Hancock Boat is located in Hancock, New Hampshire. It is operated by a crabby old Grandpa who started building boat cradles and rockers for grandchildren and finally graduated to real boats.

 

I grew up in Ohio feeling a little land-locked and boat deprived even though I did crew for my grandfather in Lightning sailboats and have been a Lightning sailor for much of my adult life.

 

However, with retirement and the building of a barn in the back yard, I am now devoting pretty much full-time to wooden boat building and loving it. My first real boat build was a 16’ 8” Herreshoff “Coquina” pictured adjacent.

 

Herreshoff called this two-masted centerboarder a ‘cat-ketch’. The boat is a joy to sail. It literally talks to you (in 'Gurgle') as it slices through any chop. It is hard to imagine a prettier small wooden boat than this classic. This boat was completed in June of 2018 and then won “Best In Show” in the "I Built It Myself” category at the 2018 Wooden Boat Show in Mystic, CT.

 

The second real boat recently completed is a 12’ 8” Catspaw Dinghy (see pics under Catspaw page), which is also a Herreshoff inspired design modified by the capable hand of Joel White to be a bit longer and family friendly. It is being further modified in this particular build to be a bit less family friendly and hopefully more sailing friendly.

 

Both of these craft are made entirely of wood, but the hulls in both are plywood epoxy planked lapstrake construction which results in a very handsome classic looking wooden hull which is also light, strong and durable.

 

Too much work goes into these boats to store them  outside. With the completion of this second boat, I will be about out of indoor storage space for any additional boats. My dilemma is that I love building them and would like to keep doing so.

 

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