Eastport Pram

A 7 ft 9 in rowing and sailing pram by John C. Harris of Chesapeake Light Craft, with more than 1,000 built. It is 48 in wide, about 65 lb, carries 375 lb, and takes an optional 42 sq ft standing lug rig that was enlarged in 2010. Planking is 6 mm okoume in CLC's LapStitch method, with flotation tanks under the seats, and a motor of up to 2 hp can be fitted. Kits and plans are sold.

CLC calls it a beginner build and a good first boat. Its figure is 70 hours, with 40 to 50 on the hull, and about 25 more for the sailing option.

The Eastport Pram was drawn at Chesapeake Light Craft in Annapolis as a yacht tender that would row well, sail well enough to be fun, and still fit on a foredeck or a roof rack. Its blunt bow is the pram shape that has carried tenders for a century; what changed was the construction. LapStitch is CLC's blend of lapstrake and stitch and glue: the precut okoume planks overlap like a traditional clinker hull but are wired together at the laps and glued with epoxy, so there is no building jig, no steaming and nothing to loft. The result looks like a wooden dinghy and goes together like a kit.

It has become CLC's standard first-boat course, taught over a week at their shop and at boatbuilding schools, which is why so many of the thousand-plus built were somebody's first. A nesting version that splits in two for stowage on deck was added later, and the sailing rig can be fitted at any point after the hull is done.

The medians below come from builders who logged this boat here.