. It is an impressive piece of work, and the students are justifiably proud. John McCormack, the lead instructor on the project, summed it up best: “The kids did a really fine job.”

The Spaulding Wooden Boat Center no longer offers plans or finished boats for the Spaulding 16. The review is presented here as archival material.

The Spaulding 16 design builds on a sketch that Myron Spaulding drew, and her traditional plank-on-frame construction pays homage to the legendary Sausalito designer’s aesthetics. At the same time, especially with its square-headed, unstayed rig, designer Tom Wylie brought a modern sensibility to the design, something that Spaulding himself may well have appreciated in a boat by—and for—youthful sailors.

Spaulding 16 Particulars: LOA 16’3″, LWL 14’7″, Beam 5’6″, Draft (board up) 6′, (board down) 3’3″, Sail area 111 sq ft, Weight 350 lbs

Gil Smith designed and built around 400 boats for the shallow waters of New York’s Great South Bay between the 1860s and 1936. In his early years he mostly built working craft, such as oyster-fishing boats. Speed was an advantage for these craft, as beating competitors to the market might ensure a higher price. These working craft typically had a generous beam to provide form stability, plenty of room for the catch, and low freeboard aft for ease of landing that catch.

Smith transferred these basic characteristics to the pleasure boats he later designed and built, when the decline of the oyster fishery coincided with a boom in local tourism. These boats have seen a resurgence in popularity in recent years, thanks largely to the efforts of Donn Constanzo of Greenport, New York, whose company, Wooden Boatworks, recently built a replica of Smith’s 36′ 9″ sloop KID—an evolution of the signature Gil Smith hull shape. Costanzo has described Smith as “the finest designer of shoal draft yachts ever.”
Smith produced his 21′ 6″ catboat LUCILE in 1891, when he was at the height of his popularity. This boat’s raked elliptical transom, plumb stem, and generous beam were typical of his designs of that time. The boat under consideration here is a scaled-down interpretation of that boat—a 14-footer built by a student at the U.K.’s Lyme Regis Boatbuilding Academy.

Nigel Sharp

Tyler built his new boat in strip planked cedar, sheathing it inside and out in biaxial fiberglass cloth. The backbone is of laminated sapele.

When Michael Tyler, a former art student and bank manager, began his boatbuilding studies in March 2011, he knew he wanted to build something “a bit different.” While casually thumbing through one of the boating magazines at the academy, he saw a very small photograph of a replica of LUCILE. He knew he’d found what he was looking for.

Tyler talked to his instructors about LUCILE, it soon became apparent that to build so large a boat would not be practical, both in terms of budget and shop space. “I might have been depriving someone else of the opportunity to build a boat,” he said of the prospect. A smaller version was considered, but as scaling a boat down while keeping the original proportions simply doesn’t work, this would not be as straightforward as Tyler had first hoped. However, the solution came from instructor Mike Broome, who offered to carry out the necessary design work, in his spare time, for a 14′ interpretation.

Broome’s priority was to ensure the boat would be “visually in keeping with the original,” with the sail plan being one of the main considerations. Smith’s boats were already considered to be overcanvased, and if LUCILE’s mainsail were simply scaled down it would have measured 163 sq ft. Broome realized this would be absurd with the reduced weight and beam of the hull; he initially considered reducing it to 153 sq ft, and ultimately settled on 120. On the other hand, the new boat’s freeboard was barely scaled down at all. “I was trying to recreate the same kind of useful performance without restricting the boat to light winds only,” Broome said. “I hoped the result would be majestic but usable.”

Athough LUCILE was of traditional carvel construction, Tyler didn’t want to follow that path, as he expected that the new boat would spend long periods out of the water; if carvel planked, she would have to swell tight every time she was launched. So it was decided that the hull would be strip-planked with 3⁄8″-thick western red cedar, and sheathed inside and out with a biaxial cloth and epoxy. After the lines were lofted, the backbone was laminated in sapele, the building jig was assembled, and it was time to start planking.

