Rob Valdes, a Life in Boats
Not long ago I was speaking with Rob Valdes, service manager at Sailor’s Wharf boatyard in St. Petersburg, Florida, and asked if he was the same Rob Valdes who co-founded… Read more »
Construction
South African Boatbuilders revisited
In 2002, as an effort to promote the country’s then budding industry, the newly created South African Boatbuilders Business Council persuaded the government to pay for 10 international boating journalists,… Read more »
NWSWB alumni collaborate on restoration
It’s not a secret that the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding (NWSWB) in Port Hadlock, Wash., attracts students from far-flung places and diverse backgrounds who want to acquire skills that… Read more »
Bullfrog Boats are the “Undeflatables”
Craig Henderson, whose Bullfrog Boats of Bellingham, Washington, has sold more than 600 RIBs (rigid inflatable boats), calls conventional air-filled technology “deflatable” boats. “Poke a hole in it and gonzo,”… Read more »
178 Short Cuts
Aside from company and product news, 178 Short Cuts also remembers Andrew Higgins, Raye Montague and Charles Everhart, three meritorious individuals of the boatbuilding and design trade who sailed for… Read more »
Robotopia: Aluminum Boatbuilding with Welding Robots
Duisburg, Germany, an industrial city of roughly half a million in the most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, is at the confluence of the Rhine and Ruhr rivers. It… Read more »
Oyster Marine is Bought and Sold
Last March, British entrepreneur Richard Hadida, 52, bought beleaguered Oyster Marine, which had been in administration only since February, a result of the Oyster 825 Polina Star III sinking off… Read more »
Carbon from the Coop
Henhouses converted to boatshops are part of West Coast boatbuilding lore. When I think about notable chicken coop artists, a few prominent names come to mind: Bill Lee of Santa… Read more »
Print Yourself a Boat
A 3D-printed construction mold has potentially big implications for the boatbuilding industry, but the road won’t end there. The next step is taking this technology from tooling and prototyping to… Read more »
Just Print it!
The dictionary defines the verb disrupt as “breaking apart” or “throwing something into disorder,” while the adjective disruptive is now often used to describe products, services, or ideas that radically… Read more »
