sail Archives - Small Boats Magazine

David W. Dillion Plans at Mystic Seaport’s Website

Posted on November 27, 2019April 21, 2020 by Anne Bryant

Special thanks to friend-of-the-magazine Ben Fuller for bringing it to our attention that 37 drawings by David W. Dillion of 15 different designs have recently appeared on Mystic Seaport Museum’s website. The plans are now available for purchase, too.

From the archives: Read about the Woods Hole Spritsail Boat, one of the boats Dillion documented for Mystic Seaport.

From Mystic Seaport: “David W. Dillion was an engineering draftsman before establishing a career as a freelance boat documentation specialist. He measured and drew more than seventy boats up to a hundred feet in length and taught lines-taking at the WoodenBoat School and half a dozen maritime museums across the United States. His plans have been published in WoodenBoat and other periodicals. He was the major contributor to the Museum Small Craft Association’s publication Boats, A Manual for Their Documentation.

List of Available Dillion Plans

North Haven Peapod, 13’x 3’10″. Carvel planked.

Nova Scotia Gunning Skiff, 14’9″ x 4’2”. Carvel planked, double ender.

Five Islands Skiff, 15′ x 4’5″. Round hull, transom stern, carvel planked.

Abaco Dinghy. Owned by Lance Lee, carvel planked, transom stern. No centerboard.

Bindals Boat, 15′-10″ x 4′3″. Danish built in the Norse style. Owned 1985 by James S. Rockefeller, Jr. Study plans only to show construction details.

Whitney Gunning Float duck hunting boat for oar or scull, 15’7″ x 48″. Carvel planked, transom stern.

Rangeley Boat, Herb Ellis No. 2, 17′2″ x 4′2″.

Whitehall pulling/sailing boat built by Orvil Young during 1968-69 as a recreational boat for the schooner ROSEWAY of Camden, Maine, 16′3″ x 4′5″. Based on fig. 73 of Chapelle’s American Small Sailing Craft. Carvel planked.

Rangeley Boat, Herbert N. Ellis #3; a wide transom attempts to make a more stable outboard version.

Westport Sharpie Firefly, 12’3″x 4’4″. Flat-bottomed and cross planked skiff, centerboard, two planks per side.

Lighthouse Peapod, 14’2 “x 4’8”. Carvel planked.

Matinicus Peapod, Sailing, 15’ x 4’6″. Based on John Gardner’s plans and documented as-built by the Apprenticeshop in Rockland, Maine. Lapstrake with centerboard.

Creole Skiff Gibben Dupre, 17′9″ x 4′9″. Built by Alexander Giroir at Pierre Part, Louisiana, in 1934.

Canoe by J.R. Robertson, 15′ x 30″. Built at Auburndale, Mass. in the early 1900s. Lapstrake construction.

Rushton canoe Ugo, 16′ x 30″. Smooth-skin lapstrake.

VIDEO Small Boat Tour: ESCA, 15′ Christmas Wherry

Posted on August 14, 2019April 21, 2020 by Anne Bryant

At The WoodenBoat Show in Mystic, Connecticut, Scott Williams brought ESCA, his impeccably built Christmas Wherry to exhibit among other small boats for “I Built It Myself.” The sail-and-oar boat won Best in Show for owner-built boats in the Concours d’Elegance awards, and this video shows why.

Scott built ESCA’s hull with glued, lapped Okoume plywood on white cedar frames. She’s got a 1-1/2″-thick Okoume keel, a stem of white oak, and the transom and thwarts are of quarter sawn Sapele. The spars are solid, laminated Sitka spruce.

What does Scott appreciate about boatbuilding? Well, as a contractor and builder normally working on land structures with straight lines and 90 degree angles, boats give him the opportunity to “throw away the square” and to do the satisfying work of sculpting and shaping wood “to the perfection of the boat.”

Sail Training Camp: Downeast Foxfire with Arista Holden

Greenhorns is pleased to present our first sail training program: Starting at Liberty Hall in Machiasport, Maine and visiting islands, coves, and historic sites while immersing students in the wild coastal ecology of Downeast Maine, this 10-day course offers a birch bark crafting workshop, traditional seamanship training, and naturalist adventure. You will learn to row and sail aboard 18th-century Bantry Bay gigs.

For details and to enroll please talk to Arista@thegreenhorns.org, $450 for 10 days, scholarships available.

Greenhorns, is a 10 year-old organization that produces grassroots media and cultural programming for and about the young farmers movement, is located in Pembroke ME. We engage in publishing and cultural work for a national audience, as well as developing locally-oriented educational events including our “naturalist adventure” summer camp series that supports the entry of young people into sustainable agriculture.