RudderPosts

Beginner Boatbuilding

If you stumbled onto this site through a channel other than WoodenBoat magazine... and if you have an interest in boatbuilding, click here for information on how to build your own boat.

Where's My Magazine?

Richard Morris, in the comments on the Pop Quiz Winner, asks an important question: Why hasn't he yet received his copy of the May/June issue?
    Although edited and designed here in Brooklin Maine, the magazine is printed in and mailed from Liberty, Missouri. All of the subscription copies (save for a few that aren't relevant to this discussion) left the printer on May 11 and entered the U.S. postal system. The U.S. Postal Service specifies a delivery window of three to twenty-one days. I'm told the Postal Service is currently updating their delivery protocols, automating what used to be handwork; during this transition phase, things may be running slowly and erratically (I've received more damaged mail than usual this week). There's good news, though: We're about to change our delivery protocols, too. A newly offered service will allow us to shorten that delivery window to just five to fourteen days. We're going to begin doing that with the next issue--though there will be occasional issues, like the one that includes our store catalog, that won't allow this.
    Our apologies, Richard. E-mail me ([email protected]) if you don't see your magazine by Tuesday, May 2, and I'll personally mail one to you. And your point's well taken: No more pop quizzes while the issue is still in transit. But there might just be another quiz next week. So study.

Boat Dreams

Toby Rodes just sent us this photo of his 23-month-old son, Marshall. “He had a bevy of choices for books,” writes Toby, “but he gave a stern 'no' to each. His rational choice was WoodenBoat—you will note that he fell asleep working his way through the classifieds.”

Toby is the owner of the Fife-designed Six-meter sloop ALANA, recently restored by Brion Rieff. He's also been the catalyst behind a surge of Six-meter activity on the East Coast. We knew his enthusiasm was contagious, but at this rate we'll need a Pee Wee Division in the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta.

Toby says his wife didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Fiberglass Hulled Wooden Boats

It's Alumni Work Week here at WoodenBoat School--the time when a gang of dedicated students from years past return to help commission the boats and campus for the coming season. They're a dedicated bunch, these alumni, and they read WoodenBoat carefully. So we editors, Mike and Tom and I, took advantage of a long rainy lunch hour today to have a magazine focus group.
    Lots of good ideas and criticisms emerged; one, in particular, deserves to be aired to a wider audience. Here it is: Should WoodenBoat focus editorial attention on fitting wooden interiors and deck furniture to fiberglass hulls?
    Now hang on. I'm not saying this is going to happen, but I imagine that those words will stir some passions. It was, however, rather illuminating that of the forty people in that room, only one was dead-set against the idea. Others embraced it, some arguing that they owned "fiberglass-hulled wooden boats."
    The editorial definition of "wooden boat" at WoodenBoat has always held that the principal hull material must be wood, so "fiberglass-hulled wooden boat" is an oxymoron in our view of things. But the fact that there are wooden boat building processes applicable to the fitting out of fiberglass hulls does get an editor to considering the possibilities in this topic. Does the encouraging of good joinery on fiberglass hulls belong in our magazine? Would we be seen as abandoning our principles, or expanding them? The people in that room today embraced the idea, but they're a small sample.
    So, what do you think? Tell us by using the comments toggle below, not by e-mail: Does an article on the fitting out, in wood, of a fiberglass hull advance our editorial mission, or diminish it?