Boat designs inspire sailors’ dreams Collection revisits early 20th century plans for wooden vessels, many from Maine

DESIGNS TO INSPIRE: FROM THE RUDDER 1897-1942, by Anne and Maynard Bray, WoodenBoat Books, Brooklin, 2001, $24.95.

This is a book for dreamers. A peg to hang your dreams on when you plan your escape from the hum-drum and see yourself sailing into the small harbor at Chokoloskee, Fla., at the tiller of your live-aboard catboat. She’s only a 21-footer, but she’s got a generous 10-foot beam, draws less than 3 feet, and she’s got two bunks in her cabin, a head, stove, folding washbasin and a drop-leaf dining table. That’s everything you need for your priceless independence, yet she’s handy enough to sail solo and she’s got the classic lines that will be the envy of every old salt who walks a dock for a closer look at your marvelous boat.

But where would a sailor come by such a craft? She’s here in this book, along with more than 150 other wooden boats designed and built in the first half of the 20th century. Here are the plans, below decks and above, along with a bit of informational prose: Just enough to feed your dreams and tell you who designed the boat and where she was built. (Many, by the way, were crafted in Maine yards by the nation’s finest builders of wooden boats.)

And there’s no limit to your dreams. There are sailboats galore. Need a yawl? Try the double-ended pocket cruiser designed in 1933 by Fenwick C. Williams, the same fellow who created that cat you’ve sailed to Chokoloskee. This one’s a 24-footer, short and fat as they say, built for comfortable cruising, yet able to be sailed single-handed with you at the great, spoked wheel in her deep cockpit.

The best of the wooden boat designers are here, each delivering his secrets in detailed design drawings taken with care from back issues of The Rudder, the serious sailor’s periodical published from 1894 to 1983. John Alden designs are here, along with more from Cox & Stevens, B.B. Crowninshield, William Gardner, Sparkman and Stephens, and Elco, the Electric Boat Co. division in Bayonne, N.J., that turned out nifty power cruisers they called Cruisettes.

This book is as big as your dreams. It moves from sail to power, from motorsailers to express cruisers, diesel tugs and steam trawlers. Whatever your fancy, it’s here in these cleanly laid out pages with their crisp black-and-white, detailed, original design drawings. These creations come to us from an era of boating romance ignited by the grace of their wooden forms. There are no synthetic “miracle” materials in these hulls. There are only the finest woods: teak, oak, mahogany, pine, cedar, every plank hand-selected, every rail burnished bright, every rib artfully curved. For these craft were born in days when building boats was considered an art, not a mass-manufacture process.

You’ll know that as soon as your eye scans the pages of yawls, cruisers, cutters, sloops, ketches, schooners and, yes, that Cape Cod catboat from a 1932 Fenwick C. Williams design: you know, the one that’s going to sail you to your dreams. What, you’re not a sailor? No problem. There are powerboats galore, yachts for ladies and gentlemen, complete with expansive crew quarters, and galleys equipped to turn out the most memorable meals accompanied by wines from your on-board cellar.

Try the Sea Dream, why don’t you? She’s a bit more than 99 feet long, sleek as a seal, built by Luders at their Stamford, Conn., yard in 1925. She’s low in the water, a dark vision painted Luders black with gold trim. She’ll take you around the world if that’s your whim. And she’ll be the envy of every eye when you put in to Macao, Hong Kong, or Dark Harbor. You can, if you get out your magnifying glass and study the details of owner and passenger comforts, make small alterations you imagine will be more to your taste. For your very own dream boat, you might not want such ample guest cabins, or an open afterdeck.

Hey, that’s OK. This is a book of dreams, is it not? An artfully chosen collection of them, here to inspire and inform you of a time when some of the finest wooden boats in all the world were built by the finest artisans. These are the craft of romance, and should not be forgotten. This is their book of remembrance. Your book of dreams.