Cricket taught her first class this spring–a six-day course in building the McKenzie River drift boat, or dory. I got to be helper boy, which was delightful. We started in the first night with lofting the lines from Roger Fletcher’s book, Drift Boats and River Dories.

Once the class agreed on the fair curves of the boat, we moved on into frame expansion, transom expansion, and began building the parts.

Cricket had a wonderful group of ladies in this class.

Our old friend Pat Fanelli rolled into town for a few days.

He had been working on a sign for our boatshop for several years and finally completed it. Amazing!

Sunset at the dock.

With the parts finished we assembled not one, but two McKenzie hulls.

We had a terrific group of students.

The normally spectacular sunsets at Naskeag Point were more like fogsets. Less colorful but still outstanding.

We retrieved our Amesbury Dory Skiff from Tim, her caretaker, and rowed her around a bit when the weather permitted. Her name is Amesbury Jane.

Prepping the floors.

And screwing them on.

With the boats bottomed, we rolled them up and bolted on the gunwales. Not much left to do but clean them up and install seats and decks.

Two lucky folks got the boats. One will stay in Maine, the other goes to Pennsylvania. It was a great course. I’ll be Cricket’s assistant any day.