The planking provided a challenging lesson for Tyler. In carvel construction, planks are tapered to accommodate the varying girth of a boat at various sections along its length. On the other hand, strip planking normally uses parallel planks with pre-machined concave and convex edges to provide an easy and effective gluing surface. Tyler was attracted by the potential speed advantage of this technique, but he was disappointed to find that the marked twist in the stern sections of the hull meant that he had to individually taper a number of planks over about 5′ of their lengths, reducing the width from 7⁄8″ in some cases to as little as 1⁄2″. This fussy fitting slowed the work considerably.
Before the planked hull was turned right-side up, it was sheathed and then faired with an epoxy compound—a process that took Tyler and fellow student John Bicknell more than a week. It was then painted with a two-pack polyurethane paint. The deck is built of 6mm ply over sapele and Douglas-fir deckbeams. Tyler intended to lay swept western red-cedar planks over the plywood, but he ran out of time. The mast and gaff are hollow, and are built of eight Sitka-spruce staves joined along their edges with so-called “bird’s-mouth” joints. The boom is of Douglas-fir.

Nigel Sharp

LUCIE has a generous sail plan, and feels tender initially. But once her angle of heel reaches about 15 degrees, she leans on her leeward bilge and firms up considerably.

Launch Day is a fixed date on the calendar at Lyme Regis for all the students. “If you couldn’t launch on Launch Day,” Tyler said, “that would be a travesty, so you have to push yourself just to cross the finish line.” Although he often worked until nine or ten at night throughout the course, as Launch Day approached he increasingly found himself still at work at 2 a.m..

Although there were still some finishing touches such as sole boards and deck varnish to complete, Tyler’s new boat, now named LUCIE, was ready to sail on Launch Day. With her rig in place, she took her turn among the other seven student-built boats, and was launched into Lyme Regis Harbour to great cheers from the assembled crowd. It was a cold December day with a squally offshore wind, and so Tyler wore “two wetsuits and a raincoat.” LUCIE’s sail, made by Elvstrom’s Jerry White, was hoisted with a reef in it. Bicknell, by Tyler’s own admission a much more experienced dinghy sailor, took the helm initially.

“I was a little concerned about the conditions,” he said, “and so I pushed for a reef to give us more of a chance of staying upright should something jam or should the boat turn out to be difficult to handle. But as it turned out it was fine, and if we hadn’t been enjoying it so much we would have come back in and taken out the reef.”

The conditions were considerably more pleasant when I took LUCIE out for her second sail four months later on a small lake adjacent to the River Thames at Pangbourne, where Tyler has taken a job as curator of a new maritime museum. It was a beautiful spring day with a light breeze occasionally rising to about a Force 3 (7–10 knots). However, just before we launched LUCIE, it was clear that I would have no choice other than to sail away from the slipway on a broad reach and immediately jibe. This was not an ideal prospect in a boat of unknown performance.

But I needn’t have worried. The maneuver went without a hitch, and I was then able to enjoy the delights of this lively little boat on all points of sailing. She felt very stable thanks to the stability afforded by her generous hull sections and her 812 lbs displacement. She accelerated nicely and tracked well, and didn’t need much steering thanks to the large galvanized steel rudder swinging from the trailing edge of her long keel. However, she did heel more than I expected in the gusts, albeit not suddenly, and initially it occurred to me that perhaps Broome should have taken his sail reduction a little farther. However, as I got used to the boat, it became apparent that, as she heeled to about 15 degrees and the leeward bilge dug in and the leverage of the centerboard, ballasted with 58 lbs of lead, took effect, it would take a lot for her to go any farther. I later discovered that Bicknell had come to the same conclusion on LUCIE’s first sail.

There were some inevitable teething problems. The peak halyard needs the addition of a purchase to eliminate the crease between the throat and the clew, and the halyard falls must be relocated to avoid the boom jaws pressing against them when off the wind. But Tyler now has the time and opportunity to attend to these matters and will then be able to get a lot of enjoyment out of this great little boat. He’ll also turn his attention to the possibility of building other versions.

This article appears as archival material. There is no known source for plans.

LUCIE, with her wide beam, wineglass transom, plumb bow, and firm sections is unmistakably inspired by Gil Smith. Mike Broome, who drew these lines, set out to retain the aesthetic qualities of the 21’ Smith original, while creating a safe and seaworthy 14’ interpretation of that design.

