After a short sojourn on the beautiful island of Antigua and the birth of the inspector in the early nineties, it was back to Nova Scotia and a family discussion of what to do next. The basement boat shop was created, along with a business name and a pent-up desire to make things. In the seventies, Pat’s family had owned a lovely clinker boat designed and built by Alan Buchanan. It was brought on a freighter to Canada and sailed on Lake Champlain for years, but it developed a large crack in the garboard planks. The boat was sailed to Brooklin Boatyard in Maine, where Joel White was able to fix the problem. Joel had room to store the boat inside for the winters and so several years were spent enjoying the Maine coast by Pat’s parents. Their presence in Maine meant that we were introduced to the designs of Joel White, and to the publication Wooden Boat Magazine. Many evenings in the Caribbean were spent looking at their publication 30 Boats to build and reading about the North American NE Coast. In the early nineties, plans were ordered not only for Joel White designs, but also for Phil Bolger’s designs in Herb Payson’s book ‘Instant Boats. Working in a basement workshop in Big Pond did have limitations…boats had to be sized to fit out of a 36″ door…..
but somehow during the winter of 1992 we managed to produce two more Nutshell prams one for sail and the other for rowing, a beautiful Gloucester light rowing dory and a 15′ outboard utility ‘Diablo’, ready for a ‘recreational show’ put on by the figure skating Association in Sydney Nova Scotia! The amazing part was that we found an owner for the Diablo and for the rowing nutshell, the other sailing Nutshell we kept along with the Gloucester Light.
