Connie

This is the first boat that I’ve ever built and apart from hanging a shelf now and then, it was pretty much my introduction into woodwork. Now I’m hooked! I built Connie using the glued-lapstrake method with okoume plywood planks fastened to meranti stringers (not a stitch in sight!). There’s also a fair amount of sapele involved and even some locust and iroko. The mast, yard, and oars are all from a single plank of Sitka spruce. The boom is reworked from an old boom that I managed to snap on my former 1964 Chevy Lee ketch. I sewed the sail with a kit from Sail-rite.

She has two rowing stations and glides through the water like a hot knife through butter. She seems to sail nicely too, though I’m no expert dinghy sailor.