Tern Boatworks

05/31/2026

Enigma is an International One Design (IOD) sloop built by Tern in 2009 and has been a part of our mooring to mooring fleet ever since. This year she received fresh coats of varnish and monourethane topsides paint, two coats of bottom paint, some minor work to her keel seam, and a new stern decal from a local artist. After launching and up-rigging, we towed Enigma to her mooring in Chester where she will sail from for the rest of the summer.

04/26/2026

We’ve begun to frame the deck of the Lunenburg Schooner! After fairing the sheer planks and levelling the deck, we installed new Iroko beam shelves before beginning to let in the laminated Douglas Fir deck beams. Things will slow down on the schooner for a little while as our team switches into launch season for our mooring to mooring service boats but whenever we get a chance we’ll keep plugging away at this great big project.

04/23/2026

Just some good old fashioned varnish prep.

03/13/2026

Traditionally, half models were used in the process of designing a hull. These models were fairly small, usually under 24 inches long, and only modelled the hull of a vessel. In our shop in West LaHave, we’ve made a departure from the typical half model to replicate a perfect scale model of the R-Class sloop Penobscot. Unlike a traditional half model, Penobscot’s is over 8 feet long, includes her cabin, cockpit, hatches, deck details, bronze replicas of hardware and winches made by , and LED lighting inside her cabin. We have a bit more work to do on the cabin and deck but soon we’ll be ready to paint and varnish.

02/15/2026

The foremast of the Lunenburg Schooner is progressing nicely. Two halves of the bird’s mouth construction have been separated and now the blocking is beginning to be made and installed prior to the final glue up.

02/07/2026

02/05/2026

We’re all set up at the booth 309!

01/31/2026

The bird’s mouth joints for the Lunenburg Schooner’s foremast are nearly all done, it won’t be long until this big spar is ready to be glued up!

01/19/2026

For paint and varnish projects big and small, Tern Boatworks is well equipped to lay out flat and glossy coats of many of the most common paint products in the industry.

01/14/2026

One of our goals with the 48’ schooner project is installing a centerline propshaft. The schooner and her twin were not built with this in mind and as a result the stern post is not wide enough to accommodate a stuffing box, so it had to go! Now we can begin patterning a new stern post which will be built out of Iroko.