All Guide Posts » Choose Your Boat

There are principles to consider, pathways to follow. Used boats are cheap these days and there are a million boats for sale. So shopping for the boat of your dreams can be a mess if you haven’t thought clearly about what you really want and what you intend to do with it. Don’t be like the guy who started out looking for a day sailor and ended up with a tugboat just because, by the pound, it seemed like a wicked good deal. The more clarity you can bring to the specifics of actual boat ownership, the happier you’ll be with the boat you buy.

Author	Title
Doug Hylan	Chesapeake Crabbing Skiff, by Doug Hylan: Some years ago, I was asked to draw a small version of the traditional skiff once commonly used by Chesapeake Bay crab f...
Guest Author	SHELDRAKE, A Charming Little Keel Sloop Designed by OCH Guide Nat Benjamin: This first message just came in from SHELDRAKES’s owner and our friend Steve Corkery—a guy with loads of experie...
Havilah Hawkins	CREEK CRAWLER, A Simple Trailerable Houseboat by Havilah Hawkins: Early in the life of OffCenterHarbor we OCH Guides were asked to come up with three boats we lust after.  One of the on...
Guest Author	Catspaw Dinghy, A Guest Blog by Ben Emory: Sailors sometimes say that the enjoyment a boat gives her owner varies inversely with her size – the smaller the craft...
Guest Author	Three Boats I Lust After and Why; A Guest Blog by Jim Giblin:   The 60-foot OCEANUS that Bill Garden designed for his own use. I have lusted for this boat since I first saw her...
LinAndLarry Pardey	The Three Boats I Lust After (and Why) – The Herreshoff Buzzards Bay 25, Herreshoff 12.5 & Whio: I’ve had the good fortune to sail on dozens of different boats over the years ranging from 140 foot schooners to light...
Ed McClave	The Three Boats I Lust After (and Why): To tell you the truth, I don’t really lust after boats very much any more. So I’m going write on behalf of some othe...
Bill Mayher	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...
Guest Author	Building Before Sailing: By Jessica Kerwin Jenkins, author of Encyclopedia of the Exquisite. I‘m going about it backwards, I know. Normally...
Kaci Cronkhite	Herstory Matters: the Spidsgatter Pax: Every wooden boat has a story… The main character is usually the designer or her most famous owner. From there the...
Harry Bryan	In My Shop: The Rambler 18 Outboard Boat: On our shop floor is a nearly completed 18’ Rambler 18 outboard boat. It represents a step that I have wanted to take...
Bill Thomas	In My Shop: A Fox, a Willow, a Phoenix, a Skerrie Skiff & a Pram: How I spent my winter vacation… This past winter I seem to have been a full-time boat shop. That’s not always th...
Gubby Williams	The Three Boats I Lust After (and Why): The Heart-Breaker, The Back-Breaker, and the Bank-Breaker   Before placing three boats before a host of discerning...
Doug Hylan	Why Choose A Traditionally Built Boat?: The easy answer: So that when you wake up in the morning, sun streaming through a port light, you can admire the beautif...
Nat Benjamin	Three Boats I Lust After (and Why), by Nat Benjamin: This question should really be directed at amateurs, not “experts.” The problem with experts, professionals or whate...
Peter Neill	Three Boats I Lust After (and Why), by Peter Neill: To know the boat is to see into and beyond the boat herself. My three examples are real to me as much as metaphors; they...
Harry Bryan	The Three Boats I Lust After (and Why): I must protest.  I have spent some time thinking about the title of this submission and feel that it has been my good f...
Geoff Kerr	The Three Boats I Lust After (and Why): Life as a boatbuilder satisfies many nautical longings.  I get to keep track of the world of boats through shows, event...
Bill Thomas	The Three Boats I Lust After (and Why): When I find myself at leisure to enjoy what I call “recreational thinking” I often contemplate boats. I toy with dif...
Jane Ahlfeld	The Three Boats I Lust After (and Why): I would have to say I don’t really lust after boats. If I were to apply the word lust to boating it would be in relati...
Havilah Hawkins	Three Boats I Lust After (and Why), by Havilah Hawkins: A Creek Crawler I lust after a creek crawler, a powerboat that might resemble a small canal boat with a caboose recessed...
Brion Toss	The Three Boats I Lust After (and Why): Perhaps it’s my age, or perhaps I am suffering from adult-onset Asperger’s Syndrome, but I can’t say that there ar...
Walt Ansel	The Three Boats I Lust After (and Why): After 35 years of using a great variety of boats I’ve come to value their utility as much as their aesthetics. I feel...
Ginny Jones	The Three Boats I Lust After (and Why): The first of my favorite boats is the 11 foot sailing tender just being finished off at Gannon & Benjamin, here in V...
Brion Rieff	The Three Boats I Lust After (and Why): Probably the hardest thing to do is to pick only three of my favorite boats, so to make it easier, I’ve omitted the bo...
Queene Foster	The Three Boats I Lust After (and Why): Boat #1:  Holger Danske “Lusting” is not a big enough word for it; sometimes I hear this boat calling… Holger Dan...
Lance Lee	The Three Boats I Lust After (and Why): As lust remains the first of the Seven Deadly Sins, an obsession from 1947 became enduring lust. My biases: traditional,...
Kaci Cronkhite	The Three Boats I Lust After (and Why): I’m lucky. Boat lust led to some amazing adventures with nothing to hide from my mother. Naive to boats just two short...
Doug Hylan	The Three Boats I Lust After (and Why): Perhaps it is my age, or maybe it is the fact that I spend a good deal of time taking care of boats, but generally speak...
Ben Fuller	The Three Boats I Lust After (and Why): A winter boat: a boat for simple, rugged exercise that’s able to live with snow and ice inside and forgive the dents o...
Alec Brainerd	The Three Boats I Lust After (and Why) – Buzzards Bay 18, Dark Harbor 12 & Belfast Lough One Design: There are designs that simply cannot be improved upon.  The Herreshoff 12 ½, the Herreshoff Fish Class, the Buzzards B...
Dick Wagner	The Three Boats I Lust After (and Why) – Rozinante, Beetle Cat and Scow Schooner: Rozinante: A slim, lightweight hull with a well-balanced ketch or yawl rig, this boat keeps on sailing in the lightest...

 

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