More Wright skiffs completed at DMM

by Gary Cook – 

The Deltaville Maritime Museum’s (DMM) 19th annual Family Boatbuilding Week (FBW) concluded this past Saturday morning with the Great Skiff Race on Jackson Creek. The program was begun in 2002, according to Bill Powell, the museum’s events coordinator, on a challenge from Wooden Boat magazine to keep wooden boatbuilding skills alive in the country. FBW was originally one of more than 15 similar, multi-day camps begun shortly thereafter. As of 2023, DMM conducts the only remaining week-long program nationwide using real wood and traditional wooden boat construction techniques in a camp-like atmosphere, said Powell.

As of last week, 10 more Wright skiffs were added to the museum’s total bringing the number of John Wright skiffs constructed in their program to 178. It has drawn participants from as far away as Hawaii in the U.S. and from Canada and Europe internationally in the past. The Kelly and Brenda Brazil family from Minneapolis, Minn., were the participants who traveled the farthest this year.

A Wright skiff is a 14-foot-long utility boat named after John E. Wright, a noted boatbuilder in Deltaville in the early 1900s.