[Hammers tapping, planers scraping] [Indistinct chatter] [Gulls crying] [Electric sanders humming] Boy: It seems like everything gets put together pretty quickly.

I remember when I built my first boat here it was sort of a false sense of progress almost.

You see that it comes together relatively quickly if you're working on it, you know, every day.

♪ The actual shape, you know, you're like, "Oh, there's planks on here.

You know, I'm almost done.

Wow," and you get the planks all planked up, and you start to get the rails on and everything fit, and you're like, "Wow this looks like a boat actually!"

You know, it went from this pile of boards laying over by the planer to, like, "Oh, it's an actual boat.

Like, it's pretty cool."

♪ Woman: William spent a lot of time on the water as a younger child.

He would visit his grandparents and go out on their boat, and I think his obsession with boats probably came from his time with his grandparents, but also the idea of him being able to be out on his own on a boat.

One thing he said is "One thing I like about boats is I can drive a boat."

He has control of everything while he's on the boat.

Earlier on when he was growing up, sort of being childish and foolish and playing around was never really his thing.

He's not doing it sort of to be interactive and form relationships.

He's doing it because he's got something he's interested in.

William: I've been woodworking roughly since maybe fourth gradeish.

They've taken shop out of schools.

I've never had that.

That was before I was at the right age.

I've never had anything like that in school, so it's not really as pushed for anymore.

Misza: We live in an older home, so it has an unfinished basement, low ceilings, not a terrific space, but he's taken it over for the most part.

[Whirring] Early on, it was where we kept whatever tools and storage and stuff that we had.

Over time, it evolved, and now he's set it up as his shop.

Cathy: There's a lot of saws going and...routers whirring.

I try to stay away from the basement as much as possible.

Heh.

♪ William: I think you value the thing more when you either know where it's come from or if you've built it.

I have a lot less stuff than I used to have, but I, you know, take better care of it, I'm more careful with it.

I--I sort of know--know the limits, and I value it more.

♪ I grew up as a neighborhood kid about, I don't know, not even a quarter mile down the street.

This place, the boats, everything, was part of the backdrop of my life.

It is funny being here and growing up in the neighborhood of Lowell's because, you know, right over there is the busy Main Street.

I mean, I would pass this place 4 or 5, 6 times a day every day, and even then, it was always kinetic.

There were boats coming and going.

A new boat would show up out front, a new boat would be in the river.

♪ The reason that I love a dory is the beauty in their simplicity.

If you break down the design of a dory, it is extraordinarily simple.

When you see the constituent pieces, there is nothing terribly beautiful about them, but when they all come together, it turns into a thing of beauty.

What makes a dory a dory?

That is a question filled with semantics.

The true definition is that it has a flat bottom, that it's pointy on both ends, and planked longitudinally, meaning fore and aft, and because of the pointy nature on either end, they could ride to the seas well.

The ends are almost the same rake, meaning the same angle, so whether you're taking a wave from the bow or the stern, the boat's gonna act the same.

In the case of, you know, the halibut fishery, you could take a dory-- if you're hauling a line with a halibut over the side, a 600-pound halibut-- you can lean that edge of that dory right down to the water, pull the fish in, and then lean back, and it brings the fish out of the water and flops it into the boat.

In the same way that a plumber might wield a torch and a wrench, a fisherman could use a dory as a tool.

They were suited--well-suited to all sorts of different jobs, and because of that, they were widely used for almost everything.

Graham: It's the first boat I built.

Man: The first boat you built?

By myself, yeah.

Why's it there?

Because I used to live in that house, and they got married-- got married in it, and they bought it from me when I was in high school.

Oh, wow!

[Car door beeps] Graham, voice-over: Lowell's boat shop is one of our nation's treasures.

Personally, I'm in love with wooden boats, and so this is like Shangri-La for that kind of a thing.

I guess ultimately for me it is a picture of authenticity.

There is so much history and patina in this building from the hands that have worked here over the years.

It's the kind of place that you can go and really get a sense of the actual history that took place there because it literally oozes out of the walls.

♪ Lowell's ultimately is a museum now, a working museum, but historically was a dory factory.

It became a National Historic Landmark and what we are today, which is a working museum.

