Category Archive

Bibi is a hard-chined, plywood centerboard sloop built in 1964 by hobbyist Ludvik Zbigniewicz, apparently to his own design. She has a long, fine entry, considerable rocker, and a tiny, distinctively squared-off cuddy with a small porthole on either side. BIBI is bronze fastened and heavily framed for her size—a reflection of both the conservative approach taken by builders experimenting …

The sailing vessel Tusitala, Samoan for story-teller, does indeed have a story to tell. She is a gaff-rigged cutter, 30.5 feet, commissioned by Robert and Marge Saxton, of Round Pond, Maine; designed by John Atkins in 1979; and launched in 1981 at Bath, Maine. In 1986, the Saxtons, in their mid-sixties, began a circumnavigation, which they concluded in their seventies. …

Some Cats Swing is a 12 foot wooden Sharpie Skiff, home=built, for rowing and row camping, by an old man who was missing his life in boats.

Great Alaskans are the larger version of a Tolman skiff. My boat was started in August of 2020 and the complete hull will be rolled over on May 8th exactly 9 months from the start. The goal for this build is to have a custom camping boat that is capable of cruising the inside passage. At 25 knots the fuel …

The solar boat Wayward Sun (Solar Sal 27) has been cruising the San Juan area for 2 years. The ride is calm and comfortable with minimal motor noise and no pollution. In 2021, she has been upgraded with extra batteries, additional solar panels, and a satellite phone in preparation for a trip to Ketchikan and then on to Glacier Bay.

Sam Conner, the original founder of the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival, built Wonderland in Port Townsend in 1978 of red cedar /epoxy strip plank. Wonderland has been converted to gaff ketch from knockabout sloop. An inboard diesel has been fitted.

Folks said Interlude, purchased in 2013, “had good bones”. She has neither been an interlude nor were her bones too good… However, her mahogany planks on white oak bent frames fastened with bronze to a yellow cedar backbone made her worthwhile. Now SV Paddleshell, this little sloop can look forward to many days to come at sea.

Some boats are race boats. Some boats are cruising boats. Opus, a modified Wee Seal, designed by Iain Oughtred, is a boat that just seems to make people smile wherever she shows up, according to Seattle owner Lee Bjorklund. With Scandinavian-influenced longer ends, and great reserve buoyancy all round, Opus has proven to be a double-ended, exceptionally able, comfortable, dry …

Starlight and I embarked on a Pacific voyage starting in 1979 that lasted five years. Many wonderful miles and people were encountered. She was designed by Edwin Monk Sr. in 1938 for Hervey Garett Smith who wrote the book Marline Spike Sailor. He never built the vessel to my knowledge but when Cecil Lange’s son arrived from New Zealand, Cecil …

Electric Philosophy is a unique design for a fully solar-powered, electric cruising power catamaran. The boat form is driven by the requirements for the large solar array and large battery banks. Electric Philosophy grew out of the owners’ use of solar electric power on their Airstream travel trailer, and visits to the Wooden Boat Festival where the idea of independent …