I once worked in a New Hampshire cabinet shop with a gray-bearded guy named Paul who regularly offered only two criticisms of my craftsmanship. He would say either, “We’re not making a damn pigpen here,” or “We’re not making a damn piano here.” When I put the appropriate amount of effort into the job at hand, he’d let me be. If Paul ever looked over Joe Greenley’s shoulder as Joe built one of his strip-built kayaks, I think he’d sputter, “We’re not building a damn Louis XIV escritoire here.”Joe has created quite a reputation for his company, Redfish Kayaks, by transforming strip-built kayaks into works of art. For years I’ve admired his craftsmanship at wooden boat festivals and kayak symposia in the Pacific Northwest, but I’d never paddled any of his boats. I suppose all I had to do was ask, but I was as reluctant to paddle one as I would be to use a guitar as a garden rake.When I finally got a chance to paddle a Redfish kayak, it was a King built from a kit by Dale Meland under Joe’s tutelage. Dale was a disciple of decorative strip-building and did a first-rate job with his kayak’s sweeping patterns and pinstripes of Western red cedar, Alaska yellow cedar, and walnut. It was fine piece of craftsmanship, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that the kayak wasn’t just fancy woodwork; it was as much a pleasure to paddle as it was to admire.

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