This section of our web site, an extension of the Launchings department of WoodenBoat magazine, is dedicated to sharing news of recently launched wooden boats built or restored by our readers.
If you’ve launched a boat within the past year, please email us at launchings@woodenboat.com, or post your news here.
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Julian Swindell found the plans for this Portuguese-style dinghy, NELLIE GRACE designed by Hannu Vartiala of Finland, who has these plans available for free at his website, koti.kapsi.fi/hvartial.
The Covid summer of 2020 was a time of distress and dislocation for many. For New Yorker Lorne Swarthout it was also an opportunity to build a boat in his friend’s garage/workshop in Southwest Harbor, Maine. The project was a Great Auk 14 from Chesapeake Light Craft.
Mike Magnusson built this solo wood-strip canoe for his son Stephen, using cedar strip planking and ash for the trim and seats. He used maple and wenge for the mosaic design on the side, and lacewood for the bow and stern decks. Fiberglass cloth and epoxy cover the boat inside and out.
ZIP is a 1953 Alcort Sunfish, built in Waterbury, CT, the 13th Sunfish from the first pre production batch of 20 boats. Alex Bryan and Cortlandt Heyniger (ALCORT) built these boats and gave them to friends and family to see if they would like the cockpit and wider beam.
John Jamieson worked for decades as a shipwright in Juneau, Alaska, before retiring to Kila, Montana. He now builds skiffs, kayaks, drift boats, and, with the arrival of a niece, cradle boats.
ST. JACQUES construction began on Christmas Eve 2013 and finished up May 2017. The boat was built by the Lewis family in Navarre, Florida. The strakes are okume plywood, keel is white oak and the seats, gunwales and spars are cypress.
Jackie Lih, age 7, helped her father, Arthur, to build this 8′ Grace's Tender from a kit by Arch Davis. They made the hull from 4mm okoume plywood on white pine frames.
Kyle Abingdon and Maris Skabardis recently restored SOLATE, a 1954 Scarborough sloop designed by John Ley. The team worked part-time on this boat for about two years.
LAURIE-ANN, a 20' cat-ketch is shown here at her launching in June 2002 on St. John's River in Palatka, FL. Pat Kelly built her from a Graham Byrnes design. He used stictch and glue construction on okoume plywood. Her shallow draft, only 8" with the board up, makes her fun and fast.
Sundowner had her humble beginnings at the WoodenBoat School’s 2011 Glued Lapstrake class taught by Geoff Kerr. I was fortunate enough to take her home and finish the work we had started. A local mill supplied the cherry, walnut, and pine which I used to finish the hull.
Arch Davis Jiffy V22 Skiff 2011. 8'-6 beam, meranti plywood, douglas fir framing, MAS expoxy.
19' Lightning sailboat (hull #4444). Cedar plank hull restored.
