Sustenance through Wooden Boats
Dear WoodenBoat,
I am writing in response to your editorial (“That’s Made out of Wood?”) in the May/June issue of the magazine (WB No. 304). I have been designing and building wooden boats since 1952, when my father helped me build an 8′ pram in our basement. I was 8 years old. Later, I received a certificate as a yacht designer from Westlawn School of Yacht Design. I’ve now designed more than 200 boats, most of them wooden, and have built several. My favorite project was a 15′ runabout I built for my daughter when she decided she didn’t like to go sailing with my wife and me; she wanted to be able to jump onto the sand bars around Plum Island and hunt for sand dollars.
I turned 81 in March 2025 and worked for 60 years as a Civil Engineer in a high-stress environment. Messing about in boats kept me sane. In the middle of March every year I would stand in my cubicle and picture sailing past the green can at the entrance to the Ipswich River in Massachusetts. That vision, and WoodenBoat magazine, sustained me for many years.