American Small Sailing Craft

by Howard Chappelle

I am endlessly fascinated by sailboat design. How to drive a boat upwind with sticks and canvas? What makes a boat fast? And, being a 19th Century guy, I like wooden sailboats, not the shiny hi-tech plastic things that race about these days.
Boat design is something America can be uniquely proud of. As the global melting pot all during the 18th and 19th centuries, fishermen, boat builders from the entire world contributed to the variety and excellence of American small sailing craft. Thank you Chappelle, for preserving this knowledge. and some day I’ll build a flat iron skiff.

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