Boat Profile
It’s a wheelbarrow, and it’s a boat
...dinghy bouncing along behind him. Photo by Bryan Gagner The Ladybug pram, with a knobby tire permanently mounted in its bow, eases the transition from water to land for beach-based sailors. It was an impressive, albeit utilitarian, approach to a common problem: Many mooring-based sailors and powerboaters work from the shore without a pier and float, and they need a...
Boat Profile
A trio of options
There were three original Chebacco boats, all designed by Phil Bolger for Brad Story. Story was a friend of Bolger’s and a boatbuilder, now retired, of considerable talent in Essex, Massachusetts. All three boats feel very much alike on the water. I’ll make a point of differentiating between them when appropriate, but otherwise comments are true for all three. In...
Series, To the Black Sea,
Finishing Their Boat, JILL
JILL, the boat Finn and Tereza have been building for their journey across Europe to Russia, is still not finished. Watch this video to see the challenges finishing JILL and the final stages of the pre-trip preparations. Watch Episode 2 Back to Video Series Next Video...
Series, To the Black Sea,
Driving to Germany, The Adventure Begins
With no car, Finn and Tereza have to figure out how to get their boat to Mainz, Germany. With all their supplies (and a guitar) aboard JILL, their 16’ Matinicus double ender, their goal was to get her in the water and spend their first night under the open sky. Watch this video to see how they fared! Watch Episode...
Series, To the Black Sea,
Finally Sailing JILL!
Averaging about 17 miles a day, Finn and Tereza work their way up the Main River and reached Würzberg. They still have many more miles of the Main ahead of them before they reach the first canal along the route to Russia. Watch this video and see how our young travelers are getting into their groove. Watch Episode 5 Back...
Series, To the Black Sea,
Riding the Current Through the Final Days of Summer
The Danube’s gentle current carries Jill along and the miles come easily for Tereza and Finn. Check out the lush landscapes and elegant urban architecture of Germany and Austria in their latest video. Watch Episode 8 Back to Video Series Next Video...
To the Black Sea, Series,
Croatia to Serbia, Two Months Into the Journey
The Danube carries Finn and Tereza through Croatia to Serbia and a stop at Belgrade. Fall brings shorter days, nearly freezing nights, and rain. See how they’re holding up two months into the voyage. Watch Episode 11 Back to Video Series Next Video...
To the Black Sea, Series,
Introducing Finn and Tereza's Adventure
Students at Brockwood Park School in Hampshire, UK, Finn Cameron-Turner and Tereza Deminova, both 17, built a 16’ Matinicus double-ender. They had some help from a mentor and other students during the construction at the international school located in England’s Hampshire countryside, but it will be up to the two of them to row and sail the boat over 1,500...
Boat Profile
A modified Saint-Pierre Dory
BEATRICE is a modified Saint-Pierre dory—a type once common on the waters of Canada’s Maritime Provinces. Born on the islands of Saint-Pierre et Miquelon off the coast of Newfoundland (French possessions to this day), the Saint-Pierre dory was a local response to a French government requirement for cheap, durable, and safe fishing craft for local fishermen. Taking the traditional rowing...
Boat Profile
What’s old is new again
...of whom is a rocket scientist), several years of part-time work to complete her. Their hard work paid off, though; she’s head-and-shoulders above the rest on Cheney Lake. Please don’t send letters. This truly is a handmade wooden boat. While she may look like something out of science fiction, there’s much less new technology at work here than one might...
Boat Profile
A boat for all seasons
...resin–impregnated fiberglass cloth fairly early. The big breakthroughs came when they changed to longitudinal framing (as practiced by veteran Homer builder George Hamm), and combined it with then-new stitch-and-glue construction. Tolman’s overall system—specifically: a few sturdy stringers and a minimum of athwartship structure; stitched-and-glued plywood panels; epoxy saturation and fiberglass sheathing—enabled Tolman and Griswold to produce durable skiffs competitively. Equally...
Boat Profile
A playful runabout
...speedboats—without their mechanical complications and great expense. Designed and built by Kenny Bassett, Onion River Boat Works, RASCAL offers more bang for the buck than just about any other runabout a father and son could build over several hundred hours of nights and weekends. They will build her of plywood—4mm for the topsides and decks, 5mm for the bottom—ripped into...
