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Row Boats

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Building Row boats from Plans

Here is an Annapolis Wherry I built for a customer and his family. The above image is somewhat deceptive in that the boat is significantly larger than it appears in the above picture. The image below will help put it in perspective.

It is about as large a rowing boat I consider easy to built for one person to build. Larger boats will ideally have at least two people available to move it while building.

It's a beautiful design and went together without a hitch. The one minor quality glitch was promptly addressed by the kit's manufacturer, Chesapeake Light Craft.

Excerpt from the Customer

"I had been pining to buy some kind of slide-seat rowing boat for quite awhile. Fortunately, I mentioned this to a colleague at work who happened to be friends with a certain boat builder, by the name of Eskimo Tom.

While I had been going back and forth between “kit” boats and manufactured, fiberglass boats, I met up with Tom Gerds who patiently walked me through all the pros and cons of each. After hearing some of my thoughts on the kit boat concept, he put me onto a craft called the Annapolis Wherry, made by Chesapeake Light Craft."


Long story short, one look at the picture convinced me that this was the boat I had to have --- beautiful, classic lines and designed with a slide-seat rowing unit in mind (the Row Wing). Tom offered to work within my limited budget and helped me understand the process. What I could not have anticipated, was (a) all the work that goes into assembling a “kit” boat – which the manufacturers tend to understate and (b) what it takes to not only assemble a boat like this but make it a work of art, not just a boat.

Well, that’s what Tom did. He didn't just build a boat; he transformed parts that would still to this day be lying around my garage into a floating Stradivarius!"

Eric Hauth, Sr. Manager
State Government & Public Affairs
American Academy of Neurology

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