there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing

May 26, 2017 10:39 PM

The Remarkable Melonseed Skiff

We often fall in love with our eyes first, and it is pure romance and “love at first sight”. Later we attempt to justify our feelings by trying to become rational and objective, but it was usually that first flush of visual fantasy that started the adventure. And, like most of our romances, that’s how it usually is with boats too, and that’s how it was with the Melonseed Skiff.

A Gam Of Melonseed Skiffs

Build your own!

The Melonseed is a traditional small craft of the New Jersey coast and Delaware Bay.

Traditional working boats can handle a variety of rigs.

2015 Melonseed Skiff Autumnal Equinox Sail

The Melonseed[PDF] (in wood or fiberglass) is just one of the six kinds of daysailers.

posted by the man of twists and turns (10 comments total)

Oh so sublime, watching those skiffs come into being in that shop, then watching them on the water. I love the surface of water, and those little skiffs are lyrical, simple, elegant, clean, excellent. And I thought I would never love again!
posted by Oyéah at 11:04 PM on May 26, 2017 [2 favorites]

That was wonderful. Thank you.
posted by rtha at 11:57 PM on May 26, 2017

There was a moment when I said "Oh no, he's painting it!"

I know paint plays a protective role in boats, but is it possible to just have a real good clear coat over the natural wood, and skip the pigment?
posted by aubilenon at 12:14 AM on May 27, 2017 [5 favorites]

Thanks, nice to watch. I once participated in building a couple of cedar strip canoes, a similar process in many ways, one of the life projects I'm most proud of.
posted by HuronBob at 3:19 AM on May 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

aubilenon: Modern strip built boats like these usually have a few layers of glass fiber over them. That's the only coating they really need, and it's quite transparent, so they don't really need to be painted and are often beautiful that way. For example, Nick Schade's Night Heron is so lovely that MOMA acquired one for their permanent collection.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 3:34 AM on May 27, 2017 [7 favorites]

The pictures and description in the "Build your own!" link are really neat, but it is also telling that the blog starts in 2012 and as of the end of 2016 he is still not done. Without meaning to sound critical at all, it did make me smile that the builder took the highest-effort/highest-quality path at every step in the woodworking, building the boat like one of his hand-made guitars, and then chose to paint the outside to save on potential maintenance work.

I don't know anything about boats, but these skiffs have beautiful lines and I can see why people are attracted to them. If I ever buy a boat, it will be made from aluminum and have an outboard motor, but these are the kinds of boats I could look at all day long. Many years ago I went to the wooden boat festival in Port Townsend, and it was amazing to walk around and look at so many examples of what was basically functional art. Almost all of them could have been displayed in a museum.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:39 AM on May 27, 2017 [3 favorites]

All right, everybody loves a nice wooden boat, absolutely. Unfortunately I can't stop my growing curmudgeonly-ness from breaking out. I am guilty of what I criticize having built boats and kayaks out of wood and plywood so I am a hypocrite but maybe if we could dial down the wood boat fetish a little the wildlife would thank us. It isn't so much that the lumber going into wooden boats is being cut down in such big quantities, it isn't quite the same as tusk carving for instance, but the blitheness of it rankles. People ooh! and ahh! over naturally finished woods but I have become increasingly ill over it as I can't help but seeing clear cuts and just thinking how much more beautiful a living tree is than cedar strips sandwiched between fiberglass, (even though as I said I am guilty of building and appreciating the same.) I'll stop now before I start ranting about Class and migratory song bird habitat.
posted by Pembquist at 12:06 PM on May 27, 2017

Not only did I love watching the ship building, but the music was pretty amazing too!
posted by Samizdata at 9:13 PM on May 27, 2017

Zoe Keating, I think.
posted by d. z. wang at 1:53 PM on May 28, 2017

These are some great links, several rabbit holes here (that Traditional Small Craft page!). Thanks for this post.
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:45 AM on June 1, 2017