No, I haven't abandoned you!

Some of you who may visit this blog fairly regularly may think that I’ve abandoned you. This is not the case. I’m actually on ‘vacation’ up in Maine. I say this in a sort of tongue-and-cheek manner as I’m doing one of the things that I really love to do which is to teach people how to build cedar-strip canoes.

The facility I am at is particularly wonderful. There is a waterfront with a variety of rowing, paddling and sailing boats up to about 30’ in length that the school owns. Classes in seamanship, coastal voyaging and coastal paddling are all taught down here. The school also has guest moorings and it’s not uncommon to wake up and find that one of the windjammers has arrived the night before. There is also a shop where all kinds of boatbuilding are taught – from modern tack-and-tape construction to very traditional lapstrake and caravel planking. The shop has a staff of three people who keep the place humming along with a stunning efficiency. The materials are very good and the tools and facilities make life easy. In the last week in the shop, there was a 14’ lapstrake boat, 12’ caravel boat, three canoes, one Rangely Lake boat, and 8 surfboards built! Off campus at a local craftsman’s shop a class in blacksmithing and welding were taught. I mistakenly forgot to bring a camera to take pictures of the ironwork that came out of that class – some was really intense. The variety of what is offered is amazing and the instructors that teach are some of the best in the world in what they are teaching.

More posts with more pictures to come!