Launchings

Chris Greer reports that he built SPROUT part-time over the course of two years from Arch Davis's plans for the Penobscot 14 dinghy.

This tunnel boat was designed and built for racing in American Powerboat Association class Sport C.Construction is skin on frame plywood using both exterior and marine grades.

Sven Östenson of Oxelösund, Sweden, bought this ocean racing yacht for about US$700 when he found it lying derelict in a local boat yard. He writes the boat, a Lage Eklund design, has a rounded turtle-deck, which leaked and caused a great deal of rot.

COLLEEN WAGNER is the name of this lovely 28' sharpie built by the Marine Carpentry Class at the Wood Construction Center of Seattle Central Community College.

Rick Granger built this Chesapeake Light Craft Wood Duck 10 over six weeks in the winter of 2010-2011.  The 10' hull weighs just 34 pounds and is made from 3mm okoume plywood, with a deck of western red and white cedar strips.

My friend Will Craig rebuilt RETREAD using Okoume plywood. I bought her in 1988, sailed her for 18 years, then sold her in 2005 to pay for a bicycle tour. Last year, I bought her back and restored her over the winter.

In August 2023, David O’Halloran of Sparta, NJ and Manhattan, NY, launched the Meli-Ha-Ha, a Francois Vivier deigned Morbic 11, on Lake Mohawk. Measuring 11′ LOA with a 5′ beam, this traditional French sail and oar dingy was built with a Clint Chase kit in my garage using the strip plank method.

David had attended a traditional boatbuilding course at Mystic Seaport, and there became smitten with Swampscott dories.

Though he describes himself as a man with little money and no experience, Ed Mahoney decided the first boat he built would be a big one: a Didi 38 designed by Dudley Dix.