We lead a small church youth group through building a strip canoe. The boat is the Winisk designed by John Winters. We purchased both the plans and the molds from Noahs Marine. We worked on it one Sunday a month for a year. Many of the children had little or no experience using any king of tools. It was a lot of fun to watch the kids and the parents as the boat took shape.

I grew up as a dinghy sailor and there is still nothing quite like sailing a small boat. My boys’ first time at the helm was in a Trinka sailing dinghy. When it came time to choose a dinghy for our big boat I wanted something I could sail. We decided on the Spindrift 10 nesting dinghy.

As far as hard dinghies go, I am very pleased with both the stability and carrying capacity of this little boat. We have loaded it with three kids, two adults, and a bunch of gear and felt completely comfortable. Nested, it fits nicely under our boom on the big boat.

These two kayaks were amoung the first boats I built somewhere in the mid 1990’s. They are just over 16ft long, made of 3mm Okume plywood, and weigh just under 20 lbs.

The one with the pattern on the deck was damaged. To hide the repairs we added the patterned material in 2019.