Jay Langford

Growing up in Lunenburg, Jay Langford never dreamed he would become a boat builder. Which is kind of funny given he’d been messing around in boats his whole life. That’s just what kids here did, he says.

Jay figures he was about eight years old when he began working on boats with his grandfather, the late Carl Tanner. “He always had a cabin cruiser,” says Jay, who at eight was still small enough to crawl inside the hull and clinch nails for his granddad. The pair would spend weekends in Mr. Tanner’s boat shop next to the Sawpit Wharf on Lunenburg’s Back Harbour. “There were two ways of doing things,” says Jay. “The wrong way and his way.” The work inspired him to take on projects of his own: little punts made of scrap wood and such.

When Jay left home as a young man looking for adventure and travel (mostly hitchhiking) across North and Central America, he often found jobs in boatyards. The work wasn’t glamorous, but it was plentiful, he says. He later did stints as a deckhand on fish trawlers and scallop draggers.

Then an accident on Jay’s 21st birthday allowed him to pursue another childhood passion. The accident happened after a night of revelry and left him with two broken arms. While wrapping one arm, the doctor asked Jay how tight he wanted the bandages to be. “I asked to be able to hold a beer glass and a paint brush,” he says.

In the ensuing weeks, the self-taught marine artist honed his craft. Today, his oil and watercolor paintings — all images inspired by ships and the sea, several of them featuring dories — are represented in a number of fine galleries and private collections.

Following his recuperation, Jay continued to work in and around boats. He spent three years working on 30-to-80 footers at Covey Island Boatworks in Petite Riviere, Lunenburg County, operated his own sign company (“even then, I was working on trail and name boards,” he says), and also pursued boatbuilding and repair on his own for a few years.

In 2003, Jay joined The Dory Shop as chief boat carpenter. It’s a job that speaks to his passions. “This is something you have to love to do,” he says. “Because you have to build something that you would trust yourself. Trust with your life if need be.”

He very much considers boats — particularly wooden boats — to be pieces of art. “And every one is different, even if they’re the same style.”