Dorothy Elizabeth Building a Traditional Wooden Schooner

At age eighty, the author decides it is time to build a new yacht. His methods are as surprising as his timing.



This is the story of Dorothy Elizabeth, a 28-foot schooner. Particularly, it is the story of why to build a traditional wooden sailing vessel that relies on age-old methods and materials, yet also embraces newfangled technologies. But mostly it is the story of the people—a score of craftsmen and craftswomen, friends, and family—who give their skill, advice, support, ingenuity, and time to turn the idea of Dorothy Elizabeth into a graceful, seaworthy reality. You will meet Ralph Stanley of Southwest Harbor, Maine, one of the world's great designers and builders of traditional wooden boats, and a disarmingly plainspoken master craftsman in the maritime Maine tradition. You will meet Mary Chandler Duncan, a poet and the author's wife, soul mate, and first mate. You will meet Nat Wilson, sail maker, who took time out from building topsails for the USS Constitution to build sails for Dorothy Elizabeth. You will meet Frank Luke, neighbor, boatyard owner, all-around helper, and the man who launched Dorothy Elizabeth. And you will meet many other singular people up and down the coast from Portland, Maine, to Lunnenberg, Nova Scotia, and beyond, drawn together by the building of a boat.