Low Tide

Yacht Designer Tad Roberts' Web Log
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Wooden seine boat Chelsea Lake. Sank 1987Documenting Historic BC Boats

Power Boat

PRINCIPIA

By admin | Published: August 5, 2025
Designed by L.E. “Ted” Geary, Principia is one of four identical hulls started on spec by Lake Union Drydock in 1928 just prior to the great depression. The boat was finished out for Le Roy Macomber, a Lawyer and Financier from Seattle. Macomber and his wife Marion bought Hardy Island (mouth of Jervis Inlet) in[.....]

Island Tender by Phil Bolger

By admin | Published: August 3, 2025
Island Tender Drawn by Phil Bolger in 1958 and built by the Essex Shipyard in Essex, Massachusetts, this boat was intended to be used as an Island Tender carrying passengers and light cargo around St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. Lightly built with a vee-bottom using sawn frames the hull is moderately deep and high-sided[.....]

ALEUTIAN TERN

By admin | Published: August 3, 2025
Aleutian Tern Aleutian Tern, William Garden design #478 done in 1963 when his office was in Seattle. She was built of mostly yellow cedar in Seattle by Warren Teller for his own use. 38′ x 13′ with 4’8″ draft, her engine was to be a BMW diesel fitted backwards over the shaft log, driving the[.....]

LITTLE GOOSE

By admin | Published: July 29, 2025
There were actually four boats built to this mid-1950’s William Garden design. Garden has written that the first one, Little Goose for John Case, was one of his favorite boats. That might partially stem from her being built at Maritime Shipyards where Garden’s office was at the time, so he saw her every day. The[.....]

The Perfect Coastal Motorboat

By admin | Published: July 28, 2025
In 2010 I was involved with a group that wanted to design and build “The Perfect Coastal Motorboat”. A nice idea, group design, but in my experience it doesn’t work. The pushy-argumentative people always get their way and the others follow along. But any product “designed” by a group of non-designers will end generic in[.....]

WILLIAM GARDEN ON TUNNEL STERNS

By admin | Published: July 19, 2019
Paper Presented at the January 12, 1950 Meeting of the Society of Small Craft Designers TUNNEL STERNS William Garden, N.A., M.E. Shallow draft power boats are one of the most interesting and poorly understood problems with which the naval architect is confronted. The design and construction of such a tunnel constitutes a subject which can[.....]

Saving Old Boats

By admin | Published: January 14, 2019
Assessing the significance of a vessel From: Recording Historic Vessels by National Historic Ships, UK. The goal of researching a vessel’s history is to gain a fuller understanding of the significance of: A) The vessel’s uniqueness or typicality in terms of its type and function. Is she a surviving example of a once-common type or[.....]

Geerd N. Hendal, Yacht Designer

By admin | Published: January 22, 2018
Geerd N. Hendal (1903-1998) yacht designer of Camden , Maine. These drawings were published in The Rudder Magazine of April, 1948. I would guess this was an early proposal to Drayton Cochran for Little Vigilant (launched 1950 to a Walter McInnis design). Geerd was a well known yacht designer at the time but I have[.....]

Aluminum Tug Cruiser, T-Cup; a new design

By admin | Published: October 26, 2016
T-Cup A 25’ Aluminum Power Cruiser LOA = 25’3” LWL = 24’0” Beam = 8’6” Draft = 2’7” Displacement to DWL = 6500 lbs Power = Yanmar 3Y30 Diesel Cruising Speed = 6.5-7 Knots Construction Plans and patterns = $750.00 T-Cup is a family cruiser in the “Tug-type” style. This boat is far closer to[.....]

IDAHO – A Lee & Brinton Halibut Schooner

By admin | Published: October 5, 2015
A couple of beautiful prints sent to me by John Rawlings. This is the Lee & Brinton design for Idaho, launched by Nilson & Kelez in Seattle in 1912. Idaho was 78’4″ x 19’5″ x 9’3″ and 76 gross tons. In the drawing the engine appears to be a three cylinder, and John reports original[.....]

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