Boat Profile
A fast and wholesome daysailer-racer
...only from Hendel and Burgess, but also from Charles Hodgdon of East Boothbay’s Hodgdon Bros. Yard, and from L. Francis Herreshoff. Hendel introduced a boat called LOON late in the 1937 season, and was then asked to work with the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club, and particularly with its selection committee, in refining LOON’s plans to become a one-design class that...
Boat Profile
A Maine example of a traditional design
...and islands. For decades, into the early years of the 20th century, the Penobscot was among the most productive salmon rivers in North America. As might be expected of boats relied on by fishermen working on the rugged Maine coast, the ability to go to sea in all weather, and to come back laden with salmon in all but the...
Boat Profile
New life for a striking 14-footer from the 19th century
...Mystic Seaport, was planked in the carvel manner, meaning it had a smooth hull, with planks meeting edge-to-edge. In lapstrake planking, as the name implies, the strakes, or runs of planking, overlap, and when this is done very competently, the laps visually accentuate the shape of the hull. There isn’t any reason why this boat couldn’t be built in any...
Boat Profile
A center-console skiff
...a tug. Indeed, it’s a hardy-looking little hull, one right at home alongside its working forebears. “One of the great things,” said Hill of his experience with the design, “is the response you get from commercial boats.” It’s been said that every boat is a compromise among speed, comfort, and efficiency. Tom Hill seems to have hit an ideal balancing...
Boat Profile
A kayak for just about everybody
...by Ted Moores (WoodenBoat Publications, 1999), details the construction of a strip-planked sea kayak. The Endeavour 17 is the example used in the construction sequence, but several sister designs are also profiled in the book. When it comes time to plank the boat, a first-time builder might find it best to purchase already-milled strips from one of several companies that...
Boat Profile
Harry Bryan’s 20' cruiser
...has designed a cedar-cored, fiberglass-and-epoxy-sheathed centerboard. Photos by Bryan Gagner Two berths that run up under the foredeck provide comfortable refuge for short-term cruisers. The centerboard trunk, made as unobtrusive as can be, doubles as a companionway step or a footrest. KATIE’s accommodations are minimal to be sure, but she’s set up with all the short-cruise essentials: Two berths run...
Adventures
A guide to trailer safety
...the local launching ramp to be a busy place, complete with lots of different kinds of boats and the corresponding personalities of those who own them. One thing they all have in common is that they all want to get into the water at the same time. It pays to be as organized as possible to expeditiously back the trailer...
Caledonia Yawl, Aboard Small Boats,
Aboard Small Boats - A Video Series
Built here at the WoodenBoat School, our Iain Oughtred-designed Caledonia Yawl, SWIFTY is a handsome and versatile double-ender, guaranteed to turn heads on any waterfront. She’s comfortable to sail in a stiff breeze and dazzles in light air and to windward. With well-balanced, relatively high ends, this lean and long yawl shows considerable reserve buoyancy above the waterline throughout her...
Boat Profile
Genius on a small scale
...my wife as well as me over the waters of Maine’s Muscongus Bay, allowing us to explore the mouth of a small creek, run up on the beach for a picnic, or slide gracefully down the faces of ocean swells coming in past Monhegan. But don’t be fooled: this idyll comes at a price. The BB14s were designed for the...
Boat Profile
A modern take on an ancient design
...with. Stepping into the kayak, I was surprised at how much flex there was in the wooden hull despite its being sheathed in epoxy and ’glass—perhaps it’s because of that missing 1⁄16″ in the thickness of the strips. Turning comes from a combination of leaning and utilizing the paddle to get a longer lever arm. The paddle—a work of art...
Boat Profile
A Norse spirit in modern wood construction
...moxie—to pull off what turned out to be a five-year project. He and I are in agreement that boatbuilding skills are but half of the personal resources needed to complete a project of this scope. The remaining portion is composed of some combination of patience and resourcefulness. In other words, managing the project is as important as carpentry skill. This...
Boat Profile
The height of romance in the wood-and-canvas canoe
...become the first commercial builder of this type of canoe in Maine—and perhaps the world. E.M. White followed Morris. All three companies predated the arrival of the Indian Old Town Canoe Company, founded around the turn of the 20th century. The early wood-and-canvas canoes were direct descendants of the Penobscot birchbark canoes and, as with their predecessors, their design was...