AMC Outdoors, March 2003

By Katharine Wroth

"The desire to build a boat is one that cannot be resisted. It begins as a little cloud on a serene horizon. It ends by covering the whole sky so that you can think of nothing else."
— Arthur Ransome

On a misty morning in southern Maine, a small crowd gathers along a muddy bank of the Kennebunk River. Speaking quietly to each other, greeting new arrivals, they stand and wait, their colorful jackets and hats rendered more brilliant by the drifting fog. Finally they are rewarded: four pickup trucks crawl up the road, each one hauling a trailer, each trailer bearing a wooden rowboat. These traditional coastal "peapods" are 13 feet long, four-and-a-half feet wide, painted some combination of white, blue, red, yellow, and green. And they have never touched water.

As the crowd watches, the boats' builders — 13 adult students from the nearby Landing School — spill out of the trucks and unload their projects, carrying them to the water's edge. An hour earlier on the campus, the same spectators heard a local minister deliver a blessing over the new fleet; then champagne bottles exploded across each bow. The pride so evident at that ceremony mixes with nervousness now, and a few good-natured comments fly, about leaks, sinking, and other nautical nightmares.

Then, one by one, the small groups lower their boats into the river and clamber aboard. As each meets the water, a miniature cannon is fired down the way, adding smoke to the already thick air. The spectators jostle for a view as the relieved students, very much afloat, begin to row.

In the midst of this celebratory hubbub stands Paul Barton, clad in an orange rubber rainsuit, observing now after spending the previous few minutes delivering quiet guidance and instruction to his students. Though it's their first launch, it is his 37th. For nearly two decades, Barton has taught boatbuilding at this small school in Kennebunkport, and he is unflappable.

Barton is one of many instructors in the Northeast who keep the wooden-boat tradition alive, handing down time-honored skills meshed with modern methods and materials. Whether they work full- or part-time; build canoes, kayaks, or peapods; teach children or adults; or live in the city or by the sea, one thing does not vary: Their desire to create functional works of art, and to help students of all skill levels follow in their wake.

Once bitten by the boatbuilding bug, most find it difficult to return to life as a landlubber. Back in Kennebunkport, one of the students watches the buyer of his group's peapod take the oars and row away across the water. "Don't you get attached to these, after all the work you put in? " a fellow spectator asks. "Kind of, " he shrugs, then grins. "Nothing to do but build another one."

Visit the links below to read about three different boat builders.

To Build a Boat, intro  |  Paul Barton  |  Lynne Paju  |  Adam Bolonsky