Family Week — July 15–21, 2018

ERIC SCHADE was trained as a mechanical engineer, and has practiced that profession for 20 years.  In 1983 he built his first boat, a small strip-built canoe.  Since then he has built more than 50 small boats, including kayaks, canoes, rowing boats, and small sailboats.  In 1996 he founded Shearwater Boats to offer custom strip-built canoes and kayaks. Gradually Shearwater has developed to the point where it offers an extensive line of stitch-and-glue watercraft — kayaks, canoes, rowing boats, and sailboats. In 2005 Eric started designing boats for Chesapeake Light Craft. These new boats include Shearwater, Wood Duck, and Shearwater Tandem, which have all proven quite popular. Eric has taught boatbuilding at a number of shops and has mentored the construction of nearly 200 boats. This experience, and the feedback he gets from supervising the construction of his designs, not only has improved his skills as a builder, but has honed his skills as a designer. Eric’s greatest area of expertise is the computer-generated engineering of complicated and precise plywood boat kits that, when cut by computer-controlled machinery, can be assembled by amateurs.

MICHAEL HETZEL’s earliest experience in boatbuilding was as an eight-year-old helping his father loft a 9′ Pumpkinseed skiff. The build was a great success. In the intervening six-plus decades, he has always used tools and enjoyed making and fixing things in the workshop. Trained as an engineer, Michael worked mostly in manufacturing, although his last job was as a marine tech at a Maine boatyard. Restoring an 1830s farmhouse occupied some of his early adulthood, and several more houses have since benefited from his skills. He spent several summers assisting on Outward Bound courses in Maine and Vision Quests in the Adirondacks. Sailing became a passion in midlife, and he cruised on a 42-footer for several years. As a student at WoodenBoat School, Michael has delighted in the contrasts between the right angles, straight and square edges of most woodwork and the wrong angles, curves, and rolling bevels of boatbuilding. To occupy some of his time currently, he volunteers one day a week in the Maine Maritime Boatshop and one day a week in their Blacksmith Shop.

CLINT CHASE is a former geologist, science teacher, meteorologist, and now small boat designer and builder based in Southern Maine. After a stint in college and high school teaching, he fused his education background with boatbuilding when he headed programs for the Compass Project in Portland, Maine. During that tenure he supervised and built over 100 small boats with kids and adults, witnessing every conceivable mistake a fledging boatbuilder could impart on their boat. (His favorite mantra is “always make new mistakes”). Then, at the start of the 2008 economic slump, he did what any sane person would do: started his own boatbuilding and boat kit business! Currently, Clint is back half-time with Compass Project in their new Biddeford boatshop acting as program coordinator. The rest of the time he dedicates to his mantra “Sneaking up on Perfection”: designing, building, and teaching with small boats. He avidly canoes, rows, and sails and gets his two kids outside and on the water as much as possible.

The sailing bug caught JANE AHLFELD while vacationing on one of the Maine windjammer schooners. She decided to take a leave from elementary school teaching…and has yet to return. She shipped out on the MARY HARRIGAN, a 50′ schooner, as mate to teach Cruising Boat Seamanship for WoodenBoat School in the Caribbean and Maine.In ’93 and ’94 she taught a course in Small Boat Sailing on the local boats of Bequia. Since 1989 she has returned to Brooklin each summer to teach and work on our waterfront. When not on boats, Jane is a computer consultant. She has a masters in Education and holds a U.S. Coast Guard License. Students often comment on Jane’s patience, knowledge, sense of humor, and attention to both the group and individual needs. She teaches the skills and gives all the support needed to gain confidence on the water.

ANNIE NIXON fell in love with the ocean and sailing right after college when she went to work for Thompson Island Outward Bound in Boston, Massachusetts. She learned to sail, navigate, and teach aboard their traditional 30′ open rowing and sailing vessels. Annie then spent four years at the Chewonki Foundation in Wiscasset, Maine, leading 21-day sailing wilderness trips for high school and college-age students. On these expeditions Annie captained both a 26′ Crotch Island Pinky and a 28′ Mackinaw Lake design. She taught elements of seamanship, wilderness “leave no trace” ethics, and marine ecology as part of these expeditions. On and off for seven summers after that Annie worked as deckhand and mate on the schooner MARY DAY and occasionally the schooner AMERICAN EAGLE. Since 2006 she has taught sailing at WoodenBoat School and led weeklong sail staff training expeditions for the Chewonki Foundation. Annie currently holds a USCG 100-ton license.