the eye, and I have appreciated his work over the years. Te best of us in the design field, though, was Bill Garden. His eye was the most artistic, and his drawings still literally transport me to a higher sense of consciousness. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing many designers over the years and can say plainly that some have the eye, while others seem to struggle with it. It’s the designers who have the eye—who nurture it, develop and practice it, who I respect most. It’s actually a pretty small list and I am truly not sure if I am in those ranks or not…but I certainly keep trying to sharpen my own skills and to develop that eye.


Many of your early designs were for small rowing and sailing boats, but you gradually broadened the portfolio to include larger cruising boats and you upsized your shop and built a lot of amazing larger boats. But not long ago you returned to your smaller shop—does this suggest you might be returning to your small-boat roots?


Smaller boats speak to my own energies more than anything else. And yes, I think the market is going to get “small” again, and I certainly don’t mind thinking about what I might contribute to that small-boat market. I spend a lot of time following the markets, and like others, I do what my customers want. I have felt the trend toward smaller boats since 2008 and the economic downturn that changed it all, and simply am trying to respond. I used to puzzle over the trend of designers who work on larger and larger boats. I even quizzed Bill Garden about it one day, worrying that his work on a really large design project literally took a couple years of his life. I felt he could have given us so many more smaller designs that would speak to more of an audience than just that one large project. But what I’ve come to realize is that as designers we’re simply responding to a couple of situ- ational factors. First, we must make an income to survive and design again, and sometimes that’s not an easy thing to do. And the second, we become intellectually involved and intrigued with the scope and scale of those larger projects. Tey force us to think out of our comfortable box and confront the really scary part of the design world, where mistakes might cost us our ca- reers or certainly might compromise our livings. But, stretching our brains is not all that bad and even the dimmest of us needs to exercise the stuff between our ears.


In three categories—rowing/paddling, sailing, and power— can you identify some of your personal-favorite designs? And what are the boats you personally use most oſten these days?


Te truth is that my favorite design is literally and always the latest one I’ve been working on. For me to do the best job I can on a design, I literally have to sell myself on that boat. All those hours working with the lines and the shapes are burned into my brain, and in the end there is inevitably a time when I realize the boat is perfect for me, and I want one as soon as possible. Te best critique I can apply on the new design is simply that if I


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want it, then perhaps others might, too.


I haven’t been sailing as much as I wish for several years, so I’m finishing one of my Marsh Wren designs (a 20-foot gaff- rigged daysailer with fixed keel) for my own use. I also have a new canoe cut-out and ready to assemble, since I’d like to do more canoe camping. And I have my little Candlefish 13 power skiff that I use frequently; a 19-foot Bill Garden-built power launch with a tiny diesel engine, and my old troller Josephine that I’ve cruised several times to Southeast Alaska. A 28-foot Beals Island Lobster Boat gets used fairly oſten, and one of my Surf Runner 25 power-launches also gets thrown into the stew…so I’m not exactly lacking when it comes to boat options.


When did you first get involved in kit production, and what trends have emerged in the kit field? Are more customers going for kits, vs. plans only?


Smaller boats speak to my own en-


ergies more than anything else. And yes, I think the market is going to get small again,


I originally didn’t want to do kits as I felt it was asking too much to be a designer and builder, and add the kit thing to a slightly productive business. But I had a couple of workers who’d retired from our boatshop and wanted to try their hands at it, so they talked me into it. Now I realize that it’s simply another leg to the stool of making a living in the boat business, and that the kits are at- tractive to the person who might never buy a finished boat, or build one from scratch. Te kits give them really accurate parts for the start of that experience, and diminish some of the early intimidation factor of building a boat. I observed years ago that there is a type of customer who appreciates the journey far more


than the destination, and those are the ones who buy plans and kits and build their own boats. For them, it’s truly is more about that boatbuilding journey than it is about the destina- tion of using the boat.


You’re well known as a stitch-and-glue proponent, with your designs mainly being built in plywood. Are other newer boatbuilding methods or materials on the near horizon?


Tere’s tons of new ground here with new materials coming on-line; we’ve even had builders stitching and gluing—or should I say stitching and welding—aluminum boats about the same way we would with plywood and epoxy. We’re now stapling hulls, which streamlines the stitching side of the stitch-and-glue method. I see no end to the refinements, and look forward to these maturations of the method. It’s exciting and I love that I’ve been able to be a part of it.


If you can step back, how would you describe yourself as a boat designer? What are you best known for?


I’m a niche builder and designer. I have developed, over the SMALL CRAFT ADVISOR


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