Background

“All things are created twice. There's a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation to all things.”
-Stephen Covey

I'm building a Herreshoff/Gardner Rowboat for my family to mess about in and (perhaps more importantly) to steep my kids in the notion that a person can do anything if they find the right books.

I love spending time in boats. I'm partial to canoes, believing that a boat is used in inverse proportion to it's weight. Most of my time afloat has been spent in a Redbird my dad built (published in the original Canoecraft). It's a great design, able to haul a lot of weight, and for years I really enjoyed it. When I had a couple of kids I discovered a problem. The payload was increasing, but nobody else was paddling. Even my wife had developed the tendency to watch the scenery go by and rarely dip a blade in the water. It was hard to generate enough force to get a 300+ pound load underway, or turn it once it was moving. I decided that a rowboat would approach the minimalist experience of the canoe, but would give me a mechanical advantage to help drive us forward.

Herreshoff Rowboat (Not mine, not Green Machine)

Three years ago we took a family vacation to Mystic Seaport and I tried rowing some peapods and their Herreshoff/Gardner Rowboat Green Machine. The peapods were nice, and certainly more stable, but Green Machine was so easily driven that I was sold. Loaded with the four people in my family plus my father she rowed with absolute grace and ease. I knew this was the boat to build. I already had the plans and I was ready to buy materials and get started...


Then we moved.
Then we had another baby.

Finally this year I got underway.