Graham: Nobody does it anymore because it's not worth the effort.

Man, on phone: That's right.

Graham, voice-over: It is difficult to run a business within the confines of a museum and a historic property and all that, non-profit with education programs, and the difficulty sticking to timelines is definitely a result of that.

In the case of wooden boat building, it's really difficult to make a living at these days.

We're sort of carpet bombing now with the knowledge and skill so that it doesn't get lost.

I would say for the preservation of the craft and the skill, it is fortunate that I live down the street and have ended up here and was able to have a little bit of crossover with the old timers and glean some of that knowledge so that now I can pass it along, but I'm hoping that in-- we'll say 50 years when I go-- there will be scores of people that have this knowledge and can pass it on and be able to do it.

William, voice-over: I'm really drawn to old boats just because almost how real they feel.

[Oars cutting through the water] It just makes them, you know, more special.

You're not gonna find another boat like that.

You could take measurements off it and make plans, but it's not like it's gonna ever be another one that's exactly the same, and that's really something that's, you know, so unique to handmade boats.

Why would you want a handmade boat that's exactly the same as the next one you come along?

They row better, they turn slightly better in one direction than the other, and that's--that's what makes them cool.

[Saw buzzing, hammer tapping] Graham, voice-over: For me, I am drawn to the sea and seafaring, and... thinking about that in terms of traditional wooden ships and things like that-- because that's really my interest-- the feats that humans... ♪ accomplished with very little in the roughest terrain possible is amazing to me, and sea stories, sea adventures capture my interests.

[Thunder] ♪ When I'm out there, which I've had the good fortune to be, on a big wooden ship, I'm just constantly thinking about the people that had the knowledge and the skills and the materials to put it together.

From an early age, to be able to physically build a boat or a craft that could take you to sea was the height of craftsmanship.

It's an interesting thing to me that people have paintings of sailing ships on their walls but not a painting of an oil tanker.

♪ Every 10 years or so, we get an order from a resort out in New York state called Mohonk Mountain House, and they have a fleet of 10 boats or so of ours, and every decade, they'll renew a couple of them, so this happens to be a time when they want 3 new boats, and I gave them the option of having one of them apprentice-built.

William: This summer, I'm planning and sort of budgeting my time to be here quite a bit and be working on a dory for Mohonk Mountain House and hopefully be done in a reasonable amount of time.

It's gonna be kind of similar to the one that I built for myself a couple summers ago.

It's gonna be a little bigger, a little more complex, sort of next step up, and it's gonna be for someone else.

Anytime I do something for someone else or outside of this if I'm--I'm working on someone's house or something like that, it's another level of sort of, uh, anxiety I guess.

Graham, voice-over: He'll be building a boat that people will be using for, you know, decades out in New York, and he'll be able to go out there himself.

Maybe he'll have his, uh-- maybe he'll get engaged out there or something, I don't know.

So we're getting the frames on now onto the boat.

I've got the two aft ones.

Graham: For William as part of this, you try to keep him engaged and try to keep him interested because he does catch up so quickly on things.

♪ Misza: One of the things we did was sign him up for a week-long trip on the Harvey Gamage, which Graham will captain sometimes, and that was when he first met Graham.

William, voice-over: It was the summer after sixth grade.

Lowell's Boat Shop did a one-week trip.

We sailed up the coast and into Maine, and that was one of the only times I've really not been with--you know, near someone I was related to besides school overnight field trips.

I was not terribly thrilled to go on that trip--heh-- which may surprise some of the people at Lowell's now.

I didn't want to go, I was not happy, I would not admit to my parents that I enjoyed it.

It turns out he didn't enjoy the trip that much.

He was--he was young, and it was all high schoolers, so I think the social aspect of it wasn't for him, but the boating certainly was.

Graham: I think he was 12 years old, and he immediately stood out of the crowd, not just because he was about that big, but because he--he knew a lot.

He was quiet, but you could tell that he knew a lot.

Misza: In sort of true William fashion, he didn't tell us much.

He's not really one to--to talk about other people or sort of to--to focus on that aspect of relationships, and we didn't know Graham, so I guess we sort of slowly over time learned about him.