LUCIE Particulars: LOA 14’1″, LWL 12′, Beam 4’10 1/2″, Draft, board up: 1’1 1/2″, Draft, board down: 3′, Sail area 122 sq ft, Disp. 812 lbs

TROUT is a 23′ outboard-motor-powered garvey designed by Harry Bryan. She was commissioned by a client whose access to a new family fishing camp was to be principally by water. The design mandate was for a boat that could carry not only 12–14 people, but also propane tanks, aviation fuel for a sea-plane, an all-terrain vehicle, and a wheelchair-bound passenger. The boat would not be fast, necessarily, and it had to fit a particular “distressed” aesthetic. Specifically, it had to look like it was a century old.

The camp would be designed to appear as if it sprung from the surrounding landscape. The boat was to have no garish features that would destroy its harmony with this backdrop. The 20-hp motor was to be hidden away in a covered well, and its controls carefully concealed but accessible. “I had to argue with the clients,” said Bryan, “to put some oil on the cedar deck.”

Eventual road access to the camp diminished the necessity of TROUT’s original mission, and soon after she was completed Bryan was asked to find a good home for her, which he did. Today, the boat serves a family compound on a remote Maine lake. Although we didn’t see her in her intended home, she indeed appears to have grown from this adopted landscape of spruce-fringed granite outcroppings.

The boat has stick steering, like a yacht club launch. This system involves a vertical tiller swinging fore-and-aft about amidships on the boat’s starboard side. Push the tiller forward, and the boat turns to port; pull it aft, and she turns to starboard. Bryan chose this arrangement both to avoid having a visible contemporary steering wheel, and to free up cargo space in the center of the boat. (One of his earlier garveys, built for a similar purpose but meant to carry less of a load, has a center console.)

Matthew P. Murphy

TROUT’s flip-down ramp is meant to mate with a dock, though with some modification it would function well for beach landings, too. It also makes a good slide.

Matthew P. Murphy

A pair of adjustable ramps allow heavy, wheeled objects to be rolled from the raised foredeck down to the boat’s sole.

The raised foredeck platform is bounded by short, painted, black-iron pipe stanchions capped with oak plugs on top and threaded into flanges at the bottom; the flanges serve as bolted-on bases. The oak plugs are drilled for rope lifelines. A pair of removable ramps stows underneath this foredeck; they can be slid out and mounted in position, their distance from each other adjustable, to allow heavy gear on the foredeck to be rolled onto the lower main deck. A short hinged ramps folds back onto the raised deck when the boat is underway. This ramp was designed to mate with a floating dock: Nose the boat into the float, flip down the ramp, and you have an effortless connection to the shore for loading or unloading of all that gear.

I’ve come to think of this boat as an outboard-powered pier. Imagine a situation in which a larger, deeper-draft boat were moored off of a sandy or fine-gravel beach with no pier facilities. This garvey, with a longer bow ramp than the boat I tested, could be brought into that beach, and the ramp flipped down to the beach. Passengers could be easily loaded, the boat poled into safe water, and the motor started.

This garvey is built upside-down over oak or locust frames whose heads, for building purposes, extend all the way to the building baseline. They’re trimmed to their proper heights once the hull is inverted. A keel batten and two chines are sprung along the frames, and the outboard motor’s transom is fitted and fastened into place. The keel batten is beveled to receive the bottom planking, and it comes to a point along the centerline.

Two layers of 5 ⁄8″ cedar planking, laid on opposing diagonals, make up the bottom. Thickened epoxy joins these layers, and they’re clamped the old-fashioned way, with temporary drywall screws. Not only is this bottom strong and watertight, but it also makes good use of short stock. “The secret to such a bottom,” says Harry Bryan, “is to remember that epoxy is cheap compared to the price of a repair.” In other words, don’t starve the joint between the plank layers of glue. When this planking is completed, a flat is planed into it along the center-line to receive an oak shoe. The topsides are planked in conventional lapstrake cedar, copper-riveted along the laps and screw-fastened to the frames.

