Book Review: Boat Crazy

Book Review by John Nystrom

Boat Crazy: The Collected WoodenBoat Stories of Stan Grayson

By Stan Grayson

Published by WoodenBoat (Brooklin, Maine) and Lyons Press (Essex, Connecticut): 2024

I don’t know if Josh and Marty approve of me highlighting a “competing” publication, but I doubt there is a single reader of Small Craft Advisor who isn’t familiar with the WoodenBoat empire. Although there is some overlap, both publications have their own niche, at least in my own mind, with WoodenBoat having more emphasis on history, tradition, and preservation of boating heritage. One of the stars of WoodenBoat has been writer Stan Grayson. Although I have copies of all of the no longer in a print edition Small Boats Annual that WoodenBoat used to publish, I have never been a WoodenBoat subscriber. My speed was SCA and the also now deceased Messing About In Boats. I do admit to looking at WB whenever I visit the local bookstore, but I only occasionally purchase a copy. The driver of the decision to purchase is “am I interested enough to want that article forever?” About half the time the article that triggers me to act is something written by Stan Grayson. WB has collected some of Stan’s best works into one volume entitled Boat Crazy.

The book is organized around four themes, Catboats, Yachting, Power, and finally, Boat Crazy. If Grayson had never covered anything but catboats, his articles and books would have been legacy enough for any nautical writer. I remember some of those articles, but the one I like best chronicles the last working catboat fisherman, Oscar Pease. His famed catboat, Vanity, is now maintained by the Martha’s Vineyard Museum. Yachting covers articles st in the late-19th and early-20th century, with subjects focused on personalities, designers, builders, writers, and of course, boats that might not be on everyone’s tongues, but who defined the early history of recreational small boating. Power touches steam and early internal combustion to be sure, but also details the hard to define, but you know what it is, New England Bass Boat. Power closes with Ray Hunt, the populizer of the deep-V hull form; it’s hard to believe that there was a time when the deep-V wasn’t a thing. The closing chapter, Boat Crazy, is a potpourri of Henry David Thoreau; Joshua Slocum (yes, there are still things to say about Slocum); electric power from the user’s standpoint instead of the usual technical article; sharpies, namely Phil Bolger’s Black Skimmer; and to close everything out, a field trip into Mystic Seaport Museum’s hidden and little seen storage warehouse for undisplayed boats (no museum has space to show you everything).

There are three criticisms. A) The illustrations are very few, and are black and white. Not usually a problem, they are well selected, but WoodenBoat is a visual, as well as literary, delight and I still see the missing full color photography from the articles I recognize. You can’t help wondering what I’m missing in the other articles. B) Article selection may not be to everyone’s satisfaction. The book runs under 300 pages, space for only 20 articles, and though I loved every article, some might not. Even though I’m a Westcoaster converted to Midwesterner, I’ve grown to appreciate catboats, but even if you don’t love them, this is worth the read. C) Book binding is an issue, at least in the copy I got through inter-library loan. A number of pages were just short of the stitching and glue. I was careful to return all the wayward pages to their proper location, and it looked like I may have been the first patron to have checked out the copy. This might be only a problem with this copy. All in all, not much to nitpick about. I loved the book, and can recommend it with my whole heart. WoodenBoat has published a winner in my opinion. •SCA•