"I’m a pretty lucky guy,” says Richard Honan, 74, of Winthrop, Massachusetts. He has been building one boat after another since 2002, and in 2020 he had begun work on his 13th boat, a peapod, the Beach Pea designed by Doug Hylan, when the dark cloud of the pandemic hit , it had a silver lining for Richard. “My grandkids couldn’t go to school, and they would spend all that time with me building that peapod. Otherwise it never would have happened to have all day, every day, for weeks on end, for them to come work with me.”In addition to granddaughters Anna and Emily, one of the boys in Richard’s neighborhood, joined the project. “Christian Buonopane was getting dropped off from school. I didn’t even know him. I introduced myself and said, ‘Do you want to learn how to build a boat?’ He spent a year and a half with me.” Richard’s grandson, Ben, also joined in with the boat building and was instrumental in helping make the mast. “Ben is very quiet, sometimes even withdrawn. I got him to come to the shop to help me make the poor man's hollow mast. He really got into it and couldn’t believe that with just hand tools, planes, and a sanding belt turned inside out we could make something as perfectly round as we did.” Christian, one of Richard’s neighbors, took up his invitation to build a boat and stayed with the project for one-and-a-half years.
Photographs courtesy of the Honan family
Read this article now for Free!
Ready for a second free article? Create a free account by entering your email address and a password below.
— OR —
Subscribe now for $29.99 a year and have immediate access to all of our content, including hundreds of small-boat profiles, gear reviews and techniques, adventure stories, and more! You can also browse our entire archive of back issues starting from September 2014, as well as post unlimited classified ads. This is an extraordinary value!
Richard Honan is a man of many trades. He is a master boatbuilder, an amazing artist who paints, draws, and crafts pieces of driftwood into works of art, and is also a skilled signmaker and teacher. He also has a big heart and always sends Christmas packages to soldiers overseas, loaded with all kinds of goodies.
Such a great story on so many levels – so blessed are you all.
Rob K.
A great project! Building boats is good but building them with grandchildren is the best!!
We want to be like Richard when we grow up…if we grow up…wait, Richard has to grow up first 🙂 We are thankful that Richard, his family and friends shares their knowledge in many small boat virtual venues.
Huzzah to the Honans!
Thank you for this story. It made my day. I row and sail a 16′ peapod in the Salish Sea
Jeff,
Waldron, Washington
Beautiful boat. The sail looks great! My wife likes the hull color, but I’m color blind. What is the name of the light blue hull color?
Richard Honan used TotalBoat Wet Edge Topside Paint and replied:
The light blue on the outside of the hull is TotalBoat Classic Whaler Blue. The other colors are TotalBoat Sea Foam and TotalBoat Bristol Beige.
Here’s a video of WAYLO-WAYLO’s launch day, created by my daughter, Amy.
Richard Honan