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...to deflect spray. Jay Burreson built this boat. Before continuing, I should present my credentials. I’ve had a lifetime’s experience messing about in boats, from cruising my own boats around Australia and the Pacific to round-the-buoys yacht racing. When I decided to build a canoe 12 years ago, I knew a lot about maintaining boats but I’d never actually built...

...rowed from the forward thwart. A wooden “dory skiff” like this, professionally built of both solid lumber and plywood, is a comparatively rare commodity these days. Yet, one can acquire a 16′ model with console for around $11,000 to $13,000 and then have it rigged with the preferred motor. Right now, I’m picturing a white hull with a buff or...

...is lively on a reach. This project requires intermediate to advanced skills; even Patrick Mahon, lead instructor at the GLBBS, found bringing together the wineglass transom and narrow skeg at the stern to be a bit of a brain-teaser. But once the hull was completed, he found building and installing the daggerboard and trunk, foredeck, thwarts, trim, and spars to...

The beauty of the plastics and composites that are mainstays of modern kayak construction is that they can be molded into almost any shape imaginable, but that doesn’t assure that kayaks made from them are beautiful. Plywood is nowhere near as versatile; it can’t be shaped into a compound curve or bent around a tight radius. But just as poetry...

...to anyone who has seen or built a plywood kit kayak. The hull and deck are 3mm okoume plywood, stitched around a complex but ultralight grid of transverse web frames and longitudinal stringers. The underside of the deck is sheathed with fiberglass cloth before assembly, then the completed hull and deck exterior are sheathed in 4-oz ’glass as well. Epoxy...

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...

...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...

...hard. Once or twice when I’ve been lazy about reefing, I’ve dipped the rail and shipped a few bucket loads of water. With the mainsheet started, the little mizzen screws the boat around head-to-wind where she waits patiently while her foolish owner bails her out. The design calls for two blocks of foam buoyancy strapped underneath the side seats. Testing...

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....

...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...

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...

...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...

...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...

...much more than 30 degrees. Iain Oughtred sailed to windward in 18 to 20 knots of wind under full sail and found she did remarkably well on her ear, beating her main competitor at the finish line, and it saved him tying in reefs. Some of us might not be so keen, or so adept, but it’s good to know...

...powerboats with traditional aesthetic qualities for composite construction. The thinking was that the new workboat should look traditional but have the capacity to perform at high speeds, and this was a combination Fitzgerald had achieved many times before. The trick would be having him design it to be built with traditional heavy plank-on-frame construction. Aaron Porter While designer Mark Fitzgerald...

...and a communicator. A great plan maker is a great teacher, and Ken’s plans put him among the very best. Embarking on this article, I found it difficult to understand how a lone designer could be successful with such seemingly disparate areas of boat design— and this new design, as complete as it is, couldn’t have simply appeared out of...

...in thin cedar (1⁄4″ or so), planked in a similar thickness of cedar, and, instead of birchbark, are sheathed in stretched canvas. The weave of the canvas is filled with a proprietary compound, and the hull is then painted. The result is a strong and light boat, watertight—and heavier than when dry—after a short period of swelling. Island Falls Canoe...

...comfort. In reality, it isn’t any smaller than those of many other small cruisers, a type that invites clever and inventive tinkering. For example, because the chine knees intrude into the bench seats, Hadden fitted removable boards between the seat edges and trunk sides to make more comfortable sleeping platforms. Like many builders, Hadden is rife with ideas for greater...

...his own bronze fittings, including pintles and gudgeons. The large, open cockpit is commodious—on my boat, which is a little less than 18′, I’ve had six aboard quite easily, and four in comfort routinely. The Beetle boat has a one-sheet plan showing lines, details of the centerboard (which I altered in everything but length and placement), stem profile, rudder profile,...

This is a gentleman’s Whitehall.” That’s how Steve Holt describes the Shaw & Tenney Whitehall, a 17′ 9″ recreational rowboat based on a legendary 19th-century working type. Holt is proprietor of Shaw & Tenney, the 150-year-old, Orono, Maine–based maker of wooden oars and paddles. The company itself is something of a commercial legend for its longstanding success in its small...

Peter Lamoureaux, a strong oarsman, commissioned his friend John Brooks to create a pulling boat that he might race and then, after the competition, row out to an island with his wife for a picnic. The resulting Peregrine 18 has proven fast, easy to row, and handsome. Preliminary sketches indicate that this design began, more or less, as a Whitehall...

...a line wrapped around an ankle—or worse. We often hear the phrase “family boat,” but without a lot of description of what, exactly, that means. My short trip in this Hampton boat last summer really helped me to refine my understanding of the label, and this simple, beautiful, and functional boat fits the bill. Plans for CUSPIDOR are available from...

...inflow of water. When reading the designers’ comments, it seemed appropriate to quote them as to the intended purposes of the design before making my own observations. Quoting from the “How to Build” Motor Boating article: As time unfolds, motor boats of much less breadth in proportion to length than those now in the mode will become common. Among the...