John Gardner Publications

Wooden Boats to Build and Use
by John Gardner

Purchase in our Web Store

John Gardner lived a full life. Fresh from the street corners of the labor movement and excluded from the teaching career he anticipated on graduating from Columbia University in 1932, he fell back on his roots. He was firmly grounded in the rural values of his Maine upbringing, and these gave him lifelong gifts of fierce independence and Yankee resourcefulness.

With a family to support he passed himself off as a boat builder, relying on the skills he learned as a young boy working alongside his father, uncle and grandfather on the banks of the St. Croix River, and went on to spend thirty years in five major yacht yards in Massachusetts. At the age of sixty-four he "retired" to pursue his dreams of academia and began the last phase of his life, spending twenty-six years building up the small boat program at Mystic Seaport.

He was not to become a college professor or a high-paid bureaucrat in some urban education department, as he had sometimes envisioned, but he was a teacher his whole life.

He was a unique man. He had an insatiable curiosity about life and was well-read in a number of different fields. He was generous, sharing his ideas, knowledge, fellowship and tools with anyone who showed an interest. He was unsuited to rigid structure and did what he wanted. He forged ahead. He fought a lifelong battle with depression by turning to work. He pitched in and liked to keep two or three projects going simultaneously to ensure stimulation. He was intensely private and stubborn.

John Gardner touched a chord in thousands of people through his writing and boatbuilding classes. He leaves his family, friends and colleagues to spread the word about the pleasures of traditional small craft, to honor his memory, to follow in the light which he so carefully carried, to seek, to care, to do. He was not an actor; he was always doing something real. Time did not stand still for him.

This is the book John Gardner completed shortly before resigning from Mystic Seaport in June, 1995, at the age of ninety. It contains twenty chapters on traditional small craft - John's passion - and covers topics ranging from the mystery of the old Hampton boat's design, and Alfred Johnson's nineteenth-century dory, to the last boat he drew the lines for, a 13'7" Swampscott sailing dory which he carefully built inside his head, laying down construction details and ten sheets of drawings in the last years of his life. Included are boats from his days in the boatyards, such as the 11'10" Dion tender, the Chamberlain and Jonesporter launches, and the 37' V-bottom lobsterboat which he designed and helped to build while working at Dion's Yacht Yard in Salem, Massachusetts. There are lines and construction details for two garveys, three power-driven work skiffs, and the lines from a 32' traditional New England commercial fishing vessel. A Marblehead gunning dory and Moosabec Reach Boat are covered in detail, and for the first time the complete drawings and construction measurements are presented for the oldest documented American built small boat, the four-oared gig American Star, and the fine replica John built in 1974-75, the stunning General Lafayette. These craft are all carefully interpreted and presented with the independent builder in mind, the so-called amateur builder, and John includes clear instructions on taking off boat lines, carving builder's half-models, and many helpful construction suggestions. The lead chapter is a review of the maritime museum's role in the study of American traditional small craft, and John Gardner's strongly held conviction that the future of wooden boats lies with their use. This is a book which will be enjoyed by those who admired John Gardner, whether they build a boat from it or not.

In addition to more than 800 articles which he published, John Gardner also wrote: Building classic Small Craft, The Dory Book, More Building classic Small Craft, and classic Small Craft You Can Build, and he contributed significantly to The Adirondack Guide Boat written by Kenneth and Helen Durant.

Classic Small Craft You Can Build
by John Gardner

Here is a book for the "independent" boatbuilder. Whether you build wooden boats for a living, seek the satisfaction of creative craftsmanship, or simply need a boat you can build yourself, Classic Small Craft You Can Build will inform, guide, and inspire you.

The 16 designs John Gardner selected for this book emphasize skiffs--flat-bottom, transom-stern craft for many purposes--but also included are the ancient Gaspe Flat, the Maine Reach Boat, two peapods, three handsome dory varieties, and an early power dory. He also explained how to balance the rig of a small sailboat, considered the suitability of strip planking for the home boatbuilder, and introduced readers to such classic designs as the Amesbury skiff, which exemplifies utility, simplicity, and beauty of line.

Classic Small Craft You Can build includes all the design information you will need for laying out and building these boats. Each chapter contains a complete set of plans, printed large enough to be read easily. Building procedures are explained step-by-step, and the list of parts for each boat includes descriptions, dimensions, and a key to locate them on the plans, making the process easy to understand and follow for novice and expert alike.

But there is more here than the bare bones of boatbuilding procedure. John Gardner was interested in the living context of boats. His comments on the background of each boat included revealing glimpses of the people who built and used them. Even if you are not ready to pick up your tools and go to work, you will find much to enjoy in the pages of classic Small Craft You Can Build.

Born in Maine, John Gardner graduated from a Maine normal school before earning his master's degree at Columbia University in 1932. After working as a teacher and labor organizer, he hired on as a boatbuilder in Marblehead, Massachusetts, in 1940, and in 1951 he began writing for the Maine Coast Fisherman--now National Fisherman--and still continued as its technical editor until his death in 1995. A historian of boat design and technology, he was also a progressive designer and builder who did not hesitate to recommend modern materials, such as plywood and epoxy, when they can be used to advantage.

His contributions to numerous publications dealt with heritage hand tools, boats, maritime history, and the environment. He was the first to call attention to the chemical hazards in the boatyard.

Joining the curatorial staff of Mystic Seaport in 1969, he initiated the first organized classes in recreational boatbuilding the following year. This program continues to prosper at Mystic Seaport, having served as a model for numerous boatbuilding classes and schools around the country. One outgrowth is Mystic's annual Small Craft Workshop, which brings together boatbuilders from all parts of the country. Another is the Traditional Small Craft Association, which has done much to further knowledge and use of small craft.

The Dory Book
by John Gardner
Illustrations by Samuel F. Manning

Buy in our online store

The dory has long fascinated boat lovers. Of the simplest design, built from the most common materials, the dory has the ability to handle the most demanding tasks.

The variations on the basic dory design are legion. Over the years the dory has seen duty as a fishing boat, a lumberman's log-driving batteau, a lifeboat, a recreational rowing boat, and a racing sailboat.

This is the most comprehensive book on dories ever published. More than a decade in the making, it is at once a history of the dory, a practical handbook on how to build a dory, and a compendium of dory designs with full construction details. On these pages can be found details about some of the legendary dory types: Bank dories, Swampscotts, gunning dories, semi-dories, St. Pierre dories, flat-irons, dory skiffs, and batteaux.

When first published in 1987 the author and the illustrator were two of the foremost living experts on the history, building, and use of dories. John Gardner spent a lifetime studying and building dories. His plans, published for years in the National Fisherman, sparked a resurgence of interest in this boat type. Samuel F. Manning, who has probably propelled dories more miles with oar and sail than any but a surviving Grand Banks fisherman, is a professional illustrator who specializes in maritime subjects. His step-by-step illustrations of exceptional clarity make this book unique.

This book is a classic, and for the non-boatbuilder, painless history.