Boat Designs sorted by type,
Human Powered Craft
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Sailboats
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My designs have ranged from dinghies to cruising boats, and those presented here range from design “cartoons” to completed craft.
Within consumer culture, we’re accustomed to buying off the rack, off the shelf. It’s a shame. First, this habit conditions us to “want” the lowest-common-denominator the “market” offers us. We are enticed by the promise of “low-cost.” That leads to a second problem. When we load up on low-cost, lowest-common-denominator commodities, we impoverish ourselves and end up spending more than we can afford anyway since our yearning for quality in our lives is frustrated.
If you’re looking for a boat here, instead of at a dealership, then you’re probably already looking for something other than the usual consumer offerings. What I’ve found often though, is that even when talking to a designer about a boat to build or have built, the habits of consumerism lead people to reflexively go for what’s already there on the shelf.
Before mass-production when you needed shoes, you went to a shoemaker. The shoemaker measured your feet and made you a pair that was unique. In the early days of mass-production, you went to a store and whatever boots you could cram your feet into, you would buy. Later, this was ameliorated by a wider inventory; but, if you didn’t “fit” the sizes available, or had an unusual requirement, you were still out of luck.
We are in post-industrial times. However you want to characterize this, the bottom line is that the old rules of industrial/consumer production/consumption no longer monopolize our options.
Boatbuilding, especially traditional boatbuilding, has gone from being a hold-out of pre-industrialism to being in the vanguard of post-industrialism.
In choosing a design we should begin by discussing what matters to you. We may then end-up with a boat that fits your particular circumstances.
Anyone dangling promises that a boat can be cheap, or easy, is lying to you. Boats are dear. They always have been and always will be. In fact, it’s a central aspect of why we care so much about them, why we go to all of the trouble of including boats in our lives in the first place. The question to keep in our minds is whether a particular boat will fit into our lives, and whether it can be had and maintained at an expenditure that we can handle. This is a very different question than the ones mass-markets try to confuse us with.
So, I’d like you to look over this portfolio as an opportunity to see where my imagination, and the circumstances others have brought to me, have led in the past. Try not to limit yourself to what’s here as the only options. If there’s something about the character of these boats that resonates, then let’s talk about how we might collaborate to arrive at the right boat for you.
Remember, I’m not offering product, I’m offering a service. I’m hoping to enter into a relationship with you that leads through collaboration to a mutually beneficial result. This is the aspect of post-industrialism that interests me most. Boats are, have always been, and should be again, a way to bring people together in activities that are meaningful and add value to our lives.
