Schooner FAME was the personal boat of the designer, BB Crowninshield. She was built in 1910 by the Rice Brothers yard in Maine. FAME was completely restored by Dennis Conner in 2010 in time for her centennial birthday. FAME’s homeport is Port Townsend.
Alca i
Named after the extinct penguin-like flightless bird named Alca impennis (commonly known as the “Great Auk”), the hull of Alca i is strip plank on frame heavy construction with keel, frame and floors of epoxy-laminated and glassed white oak with bronze, Monel and stainless steel fasteners. Each piece of the two-inch thick oak strip hull planking was epoxy-sealed prior to …
Freebird
I always want to build a cedar strip boat. I even bought special routers bit, 26 years ago, to fabricate the cedar strips. Life got in the way, so no boat. Fast forward to 2021, retired, and time on my hands, time to build a boat. Since my wife is not the boating type, I won’t with a kayak. I …
Runaway
From the comments of our surveyor, “this boat has good bones”! Well, that’s what we loved about her 10 years ago when we bought her, and really, it was about all we could love about her, as she needed A LOT of deferred maintenance work at that time! MV Runaway is a 1963 Sea Skiff Runabout, designed with the purpose …
Raven
We were attracted to her sturdy design by Kenneth Smith of Grand Banks fame as well as her workboat construction and outfit by Mr. Black when we found her for sale at Fisherman’s Terminal in Seattle in 1996. We enjoyed cruising throughout the Salish Sea and commuting from Port Madison to Shilshole Marina with her until letting her go in …
Saga
Mackinaw Boats on the Great Lakes were the pickup trucks and fishing boats before roads and rail circled the lakes. They were known for being seaworthy and adaptable. This boat was built to lines recorded during the WPA in the 1930s and is said to have been a typical type in the late 1800s. In this strip-composite replica, efforts were …
La Vie en Rose
La Vie en Rose is the product of a 3-year collaboration between the previous owner and designer Paul Gartside. She was built in Sidney, B.C., by Jespersen Boat Builders. Her hull is cold molded of Western Red Cedar and Douglas Fir, sheathed with fiberglass and epoxy. The split rig provides easy sail handling in a wide variety of conditions. Her …
Ariel of Victoria
Ariel of Victoria was built on Vancouver Island in the 1970s at Fred Peterson’s yard near Nanaimo of Alaskan yellow cedar on oak frames. The original decks were Western Red Cedar 2x4s and she still has a marinized Perkins reclaimed from a refrigerated rail car. Since 2009, we have partially replanted, reframed and refastened. Replaced the deck, both cabins, electrical, …
Coming Up Roses
The latest kayak is “Coming Up Roses,” which is another Guillemot 17’ boat modified to celebrate the beauty of multiple roses and the natural colors of the different wood species. The artwork and inlay design is based on some floral paintings and actual roses photographed from my garden. Twenty-eight different kinds of wood and abalone shell are featured in this …
JD Crow
Ron Bowen built J.D. Crow in the spirit of British Columbia’s long tradition of beautiful and seaworthy homebuilt sailboats, with Allen Farrell as premier guru. Ron was a fisherman, logger, and do-it-all based out of Victoria with a dream of building a plank-on-frame Ingrid (he’d previously built a fiberglass Eric Jr.). He was also a bluegrass banjo player and fan …