Windjammer Days

Boat Builders of the Region

Boat building is at the very essence of Boothbay Harbor’s Windjammer Days Festival. We take great pride in the legacy of shipbuilding that has taken place in our region going all the way back to the 18th century. Passed on from generation to generation, the construction of vessels runs deep in the blood here. When a new boat is launched, an entire community turns out acknowledging that she is now part of our history and part of what makes our peninsula extraordinary.

Just like every boat has a story to tell, so does every boatbuilder. This year each of our schooner sponsors have chosen a local shipwright to honor during Windjammer Days. Below are their stories.

If you would like to meet some of the Boat Builders, mark this date on your calendar, for an informal Meet & Greet at Boothbay Harbor Oceanside Golf Resort on Monday, June 24th, 3:30-5:00. 

Skip Orne started boatbuilding when he was young, around 12 or 13 years old. He recalls helping his father, Kenneth Orne, with the rebuild of a smaller lobster boat on the weekends. He was able to learn a lot about boats, fairness of hulls and a lot of sanding! They used the boat to go lobstering in Linekin Bay that summer, which gave Skip an appreciation of what all the hard work had been for. Growing up in the area, with having family history/heritage in boatbuilding, Skip always had an interest in boats and crafting things. The feeling of accomplishment with seeing things many years down the road that he had been a part of creating. These are some experiences that led him to his now 30-year career in boatbuilding.

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My Journey into shipbuilding My early life was spent around boats in Rhode Island where my father ran a boatyard and later two marine deck machinery manufacturers. I was always assisting him maintaining and repairing boats. In high school I worked summers in the machine shop doing whatever dirty jobs needed doing. As I went off to college I knew I wanted a career working with commercial workboats. After 4 years, earning a degree in naval architecture, I took a position as an associate engineer at Bath Iron Works. Click here to see the rest of the article.

My “journey “ has had high and low points, but mostly high and at times quite humbling, and most times it has provided a chance for a positive learning experience. My father J. Ervin Jones was a wooden boat builder and worked alone so when I was old enough to be of some help I would be in his shop helping. He always would have me stay home from school on the day he would be steam bending frames and as he bent the frames out to the ribbands and I would clamp them off. After two years at CMVTI, in 1974 I went to work for P. E. Luke Boatbuilders, working in the machine shop for two years. After that I started working for my father full time so I guess that’s fifty years. Click here to see the rest of the article.

I’ve had an appreciation for boats and the sea from a young age. I grew up lobstering on Southport.

In high school, I was an Ocean Classroom semester student on the schooner Harvey Gamage. I knew I wanted to continue working on the water. Afterwards, Nat Wilson took me on as a work study student at his sail loft in East Boothbay. Nat taught me everything I know. He also pushed me to continue sailing on vessels around the globe.

This is my 10th year at the sail loft. Although it doesn’t feel like it. I have made sails for everything from racing yachts to 17th century replica ships. I enjoy the challenge of building different kinds of sails by hand. The skills I’ve learned at the sail loft have made me a better sailor. This has really helped on the ships I have worked on. Click here to see the rest of the article.

Andy Tyska's career in the marine industry began in Fox Lake, Illinois, where he worked on small boats. His passion for boats and boatbuilding was evident, leading him to pursue skills in design and engineering. Andy graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, co-founding the engineering and design firm Bristol Harbor Group. These experiences laid the groundwork for an impactful journey in marine industry. Click here to see the rest of the article.

Tony’s career has spanned 50 years. Tony grew up on the south shore of Massachusetts and came to Maine in 1999 around the time he married his wife Bet, owner of the current Bet’s Fish Fry. Up until that time he had worked at boatyards in Massachusetts and also in Virginia and Florida. When he moved to Maine he considered himself “retired” from boatbuilding since he thought that he might not be able to break into the business here, but instead found people very welcoming and willing to subcontract his specialized services. Click here to see the rest of the article.

I suspect that my love of boats comes from my mother who had a sailboat which our family used on Long Island Sound for a few years when I was very young. Then in1972 my father, my older brother, and I built a 20 foot fiberglass Luger Power Boat Kit in our garage on Long Island, NY. My brother still owns this boat over 50 years later! I really took to sailing as well as power boating. In 1980 I attended a wooden boatbuilding apprenticeship program called the Phoenix Boatshop Cooperative on Cape Cod taught by Loring Wordel. I learned a lot and built a couple of really nice small boats. Click here to see the rest of the article.

