Launchings

Joe Walsh of RI has been working on a writen history of a passing tridition. The Quahog skiff was a staple of the waterfront in Rhode Island for many years. Of late they are hard to find.

Tabor Academy in Marion, Massachusetts, offers a one-semester "Practical Ship and Boat Design" course that "aims to get students comfortable with lines drawings by lofting a sailing model full scale," writes instructor David Bill.

Robert Donahue started this CLC 17 kayak in October 2001 at a WoodenBoat School class held at the Maritime Museum of Newport News, VA. He finished in July 2002 and launched in Echo Lake, Acadia National Park, in Maine. Robert is eagerly looking forward to another WoodenBoat course.

Relying on Nick Schade’s book The Strip-Built Sea Kayak, George Nourse built this Expedition single kayak from a kit by

THE OTHER SIDE is a 16 foot drift boat built to fish the upper Kenai river for trophy rainbow trout. She is built on a Don Hill design and constructed primarily of clear fir by Sailor Ellison, and Bill Blanas in Nikiski Alaska.

Launched in July 2002, David Jost built this sprit-rigged micro-cat-ketch from plans by Phil Bolger and Friends. He built FIREFLY using bronze-fastened marine plywood covered with 6 oz fiberglass set in epoxy.

William Leake likes the look of strip-built canoes but his wife prefers the look of lapstrake canoes. He thought a hybrid model—strip-planked on the bottom half and lapstrake above that—might be the solution to both of them getting what they want.

Terry Matthews of Mt. Vernon, WA, built not one but two boats for his granddaughter, Etta Cameron, who was  launched herself in April 2010.

The Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding, located in Port Hadlock, Washington, launched this Nordlund skiff in December last year. Built by instructor Ben Kahn’s 2013 Basic Boatbuilding Class, it is 11′ long, and weighs just over 100 pounds.