Wooden Boat Show Family Boat building

We are catching up with a nons stop summer of boating events and where best to start the series of updates than with the Wooden Boat Show in Mystic, CT. In 2 1/2 days, a father son duo built one of our Echo Bay Dory Skiff kits. They discovered that there is a lot of boatbuilding, sweat, creativity and work to do even starting from a kit.

 

They launched on the third day at 3pm. They were very proud and perhaps glad they had a break to enjoy their success. My former life was a teacher and instructing people to build their own boats. Getting new folks into small boats, building their own boats from kits, and experiencing success in everyway is the number one priority for our customers. Likewise, we felt this years Family Boatbuilding was a success and will plan to do these boats again next year.

 

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Family Boatbuilding at Wooden Boat Show

We (myself, Christophe Matson, Eric Risch the designer of the EBDS, and Steven Bauer) had a wonderful time guiding three wonderful families through the construction of 3 beautiful Echo Bay Dory Skiffs this past Friday through Sunday. The skiffs were all made from precut kits, allowing for the quick, efficient construction.

Day 1 was assembling hull sides.

Day 2 was attaching chine logs, gunwales and bottoms.

Day 3 was installing seats and outerkeel as well as doing some shaping and sanding.

Then all 3 familes launched their creations. In fact, out of nearly 30 boats built at the Show, we were the only 3 that launched!

Not one boat leaked. One family rowed across the river to their home and the others loaded on the cartops to drive home to New Jersey and Colorado. They will receive sailing kits to complete their boats.

Big thanks to Wooden Boats support of Family Boatbuilding, to Eric Risch for giving us the design rights to use this boat, and to Christophe Matson for his patient skilled help with the families. Finally, thanks to the families for signing up with us. It was a blast, especially seeing you all rowing on Sunday.

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Family Corporate Boatbuilding

Some new photos up at my Flickr site for the two past corporate and family boatbuilding events at Mystic Seaport.

One thing we love is that all our participants launch every boat on the third day and they always look great, the people and the boats!

It is interesting that 29 boats were built at Family Boatbuilding and even out of the biggest group of 18 canoe builders led by "man with PA system", none of these canoes were launched and paddled on Sunday.

However, we were out there rowing for a solid hour in our Echo Bay Dory Skiffs. Yeah, kit builders!

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A family oriented sailboat

Some seriously nasty corporate welfare, a ration of expected stupidity, and an interview of sorts that some folks really need to read...

All of a sudden were surrounded by Morgan Out Islands. Its like being in the middle of a frelling convention.

While Ive never been a big fan of Charlie Morgans "Out Island" series (I think it has something to do with the look of the bow and the fact that I simply do not like center cockpits) but Ill be the first to admit that they make a lot of sense for someone looking for a big bombproof boat on a budget.

Especially the Out Island 41...

For me the main attraction of the boat is that they were well built and seem to be able to survive even the worst sort of abuse... Theres a lot to be said for workboat solid. Better yet, as there were over a thousand built, finding a cheap one that needs a little TLC or a fixer-upper is pretty easy.

That said, the OI-41 is a bit more boat than a couple actually needs but it really is just the sort of thing you might want to stick on your shortlist if you were a family...

Then again, most of the OI-41s I seem to come across are crewed by grumpy retired single guys using them like trawlers so what do I know?

Listening to Carolina Story

So it goes...

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