Our sincere thanks to Alert’s vessel sponsor, Pepsi

I think many of us in the boatbuilding community became boatbuilders because of a passion about boats and boatbuilding and through the absorption of bits and pieces of wisdom from a number of mentors. Many of our mentors were willing teachers and others we may have observed from a greater distance, but we were still able to gather tasty tidbits of their knowledge and techniques. And time, it takes time to develop the necessary skills and vision to make a career in the trade.

I spent many hours on the lofting floor at Sonny Hodgdon’s with Sonny teaching me many of the details of lofting. After construction of the small schooner started Sonny would spend time explaining small details to me. Click here to see the rest of the article.

I never really had an interest in boat building in my younger years, but growing up on Long Island, NY I was always interested in boating and fishing. When I was a kid I loved working with my hands. Building model boats, planes and cars. When I was about 15 years old I sent away for a shaped foam surfboard blank which I finished with polyester resin and fiberglass boat cloth so I guess that was my first boat building experience.

In 2005 I was unemployed and saw an employment ad for help at Southport Island Marine which I applied for. I had little experience, but was hired right way. I’ve now been building boats, parts, and doing repairs for 20 years and I’ve enjoyed those years. Click here to see the rest of the article.

David originally got hooked on sailing in 1959 at age five, cruising in the Herreshoff S boat Widgeon with his family. Then when he was about 10 years old he started collecting old wooden boats to fix up, but they never got fixed up until he had learned something about woodworking in 8th grade shop class. In his 10th grade shop class David designed and built his first boat. His teacher said that the boat looked like the “box that it came in”, but it didn’t leak during sea trials. Better looking boats were yet to come. Click here to see the rest of the article.

Our sincere thanks to American Eagle’s vessel sponsor, Knickerbocker Group

Ross’s interest in boats began as a youth while working summers at a sailing camp. His duties included some light cabin maintenance and getting the fleet of Rhodes 19s ready for the upcoming season. He was always on the water in the summer and had small boats of his own. He began to cultivate a desire to learn boatbuilding and in 1999 was referred to David Nutt by Tony Finochiarro for more experience at his Southport shop. At the time, David Nutt was getting his boat Danza ready for an upcoming voyage where he and his family that would circumnavigate the globe. Click here to see the rest of the article.

Growing up in Bath in the 1940’s and early 1950’s with a father, uncles and grandfathers working in various capacities at BIW, I was generally aware of what was happening in the shipyard and had great respect for the importance of their work…especially during the war years when BIW built 82 destroyer type combatants for our navy. I can recall being very proud of my father who was a Leading Man in the “tin shop” for 42 years. Dad actually overlapped my early years with the company in the 1960’s. But, I never really considered working in Bath or shipbuilding in my early years. Football, basketball and baseball at Morse…followed by a History, Government and Economics major at Colby really did not provide much of a technological or manufacturing background for me.

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I was born and raised in Marblehead, Massachusetts where I grew up on the water boating. I learned to sail at an early age as well as working on a commercial lobster boat. Growing up in and around boats left an indelible mark on me that initially led me to want to become a Naval Architect. I attended Tabor Academy due to the fact that they offered a course in boat design. While I was attending Wentworth Institute of Technology, my roommate discovered the Landing School of Design and Boat Building. I attended the Landing School for a degree in yacht design. Towards the end of my design year, the school director came around to see who would like to attend the boat building side of the school. Click here to see the rest of the article.

Growing up in the Boothbay Region meant there was no escaping the water. From sailing lessons at the local yacht clubs, exploring all the coves of Linekin Bay and Ocean Point, snooping around in the local shipyards, Luke’s, Goudy and Stevens, as well as some afternoons in the scrap pile of Sony Hodgdon’s second floor shop. Building scale model boats in grammar school was my first boat building experience. Overall, just a love for water and building things has kept me at it. This led me into high school and trade school for building construction, working as a sub-contractor in our family construction business. Residential and commercial construction gave me some invaluable experience in the business world as well as work ethic. Click here to see the rest of the article.

