Brad Dimock

BRAD DIMOCK combines a family proclivity for carpentry with his discovery of Grand Canyon boating when he was 18 years old. He has spent the next 50 years running the Colorado and rivers of the world in a wide variety of vessels, from historic lapstrake replicas to modern river dories; from kayaks to paddle rafts to large motorized pontoons; and a few things that weren’t really boats at all. Brad rowed wooden boats for dory pioneer Martin Litton for 10 years, and has run dories extensively on whitewater rivers throughout the West. He has written award-winning biographies of several lesser-known but mythic boaters of the Colorado River. Brad has built dories from Nova Scotia to New Zealand, but does most of his boatbuilding at his Fretwater Boatworks in Flagstaff, high in the Arizona desert. He combines techniques from traditional and modern methods, and often invents new approaches as the need arises. Many of his boatbuilding techniques were born of necessity for lack of tools or time in wilderness settings.