Graham, voice-over: Halfway through the week, I asked him why he wasn't an apprentice at Lowell's, and he told me that he was working the other side of the schism at which point I was like, "How many 12-year-olds use the word schism?"

William, voice-over: Yeah, he definitely seemed to know what he was talking about, he was very confident.

He said, "You're not in the apprentice program.

All right.

Well, why don't you join?"

And I was like, "Oh, no, you know I'm--I'm 12.

"That's just--that's a little too young for the program."

He's like, "Oh, no, no, no.

You should really do it."

"Oh, maybe.

I'll think about it."

He seemed sort of genuinely interested in getting me and getting people involved in it.

Certainly his concern at that age was people taking him seriously or, you know, "Are they gonna give me the freedom?"

I think probably when he first went there he didn't know if it was gonna be the sort of place that, you know, they tell you what to do all the time and how to use the tools.

William, voice-over: My shop is in the basement, which is not the most accessible place to get a boat in or out, and then I was sort of thinking about the boats, and I was, you know, "Well, what if I-- what if I built a boat?

Like, that's similar to what I do," and so I started looking at that.

Graham: I offered him to come here and build a boat for himself during that summer, and he thought about it for a minute and said, "Sure."

[Table saw whirs] William: I noticed on this side-- the other side, I lined it up flush, and then I flipped it, and now there's extra on this side but not overlapped that.

William, voice-over: This is like 4 years ago.

I don't know because I was too young, and then I tried-- Graham: How many times do you hear "You're too young"?

Graham, voice-over: I've seen him go from now middle school to high school, and it's interesting to watch him develop as a person, as well.

When he came here, he was a shy-- shy, young 12-year-old, and now he's coming into his own.

At the beginning when I was here at the apprentice program, I didn't really talk at all.

I was pretty young to be in it.

I was the youngest there, I think, at the time.

It was a little intimidating, a little scary, you know.

Lots of people.

It was a lot busier than it has been ever since.

Graham: On any given day, we'll hand William one or two of the younger kids to then teach.

Misza: William being independent as he is, it was kind of like he has his thing he's doing and people he's meeting and people he's working with, and it's sort of his own relationship.

It was more sort of, yup, drop him off at the shop, and he's gonna work on stuff.

Now he gets rides home from various people.

♪ Graham letting him do his thing and giving him a certain amount of measured independence and freedom was why he then started to open up and certainly started to really like it.

Cathy: He's just become a much more confident, self-assured person, and I attribute that directly to his time at Lowell's.

Graham: When you talk about William finding his voice, I think that is one of the things, too.

When you have to sit there and direct somebody and motivate them, I think more so than anything, that helps you find that voice, and so he is absolutely at this point a mentor.

William: From being here and boat building, I've gained a lot of self-confidence in myself, in talking to other people, in dealing with other people.

[Indistinct chatter] I bus dishes at the Poynt-- a little less enjoyable-- and then I dishwash at Joppa sometimes, which I don't love dishwashing, but everyone's super nice there.

Just trying to juggle all that and manage it.

I had someone ask if I could babysit next Saturday, and I'm-- you know, I don't want to say no because I feel bad, you know, because I know they need a babysitter, and it's a lot of trying to say "no" that I'm not very good at.

♪ Graham: I see him all summer at the American Yacht Club.

I happened to be there, but he was-- and this is one of those mentor things-- he was asking me you know, "Where do you go "where there's sandbar, and where do you do this," and blah blah blah.

And I was like "What are you doing?

What do you got up your sleeve?"

He's like "Ah, I'm taking someone."

So I finally got out of him that he was taking this girl out for a boat ride and wanted to know where he could pull up safely on a sandbar for a picnic or whatever.

We looked at the tide chart, and I pointed out a couple of spots and then I just happened to be over there when he showed up.

At his age, so much can change in a matter of months.

♪ Heh heh.

What's happened with William's Mohonk project since February is very little.

I say very little.

That's not fair, but, uh, it's--it's not quite even halfway along.

♪ At this point in December, I'm not terribly stressed.

There comes a day in March when the sun is out and it's about 55 degrees and a lot of the snow starts to melt, and that's the day that I start to freak out.

What looked like a long winter of time has turned into a very short runway, and now you've got all these projects that need to get pushed out.

