"If you are a boatbuilder, love a boatbuilder or ever dreamed of being a boatbuilder, the beautifully filmed and absolutely authentic documentary Charlotte takes you inside the boatshop, into the bay, through the seasons, travails and bliss of traditional boatbuilding."
For film updates, extras and a chance to win a free DVD:
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- Kaci Cronkhite, Director, Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival
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"This film does more to capture the essence of a boatbuilders’ life than any collection of photos or stories or video I've seen."
- Kaci Cronkhite, Director, Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival -
"In this spare and gorgeous film, we are invited directly into the hours and days of a workshop dedicated to making something right. This is a peculiar undertaking in our time. Watch Charlotte and get re-acquainted with the verities."
- Matthew Crawford, author of Shop Class as Soulcraft -
"Follow the building process, from the framing and planking to the decking and interior, and join in the launching of Charlotte at Vineyard Haven, where the very harbor itself has become one of New England’s most celebrated centers of traditional wooden boats and yachts."
- Jon Wilson, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, WoodenBoat magazine -
"Catch hold of the passion for craftsmanship – and the craft – that emerge with such grace from this yard. If you care even a little about such things, you cannot be unmoved by the portrait this lovely film paints."
- Jon Wilson, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, WoodenBoat magazine -
"Rendered deliciously on film, it is one of the most intimate portraits ever made of the building of a plank-on-frame vessel."
- Jon Wilson, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, WoodenBoat magazine -
"A respite and inspiration for anyone who dreams of this life or misses it, Charlotte was a joy to experience."
- Kaci Cronkhite, Director, Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival -
"[T]he film not only documents significant milestones and sometimes funny moments in Charlotte's life, but glimpses the plethora of skills, the infinite resourcefulness, the sometimes lonely, chaotic and physically taxing lifestyle of full-time boatbuilders."
- Kaci Cronkhite, Director, Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival -
"Artistically filmed on Martha's Vineyard through snow storms, gales and idyllic summer days, the film makers capture profound moments in a day, in a year, in 6 years when Nat Benjamin built a boat of his own."
- Kaci Cronkhite, Director, Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival -
"See and feel how the power of tradition, cradled in the hands of skilled artisans – both young and old – continues to endure in a place apart from the rush and glitz of modernity."
- Jon Wilson, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, WoodenBoat magazine -
"From the first pencil tracing of Charlotte’s sail plan to her thrillingly beautiful sea trials, this is the loving story of the creation of a wooden schooner, and of those who lovingly designed and built her."
- Jon Wilson, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, WoodenBoat magazine
What People Are Saying
“If there is a name I would like to copyright, it is 'craftsman.' It is a name that places a tremendous responsibility on those who claim it. And believe me, in our world and in our time, we are deeply in need of the values which come under the head of 'craftsmanship.'"
- Charles Eames
