Flanagan’s Fleet

At 70 years of age, with a passion for restoring small wooden boats and a backyard boatyard humming with productivity year-round, Charlie Flanagan has much he still wants to accomplish. If he’s not restoring an old boat, he’s building a new one, such as his current kit project, a lightweight, strip-planked, cedar canoe from Chesapeake Light Craft (CLC). His own fleet also includes a classic 1935 timber Herreshoff 12½ that he painstakingly restored, twice – first in 1979 to 1982, and again 27 years later. There’s also a bright yellow restored 1973 Beetle Cat named Buttercup, reminiscent of timeless Narraganset Bay traditions, and another CLC classic, the 13-foot, 5-inch Lighthouse Tender Peapod.

Flanagan’s passion for boats is his avocation, which balances out his vocation nicely. With a doctorate in American Studies and years of academic research, he works teaching teachers how to engage students in critical thinking. His role as an educational outreach specialist with the U.S. National Archives brings topics ranging from the Bill of Rights to the history of the Cold War into sharp focus. Charlie’s enthusiasm about national historical treasures is irrepressible, whether it involves the biographies of framers of the Constitution or the boatbuilding preeminence of Nat Herreshoff’s Rhode Island shipyard.

Recently, Flanagan blended his talents to help a young man launch and rig a traditional wooden Chesapeake Bay Sharpie Skiff, teaching the lad how to hoist sail, set the sprits, and get things underway. He wants to get more kids involved in small boats and sailing, inspired by the tale of Narragansett Bay Candy Boats, a fleet of wooden dinghies that, in the half-century after 1922, introduced hundreds of kids to small-boat sailing, with the boats painted to represent M&M’s, Fudge, Peppermint, Tootsie Roll, Snickers, Butterscotch, and so on. At one point, upper Narragansett Bay was home to a fleet of more than 50 Candy Boats.

Last year, Flanagan tracked down one of the few remaining Candy Boat hulls, retrieved it from a storage shed in Tiverton, Rhode Island, and arranged with Mystic Seaport Museum conservators to have the boat added to their collection.

There are still a few unchecked boxes on Flanagan’s to-do list. Long range, he wants to get more young people engaged in boatbuilding and restoration to instill in them useful life skills, patience, and learning from mentors, which he’s seen firsthand gives them enormous feelings of achievement. This can be accomplished in a garage, a basement, as a family project, or as part of a technical training program in school. It could even be a great outreach effort by a marine trades’ recruitment program.

The key, says Flanagan, is getting young people involved in a creative, fun, collaborative project, no matter if it’s a sailing dinghy, stand-up paddleboard, canoe, kayak, or hydroplane.

Flanagan envisions the right boat being a modernized version of the Candy Boat in its dimensions, ease of handling, and ability to hold a kid’s interest. Likely, it would be a plywood project that benefits from the stitch-and-glue success of today’s kit-boat designs. The boat would arrive as a set of precut and predrilled plywood parts complete with a detailed builder’s manual. All the fasteners, epoxy resin, fiberglass cloth, and other bits and pieces would be included.

Design characteristics would favor versatility, with a simple sail plan that can be single- or doublehanded. The mast would be easy to step and unstep, and with the right length oars and properly located oar locks, the boat would quickly convert into a rowing skiff that’s ready for an afternoon fishing trip.

Flanagan’s dream is becoming reality. He worked with CLC designer Jay Hockenberry on a prototype kit to be marketed by CLC shortly. Let the fun begin!