Articles

any years ago, one of the big varnish manufacturers had a regular advertisement showing a cowering boat owner eyeing a brightwork project with a feigned expression of terror, and saying...

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?...

A growing list of uses for boatbuilding and restoration

fter fumbling with tools and wood screws when climbing in and out of a Haven 12½ I was building, I remembered a photograph from around 1938 that appeared in Maynard...

Photographs by Nancy Bourne Haley YMRA is a classic wooden sloop designed by John Alden and built by the Edison Vocational School in Seattle, Washington. She was launched in 1941,...

Well-intentioned practices that do more harm than good

he waterfront of Bristol, Rhode Island, looks much different than it did when THIMBLE (ex-YANKEE) was built by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company (HMCo.) in 1938. While HMCo. has long since...

ed Chandler makes quality tools by hand. He began learning the blacksmith trade in 2003 at the Fort at No. 4 Open Air Museum in Charlestown, New Hampshire, before stints...

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.

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.

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.

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...