Rick Barkhuff

RICK BARKUFF has always been a builder of things and in the summer of 1976, he found himself in Nantucket where he was helping with a solar house project. While there he spent time wandering around on the docks and one boat in particular caught his eye. It had a curved cockpit coaming. He thought to himself “I have to learn how to build something like that” and it was soon after that when he saw an advertisement for “The Landing School” in Arundel Maine. It was there, in Arundel, that Rick learned how to build boats and where he then taught boat building for 30 years of his 42 year boat building career. When Rick first started it was only traditional boat building that he practiced and many boats were built. As time passed, glue became more of a boat building staple and he started building cold molded boats, both sail and power. Over the years he estimates that he will have been involved with over 70 boat building projects from prams to cruising sailboats. At the school Rick has had the pleasure of instructing over 360 students in his boat building classes.