There’s no denying the benefits of contemporary out-board motors: They are quiet, efficient, and lightweight. But when you’re designing and building a boat of a certain timeless aesthetic, they do present their challenges. Aside from the blaring graphics, even the simplest motor has a throttle, a shift, a kill switch, and a key. All of these features are studiously hidden away in TROUT. In fact, when I stepped aboard to test the boat recently, I was stymied for several minutes in trying to start the engine. I’d pumped the fuel bulb and priming lever, then turned the key, which is mounted on the console. The engine just cranked without a hint of firing. “Kill switch…,” I thought. “Where’s the kill switch?” After some searching, I discovered the button artfully hidden away in a locker to star-board of the engine. A nondescript-looking lanyard led through a hole in a bulkhead, allowing the switch to still function.

Matthew P. Murphy

Two simple oak sticks control the boat’s direction and speed. The inner stick is the gearshift lever.

I‘ve been aware of Bryan’s camp utility garveys for years, and have been eager for all of that time to try one of these boats. I finally got the chance last August. On my outing, I was joined by a friend of TROUT’s owner, who followed next to me in another boat. “I can’t even hear that boat running,” the friend said when I finally did get the engine started. There are two oak sticks handy to the driver’s right hand: one controls both the shift and throttle, and the other is the tiller. TROUT backed easily away from the dock, and was quite steerable in both directions, thanks to the directional reverse thrust of the outboard motor. Drivers of inboard-motor-powered boats steered by rudders will appreciate this quality, as their boats often turn in only one direction when backing up, and require special handling skills.

Once clear of the dock, I throttled up. The bow rose a few degrees as the hull settled onto its after sections, just as it’s meant to do. This is a planing hull with a displacement heart; while a bigger motor could push it onto plane, that’s not what the owners or the designer had in mind. Bryan’s earlier garvey, mentioned above, was meant to plane and attain some speed. But this one is for carrying a load. In fact, Bryan made some shop-floor changes to his drawings, to enhance the load carrying even more: He added 6″ to the boat’s beam during lofting.
I didn’t test the boat’s load-carrying ability, but I think I would have been hard-pressed that day to gather together enough stuff—or enough people—to test it to its limit. But that’s of no consequence, because the boat’s abilities are transparent. I have no doubt that the specified party of 12–14 people would remain comfortable, safe, and dry in modest lake conditions—or that the drum of aviation fuel would arrive intact at its camp-side destination.

Matthew P. Murphy

With her subdued paint scheme and lack of graphics, TROUT is meant to blend in with a lakeside landscape.

We took TROUT to a beach not far from the camp, and folded down the bow ramp. This ramp, recall, is meant for a dock, so it’s shorter and thus steeper than it might be for a beach landing. But it still proved handy, and was great for my two-year-old son, who found its pitch perfect for sliding onto the beach.

The boat beached easily, with the electric trim drawing the propeller clear of the bottom as she glided to a gentle grounding. It was easy to imagine a load of camping gear piled into the boat—or a large barbecue grill and several coolers. TROUT really opens up some otherwise-off-limits terrain, while leaving a very small footprint and making little noise.

The return to the camp’s dock from the beach was meditative. Upon arrival, though, I found that the launch-driving skills I’d honed over several summers more than two decades ago had atrophied: Coming alongside with stick steering is easy once it’s mastered, but the movement of the tiller—remember, forward for a turn to port, and aft for a turn to starboard—must become second nature. You can’t think about it too hard. Practice makes perfect; despite my initial awkwardness, I wouldn’t trade this simple and elegant option for a wheel on this boat.

After the owner’s friend and I secured the boats, we made our way up the gangway smiling at the sheer ingenuity and level of thought in this able and easy little barge. He summed up the experience perfectly: “This is a very relaxing boat,” he said.

Plans for the Trout are available from Bryan Boatbuilding, Letete, New Brunswick.

TROUT’s hull form is that of a traditional V-bottomed garvey—a small scow-shaped boat meant for any of a variety of tasks. TROUT’s principal job is to haul a load of gear at modest speed—and to remain stable while doing so.

TROUT Particulars: LOA 23′, Beam 6’6″, Draft 13″, Displacement 1500 lbs