Wooden boats become a deliberate culture rather than a default. Festivals, schools, museums and class associations take over the work the yards used to do — and the Master Mariners fleet becomes a living index of everything that came before.
What happened
- 1971 — Herreshoff Marine Museum founded at Bristol
- 1978 — First Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival
- 1981 — Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building founded
- 1988 — San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park established
- 2002 — Spaulding's yard passes into charitable trust as a living museum
- 2007 — Arques School of Traditional Boatbuilding housed at Spaulding
- 2015 — Brigantine Matthew Turner launched at Sausalito
Where
Designers
Howard I. Chapelle
Naval architect and maritime historian — Smithsonian
Thomas E. Colvin
Naval architect and builder — Virginia and Florida
Jim DeWitt
Sailmaker, designer and painter — Richmond
Hank Easom
Boatbuilder, sailmaker and racer — Sausalito and Tiburon
William Garden
Naval architect — Seattle, then Vancouver Island
Cyrus Hamlin
Naval architect and teacher — Maine
L. Francis Herreshoff
Naval architect and writer — Marblehead
Bill Lee
Yacht designer and builder — Santa Cruz
Ed Monk Jr.
Naval architect — Bainbridge Island
Ron Moore
Boatbuilder — Santa Cruz
Gary W. Mull
Yacht designer — San Francisco Bay Area
K. Aage Nielsen
Naval architect — Denmark and Boston
George Olson
Yacht designer — Santa Cruz
J. Parsons
Amateur designer and builder — Tiburon
Robert 'Bob' Perry
Yacht designer — Seattle
Josh Pryor
Designer, owner and charter captain — San Francisco
Edson I. Schock
Naval architect and professor — Rhode Island
Carl Schumacher
Yacht designer — Alameda, California
Winthrop L. Warner
Naval architect — Middletown, Connecticut
Joel White
Naval architect and yard owner — Brooklin, Maine
Fenwick C. Williams
Naval architect — Massachusetts
Tom Wylie
Yacht designer — Canyon and Watsonville, California
Builders & Yards
Abeking & Rasmussen
Lemwerder, Germany
Arques Boatyard
Napa Street then Johnson Street, Sausalito
Brooklin Boat Yard
Brooklin, Maine
Cheoy Lee Shipyard
Shanghai, then Hong Kong
Concordia Company
South Dartmouth, Massachusetts
Hodgdon Yachts
East Boothbay, Maine
Moore Sailboats
Watsonville, California
Richardson Bay Boatworks
Sausalito
Smith and Rhuland
Lunenburg, Nova Scotia
Spaulding Boatworks / Spaulding Marine Center
600 Gate Five Road, Sausalito
W. F. Stone & Son / Stone Boat Yard
Hunters Point → Tiburon → Harbor View → Oakland → Alameda
Svendsen's Boat Works
Alameda Marina, Alameda
W. D. Schock Corp
Newport Beach, Corona and Santa Ana, California
Classes & Types
The Canoe Yawl
Albert Strange and the Humber Yawl Club
The Cape Cod Catboat
New England vernacular, revived by Fenwick Williams
The Colin Archer Type
Double-ended, heavy-displacement, seagoing
Dragon
Johan Anker, 1929
Colvin Gazelle
Thomas E. Colvin — junk-rigged steel schooner
International One Design
Bjarne Aas, 1937 — Bay fleet from 1952
International Knarr
Norway, 1943 — with a direct line to San Francisco
The Metre Classes
The International Rule, ratified 1907
Nordic Folkboat
Gothenburg, 1942 — and a large Bay fleet
Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter
British working sail, 1795 – 1922
Sea Witch Ketch
Angelman & Davies, from c. 1937
Tahiti Ketch
John G. Hanna, 1935
Associations & Institutions
Corinthian Yacht Club
Tiburon
Encinal Yacht Club
Alameda
Golden Gate Wooden Boat Foundation
Sausalito — publisher of this atlas
Herreshoff Marine Museum
Bristol, Rhode Island
Master Mariners Benevolent Association
San Francisco Bay — racing since 1867
Mystic Seaport Museum
Mystic, Connecticut
Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building & the Wooden Boat Festival
Port Townsend and Port Hadlock, Washington
Old Gaffers Association
Maldon, Essex — and international
Richmond Yacht Club
Brickyard Cove, Richmond
San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park
Aquatic Park and Hyde Street Pier
San Francisco Yacht Club
Belvedere Cove, Tiburon
Spaulding Marine Center
600 Gate Five Road, Sausalito
St. Francis Yacht Club
The Marina, San Francisco
WoodenBoat
Brooklin, Maine — magazine and school
Vessels
Adventuress
Gaff schooner — B. B. Crowninshield, 1913; Rice Brothers, East Boothbay
Freda
Gaff sloop — Harry Cookson, Belvedere, 1885
Yankee
Gaff schooner, 52 ft — W. F. Stone, 1905; launched 18 April 1906
Zaca
Schooner — Nunes Brothers, Sausalito, 1929
Wooden Boat Atlas v3.0 · built 30 July 2026 · a project of the Golden Gate Wooden Boat Foundation · licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · open data · corrections