For the past few years, I have tried to show the readers of Passagemaker an alternative to run-of-the-mill production boat designs. I hope that I have been successful, as I have thoroughly enjoyed bringing my designs to this audience.

But it is time to pass the baton. This will be my last design column, at least for a while. While I am sad, I still have this one last opportunity to bend a few words and a sketch some simple lines, to stimulate thought and perhaps perspective about boat design in general.

Many years back—when boats were drawn on the drafting table, and before email allowed instant feedback—Jack Bell was a customer of mine at Devlin Designing Boatbuilders. He wanted a new boat for his home waters in Connecticut. Prior to our project, Jack had been the first customer for a well-known New England builder; he didn’t like that boat much, and gave me the following decree: “I am giving you 4 feet less length to play with, less money for the design and build, and I want better performance and a more usable interior and exterior.”

I was young, perhaps a bit naïve. I eagerly took on Jack’s challenge, which finalized into my TopKnot 32 design. Jack named the new boat Duxoup and loved it, as I had hoped he would.

A few years later, Jack called, bubbling with enthusiasm. He had just bought a home on the shoreside of Newport, R.I., and wanted a new boat to leave on a mooring there for occasional use. Newport’s harbor is renowned for its variety of vessels, most of them impeccably maintained, and I eagerly dove into what I thought would be a fun project with a customer I knew well. As soon as I got the preliminary drawing done, blueprinted and posted, I settled back to my normal work, assuming all would go well.

After two and a half weeks with no response from Jack, I gave him a call. He was cordial, but not as enthusiastic as I was about the new design. I asked him to be specific about what he didn’t like, but got minimal guidance. I went back to the drafting table, and blueprinted the Mark II version. This time, Jack gave me a call. He couldn’t offer much in the way of constructive criticism except to say that the new design was not quite right either.

Four versions of Jack’s new boat were drawn, printed and mailed, and not a single one of them hit the mark. I was frustrated (no doubt, Jack was too) and decided that I needed a break from the project.

Right around that time, my brother Paul mentioned a jacket he had bought several years earlier, a shearling bomber-style coat, made to military specs and amazing in every detail. It was from Willis & Geiger Outfitters, which was like Orvis on steroids. “I have gained a few pounds, and the coat doesn’t fit me anymore,” Paul lamented. “What if I give it to Cooper for Christmas?” I knew my oldest son would love the coat and agreed it would be an epic gift. Coop didn’t take it off for days. I would tease my wife that maybe he was even sleeping in it.

But then, Coop chose to wear his old coat to school, and leave the bomber coat hanging on a peg at home. I puzzled over this, as well as Jack’s project. Then, it hit my thick skull: Jack wasn’t looking for the boat equivalent of a bomber coat to wear while cruising around Newport’s harbor, looking at all the boats there. What he really wanted was a blue blazer with gold buttons. He wanted a boat that would more appropriately fit the scene.

None of my drawings were even close. They were all much closer to my stock-in-trade: robust, Pacific Northwest boats. They simply weren’t boats that Jack could envision himself aboard in Newport with guests and drinks.

Epiphany in head, I drew up Jack’s new design in a short bit of time. I called it Blue Blazer, which he gleefully accepted.

Is a boat no more complicated than a jacket? Can a boater appreciate a vessel and, at the same time, not see himself owning that same boat? Is there something to be learned about why so many boats lack identity, appear to be blobs on the water, and rarely leave the dock­? Are they just a bunch of fancy jackets hanging on the peg?

I leave you with one last image: my 65-foot Sockeye cruiser design with a Rover 30 moored alongside. This scene might be a common one on the Inside Passage on the way up or down from Alaska. It’s simply one vessel moored to another, both characteristic of my lovely Northwest waters. 

This article was originally published in the April 2023 issue.