Launchings

Over the 2017-18 winter wooden boat enthusiast and craftsman Fred Kircheis worked with his niece, Tyler Kidder, to build her a Shellback dinghy with sailing rig in his home woodworking shop in central Maine.

Geoff and Jean Lee wanted a boat that they could row and sail with equal ease in the open waters of Biscayne Bay, Florida. They found the design for this 18' William Chamberlain Gunning Dory in John Gardner's book The Dory Book.

Rowing boat, own design 2010, 550 cm long, 130 cm wide
Built from top part of scrap boat, built further with scraps of plywood.
Bracket for electro auxiliary engine.

Stephen Champagne and his wife bought DRIFTWOOD, a 32′ Grand Banks, in May 2014. They put her in drydock for seven weeks and had a crew of five shipwrights working on her. They sistered 17 of her frames, replaced both chines, and 160 feet of planking.

Jim Martin of Ashland, Oregon built this 15' 'Skerry' kit from CLC. Jim named her FROLIC and equipped her with a sprit rig. He launched FROLIC on May 13, 2003 and uses her on the mountain lakes of southern Oregon.

This terrific wooden boat, designed by David Roberts, was built by my husband, David T. Bickel, for a fishing and dive boat around the Fort Myers Bay.

First F1830 in the water.

In June of 2020 Martin Herbert and David Seager launched KIKI and SLICK, two International One-Metre radio controlled sailboats. These slender yachts, 162mm wide, were designed and built by Martin.

Cattail is a reproduction of a railbird skiff from the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum’s small boat collection. The original was built around 1900 for McIlvain Biddle of Philadelphia.

This dory style sailboat was built in a small wood shop in my yard. It took ten months to build and would never have happened had it not been for the folks at Chesapeake Light Craft and their assistance.