Hodgdon Shipbuilding began in 1816. As I like to say, that is 4 years before Maine became a state. My career started in 1971 when I was still in high school, working summers and school vacations in my father’s (Sonny Hodgdon) small yard of half a dozen or so employees. He was a traditional “plank on frame” wooden boatbuilder. The first new boat I worked on was Sea Fever, that we built for Bobby Brown who was portrayed in the book/movie “The Perfect Storm”. I learned a lot working with those traditional boatbuilders including my father, Neil Jones, our bookkeeper Alice Thompson (who was the daughter of Boothbay Harbor boatbuilder Norman Hodgdon), and many others. Going back to 1816, I believe the company has built something north of 460 boats of all types. Most were built well before me by skilled wooden boatbuilders, building “state of the art” vessels of the day. How they built the boats that they did, I will never know. It is hard to imagine what they would think about boatbuilding today. Click here to see the rest of the article.

Over one hundred vessels have slid down the ways into Linekin Bay out of Paul E. Luke, Inc. boat yard: lobster boats, power cruisers, sailboats (race and cruising) both wood and aluminum.

There is only one boatbuilder in this boatyard. Make no mistake whose yard it was, and who was boss. He was Paul Luke. Others worked here and moved on to become boat builders in their own yard: John Luke, Jim Jones, Matt Sledge, and others moved on and became successful builders in their own yard, but they passed through here. Click here to see the rest of the article.

Hi, I'm Fred Bowers. I live here in Alna with my lovely wife Mary and assorted pets and livestock.

First off, I should explain that I feel somewhat like an imposter when compared to the many professional boat builders in the region. Professional I'm not, (though we often jest about our "Alna Iron Works", AIW, not to be confused with the little outfit in Bath, BIW)but totally amateur, relying a lot on advice from the many "pros" who have coached me through the process. I hope that by writing this, I'm saluting the many fellow backyard boat builders hereabouts. Click here to see the rest of the article.

believe it all started when I was about 5 or 6 watching my Dad, Ed Haggett, working wood and I was actually playing in the shavings. The look, sound, smell and feel of the wood all mesmerized me. I thought seeing the things he would was magical and in a short time Dad had supplied me with some basic tools and I loved it! I always loved the boats he built. I knew that magic was about to happen when the shop floor was painted a light gray and the lofting process would start and from these lines a new vessel would evolve, while talked about as a person, she would take shape and be beautiful! Click here to see the rest of the article.

I was fortunate to spend every summer in Round Pond, ME swimming and boating in the ocean. When I went to the University of Michigan in 1988, I knew I wanted to be an engineer. Math and science piqued my interest and when I learned about their naval architecture/marine engineering program, it felt like a perfect fit. After earning my master’s degree in 1993, I worked for two amazing men, Bruce Blancke and Jack Gilbert. These two men, who owned small engineering firms in NJ and Boston respectively, shaped my future by showing me the importance of building a business through developing relationships and providing top-notch customer service. These skills aren’t always intuitive for engineers, and I appreciate learning these skills from them! Click here to see the rest of the article.

In the summer of 2007, I found myself adrift—at 20 years old, my drive to become a teacher had faded, and prospects within the field of history seemed sparse. An internship brought me to the Mystic Seaport Museum where I was introduced to the maritime industry. Walking the museum’s campus one night, I found myself taken aback by the impressive silhouette of the full-rigged ship Joseph Conrad against the overcast sky. The experience was very powerful, and after completing my history degree, I returned to work in the museum’s interpretation department.

By 2011, I had established myself working in the historic Charles Mallory Sail Loft, repairing sails for the ships and boats in the museum’s collection. Click here to see the rest of the article.

Katie grew up on the water and has always had a passion for the ocean and outdoor activities. Whether she was sailing the coast of Maine during summers or spending her days at the shipyard. She’s worked on schooners out of Camden, held a position at Outward Bound, and served as a trip leader at Chewonki. It's no surprise that Maddox eventually followed in her father's footsteps. "Talking tugs and building boats was always part of the dinner conversation growing up," she shared.

This upbringing naturally led her to a career in building some of the finest commercial vessels in the world, all from her hometown of East Boothbay. Click here to see the rest of the article.

“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery