Bill Mayher

Maritime Writer

Bill Mayher Bill Mayher started sailing wooden boats when wood was pretty much all there was. He has kept his faith in traditional watercraft through changing times, first working in yards and then owning and maintaining a long succession of wooden boats. For most of his adult life, his day job was teaching history and doing college counseling. In the mid-90s he began writing full time: first a book on college admissions and subsequently numerous articles for both WoodenBoat and Maine Boats, Homes and Harbors magazines. He collaborated with Maynard Bray and Benjamin Mendlowitz on the book, Joel White: Boat Builder, Designer, Sailor.

Videos

Title
Sailing with Bill Mayher on VITAL SPARK, A Concordia 31 Ketch: Bill Mayher takes us for a sail on his Concordia 31 Ketch VITAL SPARK - a perfect balance of New England workboat sturdy...
Introducing Kids to Boats, Part 2 – The Blink of an Eye: With one's kids, things happen quickly.  With grandkids, as the slope of years angles ever more sharply downward, thing...

 

Guide Posts

Title
Bill Page: Market Maker: Here’s an updated version of a piece I wrote about Bill Page back in 2014; it was first published in WoodenBoat No. 24...
Fitz Henry Lane by Bill Mayher and Maynard Bray: Fitz Henry Lane, the remarkable 19th Century painter of the New England Coast, has long been a favorite of mariners, not...
The Buzzards Bay 25: An Evolution, of Sorts: Written by Bill Mayher with photographs by Benjamin Mendlowitz My on-again, off-again romance with the Buzzards Bay 25 c...
The Education of Myles Thurlow: A Proper Apprenticeship: NOTE: This article was originally published in WoodenBoat Magazine, Issue 178: May/June 2004. Photographs by Benjamin Me...
Good Reads: “Finding Pax” by Kaci Cronkhite: The thing about wooden boats is that in order to survive, people have to love them; and for people to love them, they ha...
A Sneak Peek Into the World’s First Houseboat Design Contest: Enjoy a sneak peek at a few of the entries of the design contest...
Peter Chase: Boatbuilder and Friend: Bill Mayher shares a few of his own memories of Peter Chase in this written portrait...
Revisiting “Between Wind and Water” by Gerald Warner Brace: For all of us who love tales about the way things used to be along the coast, here is a book for you...
Good Reads: Recommendations by Bill Mayher: OffCenterHarbor.com asked our guides to share their favorite books that should be in every boater’s library… Between...
My Favorite OCH Videos, by Bill Mayher: As we reach toward putting our 100th video on the OCH site, it's been interesting and fun to review what we have done so...
Giffy and Carol: A Hurricane Story from 1954: On the day Hurricane Sandy is to make landfall on the New Jersey shore, I was up at the general store in Brooklin early...
Why every 12-year-old needs a Boston Whaler: The iconic 13ft Boston Whaler got all kinds of kids into boats in the 60s. This is a story I wrote for Maine Boats, Home...
Temple Tiny Regatta – 2012: Temple Tiny Regatta III went off last weekend with it’s usual verve, panache and éclat.  But before you run off for...
BLUENOSE II and Dauphinee: Maynard’s and Bill’s Nova Scotia Adventure: VISITING the BLUENOSE II SCHOONER RESTORATION   A couple of years ago Taylor Allen, the owner of Rockport Marine, o...
A Grandparent’s Pleasant Memories: I’m looking back over pictures taken last summer. The photos that catch my eye are the ones of our grandchildren and S...

 

Flotsam

Title
Four Masted Barque rounding Cape Horn 1928 – Captain Irving: Irving Johnson’s video record of the four masted bark PEKING sailing around Cape Horn is perhaps the greatest maritime...
James Dodds at Messum’s Studio: Jamie Dodds was a shipwright before he became an artist so his paintings showing the structure of traditional working bo...
Scoggie: From the furthest tip of Nova Scotia comes this sketch of a young boat builder with a philosophical turn of mind and an...
Putting WWII PT Boats Back in the Water: PT Boats in WWII caught up the romantic imagination of the world even before Jack Kennedy's heroics aboard PT 109 put hi...
Ralph Stanley – An Eye for Wood: For those curious about the maritime culture of the Maine Coast (And everyone oughta be!) this is as good as it gets. Ra...
Racing the New York 40 CHINOOK: Enjoy a race aboard the New York 40 class yacht CHINOOK, courtesy of ClassicYacht.TV. Designed by Nathanael G. Herreshof...
Making Boots by Hand: Handmade boots, the old-fashioned way. Let's hope he finds an apprentice....
Lowell’s Boat Shop on “Craft in America”: Thank you to OCH member Peter Brackenbury for bringing another wonderful film to our attention. In this episode of the t...
Old School Tools, Made by Hand: Gila, NM is a long way from a deep water anchorage, but I'm sure many of us can identify with the values imbued in this...
Building Vietnamese Fishing Boats: Enjoy this scene from a shipyard in Vietnam. A couple nice-looking vietnamese fishing boats are emerging from an impress...
Dhow Boats in Tanzania, Dubai & Kenya: The term 'dhow' refers to a broad range of traditional wooden boats with lateen sails found in the Middle East and weste...
5 J Boats: Here's some footage of J Boats sailing at this year's St. Barth's Bucket.  Makes a nice counterpoint to the nautical tr...
Quiet Tune: Among the loveliest boats ever built--and we don't say this lightly--is Quiet Tune, the L. Francis Herreshoff ketch. In...
The Ship Builders of Essex: A world apart. Sit back and enjoy as this 1940's documentary evokes wooden ship building in the legendary town of Essex,...
Beneath The Surface pt1: ...