Back in 2003, my neighbor, Larry found an article in Popular Mechanics describing the Chester Yawl kit from Chesapeake Light Craft (CLC). In the article they describe the process of building a stitch and glue boat kit. You can view that article on the Popular Mechanics web site. It really got our attention. We called CLC and were told that the article was printed a little early and the kit wouldn't be ready to ship until the spring of 2004. By putting $100 down we were able to reserve two of the Chester Yawl kits. The kits finally arrived in Juneau, Alaska on May 21, 2004. The links on the left give you step by step information and photos on our building process.

The boat in the photo above is Larry's boat. He finished his kit in November, 2004. Larry's boat was featured in a front page photo in the local newspaper on May 10, 2005. Click here to see that photo. My boat was completed and launched on April 25th, 2005. We built them one after the other rather than side by side due to space considerations. The photos in this web site are a mix from the two boats.