There are so many things to see and explore in Southeast Alaska that can only be accessed by a small boat. In 2008, my wife, Leni, and I wanted to make sure that our girls—Gracie, then three, and Isabel, then one—didn't miss out on those things for lack of a way to get to them. That’s when we decided to build SPARROW, a Caledonia Yawl, which we launched in 2009. None of us really were sailors back then, but, lucky for us, the Caledonia yawl is a very forgiving boat.

The Caledonia yawl’s well mannered hull and simple lug rig made it easy for us to learn how to sail.Leni Danner

The Caledonia yawl’s well mannered hull and simple lug rig made it easy for us to learn how to sail.

Over the past four seasons we’ve grown into SPARROW. Our list of camping gear has been slowly whittled down each season to a more streamlined kit: shovel, axe, cook stove, small galley kit stowed in a wooden box, fishing rods, sleeping bags, and a boat tent. That made room for extra gear for the crew, enough food to last a trip six times as long as whatever we might plan, and, of course, buckets for building sand castles.

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