-------- Growing up in the fishing villagee of Port Clyde, Maine I found myself surrounded by boats of all shapes and sizes. From abandoned lobster boats to the largest seiners plying the waters of the coast of Maine, the harbor was anything but tranquil. I can thank the village for my inspiration to build boat models. I, like many kids, started out scratch building crude likenesses of the boats in the harbor. I still remember a small sailboat we sent on a voyage of discovery from Marshall Point. I wonder if anyone ever discovered this small boat?
In the late 1960’s I turned to plastic models of cars, planes and boats. This eventually led me back to scratch building boats in my early teens. After high school I joined the Merchant Marine moving oil about on 600’ deep-sea ships. This work took me through the Panama Canal and numerous US coastal ports. Being exposed to so many different ships only gave me more drive to build models of them all.
While the ocean going life was not to last, I saved enough to go to the Landing School of boat building and design. I found design work very enjoyable and started in south Florida with the Cigarette Racing Team helping design a new 35’ “Bullet” and a 38’ “Top Gun”. After 2 years I went to work for Broward Marine designing very large aluminum motor yachts, a very likeable environment, large boats, lots of drawing to be done and many folks with the same ideas. From there I moved to Jacksonville to work with a firm developing a 170’ coastal mine hunter for the US Navy.
Longing for the coast of Maine I soon made plans to escape the heat and humidity and returned home. Once there I continued working with small boats at both Wayfarer Marine and Malone Boat building. While at Wayfarer I met one of the owners of Art of the Sea galleries who was looking for models to sell. Starting part time I quickly moved to full time employment as a ship model restorer in this large gallery filled with nautical art and ship models from around the world. A great source of inspiration and a chance to talk to and learn from a host of ship modelers and model collectors passing through. Still at Art of the Sea 11 years later (2007), I now spend a good bit of my time constructing new models and researching both new and restorations to assure the utmost in accuracy. Now, close to home, my friends and the boats that got me started, I can truly say that if I had to do it over again I wouldn’t change a thing.
New Ship models ♦ Restorations ♦ Research ♦ Cases♦ Nautical Art