Brad’s Story
I grew up in Ellis Hollow, a valley east of Ithaca New York, wandering in the woods, playing in the sandbox, careening on the rope swing, annoying the cats, and paddling my small blue plastic boat in circles until I became too heavy to float.
I fled west to Prescott College in Arizona and immediately ended up on a Grand Canyon river trip. That was 1971. Now look what’s happened.
After another college trip in ’72 I went to work as a river guide in ’73. First motor trips, then rowing, then, in 1978, rowing dories for Martin Litton. For several winters I worked internationally running psycho rivers in Chile, Africa, and the Guatemalan borderlands.
Twenty years of rowing dories put the tweak on me. I was doing a lot of repair and rebuilding, and finally began building them from scratch.
I put river running on the back burner for a while around the turn of the millennium and wrote river history books. The research was really a blast, but the writing was way too much like work. I segued back to full-time guiding.
In 2008, after decades of having nowhere to build large objects, I built Fretwater Boatworks. For the last dozen years I’ve spent summers on the river and winters in the boat shop, squeezing in a bit of teaching here and there.
Brad’s Story
I grew up in Ellis Hollow, a valley east of Ithaca New York, wandering in the woods, playing in the sandbox, careening on the rope swing, annoying the cats, and paddling my small blue plastic boat in circles until I became too heavy to float.
I fled west to Prescott College in Arizona and immediately ended up on a Grand Canyon river trip. That was 1971. Now look what’s happened.
After another college trip in ’72 I went to work as a river guide in ’73. First motor trips, then rowing, then, in 1978, rowing dories for Martin Litton. For several winters I worked internationally running psycho rivers in Chile, Africa, and the Guatemalan borderlands.
Twenty years of rowing dories put the tweak on me. I was doing a lot of repair and rebuilding, and finally began building them from scratch.
I put river running on the back burner for a while around the turn of the millennium and wrote river history books. The research was really a blast, but the writing was way too much like work. I segued back to full-time guiding.
In 2008, after decades of having nowhere to build large objects, I built Fretwater Boatworks. For the last dozen years I’ve spent summers on the river and winters in the boat shop, squeezing in a bit of teaching here and there.
Teaching
I teach each summer at WoodenBoat School in Brooklin, Maine. Check their schedule to see what we have cooked up each year.
For a few years I taught boatbuilding, oarmaking, and bronze casting here at my shop: Fretwater Boat School. But I got too nervous to run classes without liability insurance and, at this time, it’s just not affordable. If I find a solution, I’ll reopen. I do love to teach.
The Boatshop
For many years I worked in the driveway or under the house, tinkering on boats but not really able to launch into full-on building. In 2008 I bit the bullet and put up the shop—two stories of about 1500 square feet each. Downstairs is the boat shop, upstairs in the boat storage and museum. I hired out much of the construction, as I didn’t feel I had a spare twenty years to build it like we did the house. I have spent the last dozen winters in that shop with great folks building great boats, and hope to continue that far into the future.
The Crew
I’ve had many helpers
and employees along the way. I find I learn as much or more from them as they gain from me. Dan Dierker, Roy Lippman, and Jim Hall all spent a lot of time in the boat shop. Janek Keedinihii came on as my full-time helper and worked with me for many years, boatbuilding, teaching, and doing much of the finer artwork involved in these beautiful boats. He moved on to pursue his career as a fine art painter.
Cricket
Cricket is a ranch girl from the wild country east of San Diego. She came to the river world as a young girl and claimed it for her own. She started working at Fretwater in 2015 and has been my main assistant ever since—that is, when she’s not on the river.
Pat
Pat is a boatman who made the mistake of taking all of my Fretwater Boat School classes. He never left. Pat can fix anything, which is good because we break a lot of stuff. He and his wife and many dogs live here in Flagstaff, and Pat works with us full-time whenever he’s not off boating.
I’ve had many helpers
and employees along the way. I find I learn as much or more from them as they gain from me. Dan Dierker, Roy Lippman, and Jim Hall all spent a lot of time in the boat shop. Janek Keedinihii came on as my full-time helper and worked with me for many years, boatbuilding, teaching, and doing much of the finer artwork involved in these beautiful boats. He moved on to pursue his career as a fine art painter.
Cricket
Cricket is a ranch girl from the wild country east of San Diego. She came to the river world as a young girl and claimed it for her own. She started working at Fretwater in 2015 and has been my main assistant ever since—that is, when she’s not on the river.
Pat
Pat is a boatman who made the mistake of taking all of my Fretwater Boat School classes. He never left. Pat can fix anything, which is good because we break a lot of stuff. He and his wife and many dogs live here in Flagstaff, and Pat works with us full-time whenever he’s not off boating.
Boatbuilding
We build a lot of boats—many on consignment, and some just for the fun of it.
We believe in traditional framed construction, for both strength and aesthetic reasons. We frame with traditional Port Orford cedar. We use top-grade marine plywood for decks and hulls, and eastern ash for gunwales. We use as little fiberglass as we can, although for many applications it is essential. And we prefer to paint the boats with traditional Kirby marine paint in traditional dory colors. We cast much of our own bronze hardware and carve our own oars.
We are available to build a variety of styles. But there are a few rules: You must have a proper home for the boat—they cannot live outdoors in the winter. And you need to promise you’ll use it. It breaks our heart to build a boat built for battle, then have it sit at home in a garage. It’s just not right.
We’ve got more business than we want, so you can be sure we won’t try and sell you something you don’t really need. More likely we’ll talk you out of it. And if boatbuilding ever becomes too much like work, we’ll quit and go boating.
Helping?
Some folks want to help build their boat. Ummm…it usually doesn’t make the boat much cheaper. It actually slows us down and I spend more time teaching and supervising than I do producing the goods. Although we sometimes allow this as an option, we are getting more hesitant. We can talk.
It makes more sense for us to either A) build professionally, or B) teach.