Launchings

Aaron Turner led a group of students and volunteers at Workshop Residence in San Francisco, California, in the construction of a Coquina cat-ketch.

Steve Warning of Kelso Washington built the ANGELA K to Harry Bryan's Handy Billy design. Using batten seam construction, Steve used cedar planking over white oak frames and backbone. He made the floors from purpleheart wood and used mahogany for the trim and seats.

Martin Houston designed and built this mini-tugboat, JANI J, that he named for his wife, Janice Jeanette. The two of them built her over five years at their home in South Dakota, epoxying plywood onto fir frames, then covered with fiberglass cloth.

Hands-on learning through the Wisdom of the Hands program at Clear Spring (AR) School resulted in BLUE WHALE, a boat designed by students to hold the 10-member high school class.

These sectional canoes were made of plywood and fiberglass. When it was being carried to the Torch Lake in Michigan, four parts stayed in the trunk of my car and one part in the back seat. It turned into the whole canoe in a couple of minutes before hitting the clear water of the lake.

After purchasing the plans in 2007, I didn't start building until 2012 when life, work, and materials lined up.

An 18′ Lug rigged yawl build which took nearly 1500 hours over 4 1/2 years. The hull is strip planked with Western Red Cedar. Structural parts and interior furniture are Philippine Mahogany. Spars are Sitka Spruce.

Sometimes it is fun to put together a boat that takes little time to build and has a wealth of uses. Last winter at the Cowichan Bay Maritime Centre and Wooden Boat Society in Cowichan Bay we downloaded from the internet a set of plans for a small dinghy that is stitch and glue.

14′ SUP built from a kit from Fiberglass Supply for cruising around the San Juan Islands in Washington State.

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.