And cut that at the rake of the transom.

So you want me to-- do you want me to get a second one of those garboard pieces cut?

[Indistinct chatter] So we're getting the frames on now-- onto the boat.

I've got the two aft ones.

It's more pressure in the sense that it's for someone else.

They're paying for it, they expect something good, you got expectations to meet.

[Banging] [Whirring] With a new blade, that cut's gonna be to be nice and pretty.

[Whirring] [Blows sawdust] ♪ You can establish your center line.

William: It's the dark one there.

[Drills whirring] William: My mom doesn't like me missing school for things.

Graham: Let the glue set.

♪ William: Gonna go run this through the planer.

Why not?

Let's do that.

[Buzzing] ♪ Graham: Let me get the fire set.

William: Yeah.

♪ Graham: Now someone is paying you for your services, and the stakes are a little bit higher.

I think for him that transition is just another step towards maturity.

Graham: Ahh.

It's over now, William.

Yeah?

There ain't nothing to do... I'm gonna be bored.

except go fishing.

♪ Graham, voice-over: For William, going up there to see his boat built well, looking beautiful in a lineup of other boats that have been built by me many years ago, built by the Odells 20, 30 years ago, and even being built by Fred Tarbox, who was a long-time boat builder here and was here in the eighties... It's funny with the ones that we rebuilt, you can see the age on the old parts, too.

Graham, voice-over: it's an interesting historical lineup of the continuity of the process and the passing down of skills here, and I think for William, it's not necessarily going there and getting in the boat that he built that would be, I think, as rewarding as going there and watching a family take out the boat that he built.

William: Be there for the launch be there for the, you know, first time in the water and all that stuff is pretty special because it's not gonna happen on every boat that I work on.

Graham: Yours is gonna look real shiny and new.

Graham, voice-over: You know, you can sweat and toil in the shop, but it's not until the benefits of this, you know, you get to see your work in the wild, and you get to come out and the benefit of getting to stay in a beautiful place like this and getting, you know, treated as he just was like a hero.

[Applause] That makes the toil in the shop a lot easier, more rewarding in the dull times, you know, when you're sanding for 3 hours, and you're just like, "Why am I doing this?"

You can look back at those--those kind-- you know, those kind of experience to really understand.

Well, that's it!

Heh heh.

Yeah.

Man: Two more.

Two more.

♪ Graham: You can trace that, and you can hit it with the power planer.

William, voice-over: We were going to pick up the boats today from the shop, and I was walking in there to go grab something in the building.

The whole building bed and, like, the corner that I worked in for the last year is just empty now, and it's--it's, you know it looked like that a year ago.

I haven't seen it like that for a while.

Now it's done, and now it's gonna start all over again.

Graham: William is at a point where he sees this place as, you know, his in a way, and that's all that we can hope for and that he's comfortable in all aspects here, with everybody here, and I think that has implications in the rest of his life.

Misza: I think it's the sort of place that is always part of your life.

It's been so formative certainly in his childhood now, and I think that's true for a lot of people that go there.

For me, I'm psyched that he's a freshman still.

You know, it would bum me out if he was coming into this as a senior, like, "Oh, I'm gonna lose him next year."

Now as a freshman, ideally he will be here for another, you know, 2, 3 years and be a mentor and a role model for some of these younger guys.

Maybe pull another William out of the crowd.

William: It's been cool to sort of have the younger kids come up and work and, you know, see how they are, and some of them are pretty good and pretty promising.

Graham voice-over: And at the end, I think what we're trying to turn out more than a boat builder is perhaps a better human being but one that is more self-sufficient, confident, and just has a greater feeling for community, and that's really what it is is a community.

William: It preserves so much of Amesbury's history, of Newburyport's history, of all these towns that are around here on the river, that it's not really just a museum or just about boats.

It's a lot about community.

I owe this place so much that it feels a little bit like I should be here, you know, all the time, you know, because someone's got to take over for him, and--I don't know--maybe that will be me maybe.

Maybe he'll hang in long enough that I can go be an engineer and then retire and come hang out here.

That would be--that'd probably be the best.

That'd be awesome, but, uh, we'll see.

♪