Rangeley Boat
The Rangeley boat is a guideboat that was developed in the mid to late 1800's for fishing in the large lakes of western Maine. It needed to be fast under oars (this was pre-outboard motor, of course), good in rough water and stable enough to stand up in and fly cast. The boat does all these things admirably.
I fell in love with the looks of this boat and obsessed about it off and on for close to a decade. Once I had built a barn and had the space, it seemed it was my manifest destiny to build one.
Thanks go to Bill Montiglio for the six photographs above.
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I visited the Mystic Seaport Museum and bought a set of plans from their ships plans library. This is the Herbert N. Ellis Rangeley Boat. The photos below show the construction sequence if you're interested.
Length overall is 17' 2", and the beam is 4' 2". The stem, keel, transom, gunwhales, deck and sheerstrake are all Honduran mahogany. The planking is Northern white cedar, and the ribs are steam-bent white oak.
I studied dozens of books and magazine articles in preparation for building this. Most helpful were Building Small Boats by Greg Rossel, and Building Classic Small Craft, Volume I by John Gardner, especially the chapter on the Rangeley, which I read over and over and over again.
I visited the Mystic Seaport Museum and bought a set of plans from their ships plans library. This is the Herbert N. Ellis Rangeley Boat. The photos below show the construction sequence if you're interested.
Length overall is 17' 2", and the beam is 4' 2". The stem, keel, transom, gunwhales, deck and sheerstrake are all Honduran mahogany. The planking is Northern white cedar, and the ribs are steam-bent white oak.
I studied dozens of books and magazine articles in preparation for building this. Most helpful were Building Small Boats by Greg Rossel, and Building Classic Small Craft, Volume I by John Gardner, especially the chapter on the Rangeley, which I read over and over and over again.
![Picture](/uploads/1/0/3/1/10314013/914817_orig.jpg)
Molds are removed, tops of the ribs cut off flush and quarter knees installed (in the corner between the transom and sheerstrake). The plans called for a plywood floorboard, which is installed here. It's handsome mahogany marine plywood, but if I had it to do again, I would make a slatted wood floorboard.