I pulled up stakes and headed to Annapolis about two years ago. I had an amazing job offer to work at Chesapeake Light Craft. I had been a customer since 2001 and admired their steadfast commitment to customer service. The quote I remember most was "You can build as many boats as you want". I was hooked and off I went, leaving a 21 year career in the automotive field behind. I was scared, excited and confident, failure was not an option. It took several months to complete the move and feel as if I had my feet firmly planted. Then I took on an abandoned project, the Night Heron Hybrid. I had an idea of what I wanted to do, but it was just that, an idea. The reality was, I had not built anything using cedar strips before. It was trial by fire, the design morphed into what it is today. One idea led to another and it kept getting more and more complicated, in spite of my desire to keep it simple. I worked everyday, both before and after my real job at CLC. It became an obsession to have it finished before we departed for the WoodenBoat Show in July. It was finished and tested the day before we left. Nothing like taking it down to the wire.
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| Foredeck under Construction |
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| The process of sanding, only half done at this point |
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Getting close to being done, one more coat of varnish to go
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| First paddle...The night before leaving for The WoodenBoat Show. |
After a few months break from building, I formed a more ambitions plan. We needed a kayak called the Petrel. It was the most requested kayak that we did not have in the demo fleet. We also had a couple of boards of burled Spanish Cedar in the shop gathering dust. They would be the inspiration for the entire build. I milled my own strips and assembled the boat from a kit. I wanted to get a idea of what our customers were finding when building one of our boats. The project started in September of '10. Along the way I completely lost my mind and started another build with my daughter, a Shearwater 14. From November '10 to March '11, I was working on two boats, not the smartest plan.
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