Schooner: Building a Wooden Boat on Martha's Vineyard

by Tom Dunlop, Photos by Alison Shaw

WoodenBoat magazine says this book "delights the eye while informing the mind." It takes you through the construction of Rebecca of Vineyard Haven, a sixty-foot wooden schooner designed and built by one of the few boatyards in the United States devoted exclusively to the design, construction and repair of traditional wooden boats. At the time Rebecca was constructed, she was the largest sailing vessel built on the Island of Martha's Vineyard since the election of Abraham Lincoln and the only boat of her type being built anywhere in the world. In words and extraordinary photos, you learn that every part of Rebecca is built or cast by hand by the few craftsmen in the world who still do this work. She is, as one of her builders calls her, poetry on water. Jon Wilson of WoodenBoat magazine calls this book "exquisitely beautiful." And singer James Taylor, whose boat was the first one built at the yard, labels the work being done there "astonishing." In a world that puts the word "disposable" in front of everything from cash to razors, the story that Schooner shows and tells will appeal to boat lovers, book lovers, and everyone who cares about the skill required to build something significant and useful and lovely, not just for today and tomorrow, but for the ages.

159 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2010