In the Shop

The prospect of removing fastenings in order to perform a boat repair is the proverbial box of chocolates—you never know what you’ll find. Will the screw be frozen into place?...

This isn't intended as a how-to for the backyard blacksmith; rather, an overview of the techniques, hard work, skill, and passion required to make these tools.

If you are a novice, afraid of making a mistake and worried your paint job won’t look like a calendar photo, or if you are the experienced veteran who rushed the job to satisfy a schedule, I have some final words of advice for you: Don’t worry about it. It’s just paint. You will be doing it again next year anyway.

In the 19th century, the small boat- shop would likely have had a plethora of seasoned crooks in stock for the manufacture of pieces that could take advantage of the...

How boat decks should be built is the subject of ongoing debates. What are the forces driving the decisions regarding methods and materials? If a boat’s hull is traditionally built, should it have a traditional laid deck? If so, is it to be laid teak, or quarter-sawn pine covered with canvas and painted?

Planking The first plank, as with almost any flat-bottomed boat, is the garboard. These planks are wide, requiring 18″ stock. If they were to be cut from a single straight...

Over the course of 80 years, the Amesbury Skiff from Lowell’s Boat Shop in Amesbury, Massachusetts, earned a reputation for being exceptionally stable, seaworthy, and rugged.

When making a pattern for a bulkhead where you have to deal with curved surfaces, things can get messy, especially if you have shelves, cleats, and stringers in the way. Here’s where the joggle stick comes into its own.

The most important skills in boatbuilding. It distinguishes the carpenter from the boatbuilder. It’s one thing to glue two boards together for a table top or to nail siding on...

I am the third generation of my family to build wooden ship’s wheels, and I can go to almost any harbor, anywhere, and see a wheel my family made. We’ve built all the wooden wheels for Edson Marine since at least 1965. I can tell by the turnings whether a wheel is one of mine or one built by my father or my grandfather.

The skylight whose construction I will describe here originates with Murray Peterson, who gave the essence of simplicity and practicality to every yacht he designed, from its overall shape to details such as those found in this skylight.

Many small boats are partially open with only a foredeck and narrow side decks, or have areas of decking both fore and aft connected by side decks. Decking adds strength and stiffness and helps keep water out.

The daysailers built by Artisan Boatworks of Rockport, Maine, are planked in a seemingly common manner, with a single layer of fore-andaft cedar screwed to closely spaced oak frames and floor timbers. But the conventional aspects end there...

Nearly all marine plywood is made by peeling a giant continuous sheet of veneer off a spinning log, like tissue paper off a roll. Plywood made of such veneers is known as rotary-cut plywood. Plywood with “sliced” veneers has faces assembled from several narrower widths, cut like sliced cheese from one-half of a split log.

Five years ago, Reff Reinhart needed a new boat. Specifically, he needed an open motorboat of modest power that he, his wife, and a couple of guests could sit in, facing forward while underway, for outings on Michigan’s Lake Macatawa. This new boat would not be ornate...

When European Americans decided to replicate the native bark canoe in the late 19th century, they faithfully reproduced some aspects of the craft while using construction methods that were decidedly different from those used by Native Americans.

ISLA, New York 32 No.10 (of a total of 20), was thoroughly rebuilt by Buzzards Bay Yacht Services of Mattapoisett, Massachusetts. The job included a new mast, whose construction is detailed on the following pages.