No one designs or builds a wooden boat expecting it to last sixty years. Yet of the 103 Concordias built about 60 years ago 102 of them are still around. And TOSCA is one of them and well worth getting a midlife overhaul to give decades to come. No wooden boat was really designed to come apart either. Builders doing their best to hold them together.

With the job uncovered and planks removed, we had to get access to Tosca's derriere. How did we do that? Well, we had to get rid of the keel and the keelson.

A home was found for The beautiful Concordia 41 Tosca in our yard at the Dory Shop here in Lunenburg, and so we began the work in earnest.

The first steps in giving TOSCA the major overhaul she needed, so the Fitzgerald family can bring her home and start sailing together once more in the exquisite classic sailing yacht, a gem of design and construction from Concordia and Waldo Howland.

What do Ocean School, Nova Scotia Sea School, Lunenburg Dory Shop and the Bevin's Skiff all have in common? They were all points of discussion at the Teaching With Small Boats Alliance conference

No question: wooden boats are beautiful. Also no question: wooden boats require work. It's not so bad, though. Here are some helpful tips.

You've read about how the Concordia Yawl design came to be, and about how Dr Fitzgerald came to bring her to the beloved Dory Shop for a proper restoration into fighting sea-going form. Below we'll talk about what we found when she arrived, and the steps we've taken to restore her to her former glory and to sail for years to come.

Restoring a Concordia 41 at the Dory Shop of Lunenburg - Part 1 of 3.

How would I describe the past 12 months here at the Dory Shop? Well – I’d say one part busy; one part hectic; three parts cool. The busy and the hectic are both things easily imagined, and I don’t think I need to talk much about them. But the cool parts? Yeah – I reckon you’ll want to hear about those.

Join us in our historic little shop in Lunenburg for our last building class of 2017. Fresh from Italy, Bub will once again take 6 people on an interesting journey from lumber to boat.