Dorothy Elizabeth

This is the story of Dorothy Elizabeth a 28-foot schooner. Particularly it is the story of why to build a traditional wooden sailing vessel that relies on age-old methods and materials yet also embraces newfangled technologies. But mostly it is the story of the people―a score of craftsmen and craftswomen friends and family―who give their skill advice support ingenuity and time to turn the idea of Dorothy Elizabeth into a graceful seaworthy reality. You will meet Ralph Stanley of Southwest Harbor Maine one of the world''s great designers and builders of traditional wooden boats and a disarmingly plainspoken master craftsman in the maritime Maine tradition. You will meet Mary Chandler Duncan a poet and the author''s wife soul mate and first mate. You will meet Nat Wilson sail maker who took time out from building topsails for the USS Constitution to build sails for Dorothy Elizabeth. You will meet Frank Luke neighbor boatyard owner all-around helper and the man who launched Dorothy Elizabeth. And you will meet many other singular people up and down the coast from Portland Maine to Lunnenberg Nova Scotia and beyond drawn together by the building of a boat.