Reading "Sloop" feels like you're embarking on a personal journey with Daniel Robb as he breathes new life into a family heirloom—each page saturated with the salt of the sea and the sweat of hard work. It's perfect for someone who loves tales of personal challenge, the intricacies of hands-on restoration, and a deep dive into the values that seem to fade with the modern world. You'll finish the book with a newfound respect for traditional craftsmanship and possibly a yearning to embark on your own hands-on adventure.

Riley is your virtual thrift companion, and here to help you find your next favourite read. You can also find in-stock similar reads linked by topic and genre here!

When Daniel Robb set out to rebuild a family sailboat that had been deteriorating for years, he couldn't have anticipated what he was getting into.When Daniel Robb set out to rebuild a family sailboat that had been deteriorating for years, he couldn't have anticipated what he was getting into. Although Robb was a skilled carpenter, boatbuilding (and boat repair) required a specialized set of skills. And this wasn't just any boat; it was a Herreshoff 12 1/2, a classic wooden sailboat. Built especially for the coastal waters of New England, this little sloop had sailed for years out of the author's boyhood home in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, before being relegated to a quiet corner of a yard, no longer the focus of the family's summer. Restoring the sailboat was both an act of respect and an homage to a place and a way of life that are in jeopardy of disappearing.Sloop is the captivating story of Daniel Robb's education in boatbuilding, peopled by an eccentric cast of characters—lumbermen, boatbuilders, and local artisans—who are part of a changing and perhaps dying world. They tell Robb how to find the materials—certain kinds of wood, fastenings, caulking, and canvas—he'll need, which are increasingly hard to come by, and they educate him in the techniques of restoration, an all-but-lost art. Building and restoring wooden boats means an initiation into a world where life is lived simply, with respect for materials, for labor, and for the local waters.A craftsman and environmentalist, Robb is a willing and able student, and although the restoration of the boat takes far more time and effort than he'd calculated, it is ultimately successful. After all Robb's struggles with quartersawn white oak, homemade steam boxes, bronze screws, copper rivets, andold mast hoops, the Herreshoff sails again—and a dying art and a vanishing way of life remain alive and vibrant just a while longer.By turns charming, meditative, and wonderfully quirky, Sloop is a paean to a sense of place and to old-fashioned values.

Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.