ROCKLAND – Building boats together builds family ties.

That’s what WoodenBoat magazine’s Family BoatBuilding Week is all about – bringing families together for a weekend of fun and learning.

Beginning Friday, seven families spent three days at WoodenBoat Show 2003 piecing, gluing, nailing and screwing together small boats that were to be finished and painted before splashing them into Rockland Harbor. But, ready or not, they all were tossed into the water at noon Sunday, after a parade of sorts down to the city docks.

Similar Family BoatBuilding events sponsored by the magazine took place last week in 34 places across the country and around the world.

WoodenBoat Show 2003 brought an array of colorful wooden boats of all types and sizes to Rockland. From canoes to sailing yachts, the city’s waterfront was filled with boats and exhibits on land and in the water.

Thousands of people watched Sunday as the families dropped either their Weekend Dinghies or Bevin’s Skiffs into the harbor after 21/2 days of construction. There were no leaks and no one took a bath as they rowed the tiny boats in and around the harbor.

One person in the crowd was overheard saying, “It’s a nice family thing to see,” as the boats were being carried to shore.

As the Dalholt family of Northport boarded their 12-foot Bevin’s Skiff, an unidentified woman commented to WoodenBoat publisher Carl Cramer how smooth the finish was on the small boat, named 3 Generations.

“They could have launched the first day,” Cramer said to the woman, explaining that the patriarch of the family once was a Norwegian boat builder by trade.

Odd Dalholt of Port Orange, Fla., who turns 79 next month, spotted the Family BoatBuilding ad in WoodenBoat magazine a couple of years ago, but the family was unable to attend the event, which took place in Maryland that year. This time around, they made it.

Dalholt, who began building boats in Norway when he was 16 years old, had his sights set on building a boat with his son Norman, 44, a Northport carpenter, and his two grandsons, Thomas, 15, and David, 13.

After moving to the United States in 1950, the elder Dalholt switched trades from boat building to house building, he said, for higher pay. As a boat builder he was earning $1.25 per hour at Nevins City Shipyard in City Island, N.Y., while building houses paid $2.65 an hour.

On the other hand, Dalholt’s son Norman never had built a boat nor had his grandsons. “This is Grandpa’s vision,” Norman said.

“It’s not a contest,” Odd Dalholt said. “It’s a family thing.

“If you don’t finish,” he said, “everyone helps you. So, it’s a team effort.”

Everyone did not get the boats painted Sunday, not even the Dalholts. But a lack of paint didn’t stop the families from launching at noon.

The other six families, who hail from North Yarmouth, Bangor, Lincolnville, Long Beach Island, N.J.; Harrisburg, Pa.; and Philadelphia, also included members who traveled to Maine from other parts of the country.

During a briefing Sunday, Joe Youcha taught the group how to tie a bowline knot to fasten the bowline to the boats. Youcha is executive director of the Seaport Foundation in Alexandria, Va., where the $800 boat kits are made by inner-city youths, many of whom come to the program from gangs or court referrals.

“The most powerful tool you use this weekend is your heads,” Youcha said, as he explained that “geometry is the math you use to build.”

The Dalholt brothers, who are home-schooled by their mother, Deidra, learned a lot over the course of the weekend.

On Saturday, as the boys sanded strips of wood to be mounted on the boat, their father told them, “We need to sand this before we put this on [the boat].”

“Why?” one boy asked.

Their carpenter father explained that it is much easier to sand the wood before it is fastened.

Throughout the weekend, Youcha went from boat to boat, giving families tips on building techniques, such as the best way to install the keel and skeg.

Just before the launch on Sunday, David Dalholt, who hopes to become a carpenter like his dad, said the whole experience was wonderful.

“It’s kinda difficult” to pick a high point, he said. “It’s all different and it’s all exciting.”

Odd Dalholt said, “It brought back some memories.”

“I really enjoyed actually getting to build it with the three generations,” Thomas Dalholt said. “The whole process was fun. It’s too bad they don’t do it annually in Maine.”