Launchings

Norm Hines and Charlie Stolz designed and built this boat to be used for recreational rowing within the coral reefs of Fiji. They used local hard wood and marine plywood with a modified stitch-and-glue technique to build BUSA. It took them just four weeks using only hand tools.

This is the most recent of two Abenaki kits I have built (materials supplied by Newfound Woodworks of Bristol, NH). It was a joy to build and even more fun to paddle. My wife and I launched this canoe on Drakes Creek in Franklin, KY on October 10th, 2021. It tracked nicely was very stable.

Randy Colker built this Harry Bryan-designed Wee Lassie for his wife, Shirley. She needed a boat light enough for her to move it to and from the water without assistance. As you can see here, she can move it easily, she can even lift it by herself.

Julie and Aaron Enstad, along with help from their fathers, Gale Enstad and Jim Galloway, built this 24' Tolman Jumbo Skiff named VIKING SØNN over two years. Aaron notes that Julie mixed all 40 gallons of epoxy one pint at a time.

Jeff Ennis and his four sons built this birchbark canoe (16' x 36") in the summer of 2004 in Lac St. Marie, Canada. They used birch bark, green cedar, and spruce root in the construction. The green wood can be easily split into almost paper-thin sheets for making the floorboards.

I built this boat in 1985 for my mother, and this past year did extensive rebuilding of bottom, transom, and converted it to a sprit rigged sailing skiff with a daggerboard. It sails well!

This is a flat-bottomed 16-foot fishing boat called a gandelow (see WB 249 and 250) used in the Shannon river estuary of western Ireland.

DANA is a 6-meter yacht, built in 1927 by Morgan Giles, and recently restored and relaunched by Aleksander Celarek. Aleksander replaced DANA's keel, planking below the waterline, deck, and rig. She now sails in Poland.

Lindwall and Sons Boatbuilders launched ANGELINA on August 13, 1944 to be used for fishing. In 1957, Willard Shepard bought her and converted her from a fishing trawler to a fishing yacht. Fred Hepp bought her in 2000, and kept her for a few years until Charles Lindwall bought her back in 2003.

Irv, Murray, and Jan Herman adapted this 12' Whitehall from a 14' boat built at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1890, and launched in on May 6, 2001. The Howard Chapelle drawings are in the Smithsonian Institution Maritime collection, National Museum of American History, Washington, DC.