I have been addicted to wooden boats ever since I started sailing as a young boy during summers on Cousins Island in Maine. Wooden boats were everywhere. My uncle was my wooden boat mentor and inspiration. He was a sailor by nature, had been in the Navy, and taught navigation at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. He owned a succession of wooden boats. Eventually he settled on MERRY YARN, a wooden Sparkman & Stephens-designed Finisterre yawl built in Uruguay. He lived aboard and cruised her seasonally from Maine to the Bahamas. He raced her occasionally and collected quite a bit of silver. I crewed for him every chance I had on passages, in races, and on short hops along the East Coast. Curiously, none of his five kids were much interested in sailing. So, I was it. Through high school and college, when he called, I went.

MERRY YARN

MERRY YARN – Eggemoggin Reach Regatta, headed for the Finish and First Place

In time, I bought a cruising 34’ wooden boat, a 1967 Olle Enderlein-designed Swedish sloop. We used it on weekends (our “summer” house), raising two kids aboard while working full time in New York City. We cruised it extensively, raced it a number of times in wooden boat regattas, collected quite a bit of silver, and continue to enjoy it. Maintaining the boat is both a challenge and a joy. We cruise her out of Coecles Harbor, Shelter Island at the east end of Long Island. I have owned ESQUIRO IV for 30 years.

ESQUIRO IV

But I always dreamed of building my own wooden boat. Of course, as it usually goes, I never seemed to find the time. I finally decided to just do it. I repaired, upgraded and maintained ESQUIRO IV over the years, as well as did work on my uncle’s wooden boat MERRY YARN, so the construction of wooden boats was not foreign to me. Also, having studied hull shapes, rigs, and countless details of wooden boat design and construction, as well as sailing a multitude of boats, I began to figure out what it would take to build from scratch. Where to build it was a governing factor. Outfitted with a modest number of tools, my small basement shop has left-over open area that would accommodate an 18’-long boat. And the boat needed to fit out of the basement scuttle. Clearly it needed to be dinghy-sized. So be it.

Shelter Island Boat Works was established.

Todd Schliemann

Shelter Island Boat Works