Search Results

...for a frostbiter. They built 12 boats together in their basements and raced on winter weekends. “Yachting magazine sent a reporter to cover one of the regattas in 1939,” says Charles Krafft, whose father completed hull No. 6 in that original fleet. “The magazine was in competition with The Rudder, which had just published the plans for the Snipe. So...

...the foot to substantially increase the area. He wanted the boat to move well in the comparatively light airs of his home waters around Newbury. Some of his decisions would have probably tickled John Gardner, not to mention the old Marbleheaders. For his clench nails, for example, he used commonly available aluminum siding nails instead of harder-to-find and more expensive...

...mid-speed ranges, and you’d give up some comfort. The Port Townsend Skiff is one comfortable boat in a chop. “The skinny hull is a pain getting in and out of,” says Brown, “but drive over a lumpy sea, and it really pays off.” Brown and his wife, Ashlyn, trucked the prototype PT Skiff across country last summer to display it...

...didn’t prime the faying surfaces.” His boats were dry-strip-planked, which means that the planks were mechanically fastened without any compound or adhesive between them. “The only compound he used in the boat was where the keel met the stem—some black goo,” said Lazarus. His own 16-footer lacked floor timbers and had a shallow keel, and thus had a fairly limber...

...part by Nathanael Herreshoff’s Columbia Lifeboat Tender, which has a striking resemblance to JANE ANN. Kiefer, a South Haven, Michigan-based boatbuilder, modified Pittaway’s design by adding a short foredeck, 3″ side decks, an aft deck with a lazarette underneath, and a steam-bent white-oak coaming, which combine to scatter spray in open waters. A motor mount bolted to the aft deck...

The Asa Thomson skiff holds quiet appeal. Appreciation for this little skiff comes on slowly but deeply, like true and enduring love. She’s a culmination of a number of elegant and subtle factors that, while not strikingly obvious, come together in a compact craft that is well balanced in look and in feel. Asa Thomson was a New Bedford, Massachusetts,...

...and pinch of tumblehome leave little doubt that the best of them were modeled on the larger working lobsterboats of the area that had evolved to run efficiently with modest power in a range of sea conditions. While some larger Maine lobsterboats have successfully made the transition to composite construction, most of the skiffs died out starting in the early...

...Tom Jackson The 11’ hull divides to form a bundle only 5’10” long, 4′ 2″ wide, and a maximum of 1′ 8″ high, and the flat bottom makes nesting them easy. The forward of the two sections is completely decked over at thwart height, which provides necessary hull stiffness and also sees to it that any water coming aboard is...

...chine is the angle where the bottom planking and the side planking come together. Typically a chine log, a kind of longitudinal stringer, supports the joint and receives the plank fastenings. Because plywood can’t bend to the same complex curves that traditional construction can accept, a design using more than one chine—“multichine”—allows plywood to emulate the lapstrake planking of a...

...styling gimmicks, BLACKBIRD combines the purposeful look of a workboat with the grace of a gentleman’s launch. Although a cynic could argue that the complex shapes, especially in the trunk cabin, are hard to build and unnecessary to the boat’s function, she’d lose a lot of her emotional appeal if those shapes were eliminated—at least the love-at-first-sight part. The smitten...

...ANDIAMO is a hefty boat, displacing about 3,200 lbs. She feels solid underfoot and recovers quickly from rolling—even the heavy rolling from the walls of water that peel off the sterns of nearby lobsterboats. She can attain 51⁄2 knots but feels most comfortable underway with her diesel rumbling along at about 3 knots. Tom, an accomplished hobbyist boatbuilder, took some...

...pounds of her), took much of his waterborne pleasure in double-paddle canoes of his own design. Compared to sea kayaks, these canoes offer greater stability and comfort. For inexperienced paddlers, they can prove safer. Folks who have no intention of learning more than the first 180 degrees of the Eskimo roll, might be better served by double-paddle canoes. Compared to...