Launchings

Decked double-paddle canoe. Plywood hull with pine strip decking and mahogany trim.

I built this slightly stretched version (9 1/2 to 11 ft) of Paul Butler’s Montana Pram for my son, his wife and 2 daughters (2 and 7) exploring for ducks, frogs, and adventure on a small pond adjoining their back yard.  We launched it on my granddaughter’s 7th birthday in July 2024.

This is the 16ft version of the Sponge Docks Skiff Serie, built in wood/epoxy, specifically Meranti Hydrotec. She has a side console and a new Suzuki 40hp which got her up to 32mph.

Our boat GRACE is an Iain Oughtred designed Auk tender. This boat is our first boat building project and came about when a friend experienced in boat building offered his assistance. With no woodworking experience we began with great trepidation.

Inspired by Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons series of books, Steve, Fiammetta, and Elena Householder built this 10′ 2″ Acorn Puffin dinghy, AZURE, designed by Iain Oughtred.

Aleksander Celarek just built this new motor launch, XIĄŻĘ XAWERY, with auxilary sail power. Based on designs of steam launches from the end of the 19th century, it is named after the first steamship that came to Poland from England in 1827.

At The Folk School of Fairbanks, Alaska, last August, a group of students and their instructors, Andy Reynolds and Bruce Campbell, built a 12′6″ Stand-up Paddleboard in a little over two weeks.

Tom Diehl launched CEPHEID on August 29, 2001 on Shabonna Lake in central Illinois. CEPHEID is an Arch Davis Sand Dollar design, 12' long. Tom built her of Okoume plywood, ash, oak, and mahogany, finished with epoxy. The spars are Sitka spruce.

How to Spend One's Summer Vacation...

I built this little Beach Pea so my granddaughters and I can learn to sail, it also rows very nicely. It is constructed of doug fir marine ply for the planks and almost everything else is ash. The name and paint job were inspired by traditional Jamaican fishing boats.