Joey Schott

JOEY SCHOTT followed a different path to boat building. Starting with taking apart nearly every appliance he could get his hands on at the tender age of 10. His fascination with how things are put together eventually turned to cars and motorcycles. With a natural affinity for salt water, it didn’t take long for his curiosities to finally turn to building kayaks 20 years ago. Boats and the Chesapeake Bay have been a part of his life since infancy. He started sailing competitively at an early age, enjoying much success along the way. His boatbuilding career began as a CLC customer in 2002, when he built a pair of Chesapeake kayaks, one of which caught the eye of the CLC staff at Okoumefest. A self-professed “victim of boat building OCD,” he kept honing his skills using traditional and non-traditional materials for building boats. In 2009 he joined the staff at CLC where he continued to advance his skill set by learning from the many talented boat builders on staff. Joey’s thirst for knowledge and willingness to share what he learns was the hallmark of his tenure with CLC as Sales Manager. There are many examples of his work in the showroom at CLC, or on the road at any of shows and demos. While he has built boats using every technique that CLC utilizes, he is best known for strip construction. His build of a Guillemot Petrel won top honors in the 2014 WoodenBoat Show Concourse d’ Elegance for human powered craft. In his spare time Joey is most often found on the water. An avid kayaker as well as a sailor, he is always looking for new adventures. Over the past few years, he has developed a passion for rough water sea kayaking. There are many images on the CLC website of him doing what he calls “extensive product development” as the in-house kayak torture tester. He also was the boat building instructor for a local charity, Box of Rain Foundation, where he led groups of 10- to 16-year-olds through the construction of several CLC designs over the years. Joey currently resides in Richmond, Virginia, where he owns and operates his own boatbuilding, kayak, and small craft repair business, Turning Point Boatworks.