From The Editor - Small Boats Magazine https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article-categories/from-the-editor/ Mon, 03 Mar 2025 21:05:17 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 Adventures in Retirement https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/adventures-in-retirement/ https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/adventures-in-retirement/#respond Mon, 03 Mar 2025 21:05:17 +0000 https://smallboatsmonthly.com/?post_type=article&p=243941 In bygone eras, retirement typically meant slowing down, staying home, and accepting the idea that one had become old. Today, however, that’s a concept that more and more people are ignoring; none more so than the world’s small-boat enthusiasts.

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]]> https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/adventures-in-retirement/feed/ 0 John Watkinson and the Elliott Brothers https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/drascombe-boats-and-the-elliott-brothers/ https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/drascombe-boats-and-the-elliott-brothers/#comments Mon, 03 Feb 2025 18:39:43 +0000 https://smallboatsmonthly.com/?post_type=article&p=242651 By 1964, the yard was doing well, but it was then that Watkinson decided to sell the yard and work full-time at design. That decision would lead to the building of the prototype Drascombe Lugger in 1965.

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]]> https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/drascombe-boats-and-the-elliott-brothers/feed/ 11 Utility, Beauty, and Longevity https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/utility-beauty-and-longevity/ https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/utility-beauty-and-longevity/#comments Thu, 02 Jan 2025 18:35:48 +0000 https://smallboatsmonthly.com/?post_type=article&p=241119 Despite the vast differences in age, and the materials and tools used, the guideboat and the canoe have one thing in common: beauty. For those taking more than a passing glance, beauty is evident in the boats’ fair curves, their symmetry, and the uniformity in their details from bow to sterns. Is it beauty, then, that has given them both longevity far beyond the purpose for which each was built to serve?

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]]> https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/utility-beauty-and-longevity/feed/ 2 You’re Never Too Old https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/youre-never-too-old/ https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/youre-never-too-old/#comments Mon, 02 Dec 2024 17:47:26 +0000 https://smallboatsmonthly.com/?post_type=article&p=214519 When James Kealey built a boat so that his sons could learn about perseverance and independence, he gave them something priceless: immersion in an activity at so young an age that they won’t remember learning what to do on a boat, they will just know how to do it. As children, we learn without questioning, and if we’re lucky enough to learn in an unthreatening environment that is patient and encouraging, we learn without inhibition or fear of getting it wrong.

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]]> https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/youre-never-too-old/feed/ 2 The Can-Do of Small Boaters https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/the-can-do-of-small-boaters/ https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/the-can-do-of-small-boaters/#comments Fri, 01 Nov 2024 15:57:06 +0000 https://smallboatsmonthly.com/?post_type=article&p=192865 Over the years, one constant amongst our readers and contributors that has always impressed me is the shared spirit of “get up and do.” There is, indeed, an indomitable spirit of can-do, of rising to a challenge, that enriches Small Boats, as well as an openness and welcoming attitude within the community that time and again inspires newcomers to give it a go.

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]]> https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/the-can-do-of-small-boaters/feed/ 9 Living with Small Boats https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/living-with-small-boats/ https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/living-with-small-boats/#comments Tue, 01 Oct 2024 12:30:21 +0000 https://smallboatsmonthly.com/?post_type=article&p=191207 Small boats have introduced me to some wonderful people, from fellow boatowners, to builders and designers, historians and teachers. They have opened conversations and led me to some of the warmest, most generous, straightforward people I’ve known.

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]]> https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/living-with-small-boats/feed/ 16 Our 10th Anniversary and a Change of Watch https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/our-10th-anniversary-and-a-change-of-watch/ https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/our-10th-anniversary-and-a-change-of-watch/#comments Tue, 03 Sep 2024 18:06:00 +0000 https://smallboatsmonthly.com/?post_type=article&p=189316 This issue marks the 10th anniversary of the launch of Small Boats in September 2014. With this September issue, the number of articles published has risen to around 1,000, all of them available to subscribers under “Issues” in the menu bar above. This ever-growing resource for our community is both for our readers and from our readers. Almost without exception, the articles are written by boaters who have some hands-on experience or knowledge that they have been moved to share with our community.

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]]> https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/our-10th-anniversary-and-a-change-of-watch/feed/ 35 Hand-Me-Down https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/hand-me-down/ https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/hand-me-down/#comments Sun, 28 Jul 2024 19:38:05 +0000 https://smallboatsmonthly.com/?post_type=article&p=186931 I put the pirogue on sawhorses where I could better see what work needed to be done. The plywood brackets that would hold the leeboard were delaminating and I could replace them or, I thought, do without them, as other pirogue builders had done, and install an off-center daggerboard trunk between the bottom and the side deck. The rudder had been designed with a yoke and tiller ropes, a system I’ve tried with other boats and have mixed feelings about. Dan preferred a tiller and had equipped the rudder with one made of a short length of bamboo. I imagined a Norwegian tiller like the one on my Caledonia Yawl would be a good match for the boat.

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]]> https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/hand-me-down/feed/ 5 Maligiaq https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/maligiaq/ https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/maligiaq/#comments Sun, 23 Jun 2024 23:23:03 +0000 https://smallboatsmonthly.com/?post_type=article&p=184946 Maligiaq was born in 1982 and grew up in Sisimiut, a town above the Arctic Circle on the west coast of Greenland. A great-grandfather on his mother’s side was a seal hunter who lost his life when a seal he had harpooned dragged him and his kayak so violently that his back was broken. Maligiaq’s grandfather, Peter Johnsen, was the last of the kayak hunters in Sisimiut, and kept to the old ways after the other hunters in the area took to outboard skiffs.

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]]> https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/maligiaq/feed/ 6 A Rainy Sunday Afternoon https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/a-rainy-sunday-afternoon/ https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/a-rainy-sunday-afternoon/#comments Sun, 26 May 2024 00:58:27 +0000 https://smallboatsmonthly.com/?post_type=article&p=183347 I’d brought lunch and backed away from the island to float in its lee while I ate. Putting up the umbrella and taking my sou’wester off changed the sound of the rain. The muffled pattering on the hat’s soft waxed canvas was replaced by a staccato tapping as sharp as fingertip snaps of static electricity. The curve of the umbrella surrounded me with rain’s music, a sound that can capture my full attention and push aside thinking as surely as gazing into the flickering flames of a campfire.

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