Over the years, one constant amongst our readers and contributors that has always impressed me is the shared spirit of “get up and do.” It permeates our community and is reflected in countless stories of adventures big and small, in articles that share ingenious solutions to problems, in reviews of boats used, admired, and often built by the authors, and in the personal, sometimes deeply affecting glimpses of life stories revealed in articles across each issue and perhaps most especially in the Reader Built Boat stories.

There is, indeed, an indomitable spirit of can-do, of rising to a challenge, that enriches Small Boats, as well as an openness and welcoming attitude within the community that time and again inspires newcomers to give it a go. In this issue, we meet young Liam McEvoy, a 16-year-old from Long Island, New York, who went from daydreaming to searching for free boat plans online, to building his own boat in the family driveway. He was helped along the way by Bob Hillman, a boatbuilding mentor 70 years his senior and for whom he named his boat, HILLMAN. Today, Liam is the proud owner of an 18′ skiff in which he fishes for crabs in Great South Bay, or simply goes out on the water to test himself and his boat in the wind and the waves.

Like Liam, Al Watts, who writes about the Wittholz 15, had never built a boat. He had years of sailing experience behind him but wanted to downsize from his much-loved 30-footer. After an extensive search for the right boat, he was inspired (perhaps persuaded) by an experienced friend to build his own. It wasn’t always an easy project, but with the help, guidance, and encouragement of the friend, Al worked through the challenges and today is happily sailing and trailering his very own catboat.

And it’s not only the newcomers who find themselves facing new challenges. Mats Vuorenjuuri is no stranger to small-boat building and cruising, and he’s no stranger to the pages of Small Boats, having shared his Nordic adventures with us in the past. In late July this year, Mats and his daughter embarked on a four-day cruise above the Arctic Circle on Finland’s third-largest lake, Lake Inari. They knew their boat and its capabilities, knew each other and their strengths with sailing and navigating, and Mats had sailed the waters before. What neither of them probably expected was a voyage of almost constant strong winds that forced them to improvise a reduced rig, modify plans, and accept that even the most experienced of us needs to be prepared for the unforeseen.

But perhaps the final article in this issue is the one that, for me, speaks loudest and most clearly of the enriched relationships and the dreams fulfilled that come out of small-boat adventuring and building. Pam Ayres was 92, had owned and messed around in small boats for much of her life, but had never had her own rowboat. Her daughter, Rebecca, and son-in-law Eric, resolved to change that. When they couldn’t find a boat to buy, they decided that, with Pam’s help, they would build one. None of them had built a boat before, but Pam was an amazing woman with a spirit of adventure, an independent personality, and a love of learning that she carried into her 90s. She had no doubts that together, she, Rebecca, and Eric could pull it off. And so they did. Working weekends, learning as they went, and seeking outside advice when they weren’t sure, the three of them built THE PUNGOTEAUGE PAM.

Across these stories is a thread of uninhibited learning, of cooperation, of collaboration. And more than that, there is a thread of adventure. No one would doubt that embarking on a small-boat voyage on an Arctic lake would lead to adventure. But you will just as surely find it from the moment you first loft a frame or dip your oar in a creek.