June 26, 2009 Mystic hosts annual wooden boat show Play video

(NECN: Brian Burnell, Mystic, Conn.) - The 18th annual Wooden Boat Show is drawing lots of folks to Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut. Its produced by Wooden Boat magazine and there are more than 100 wooden boats both classic and contemporary on display both in and out of the water. The town green is the place to look over home built boats. Boats put together by people who accepted the magazine's "Build It Yourself" challenge.

There's so much here its impossible to show you all of it so we're going to focus on 3 boats in particular. The smallest, what some people are calling the most beautiful and the funniest?

The smallest is Rachel. The boat and the little girl. Rachel's grandfather, Craig, built this 48-inch beauty for his grand daughter 6 years ago.

Craig Rowley, Stonington, CT: Its all built out of one piece of plywood which is the other good thing. A very straightforward build.

And cheap. It cost less than 100-dollars to build and Rachel has loved it since that first time she paddled around in it when she was 3.

Rachel Bagdasarian, Colchester, CT: Eventually I just got in the boat and went into the water and I just started rowing off and I got kind of frustrated and then I kind of just let go of the oars and let myself drift a little and then I started rowing again and then, like, I got it and then I just started rowing in circles and rowing all over the place.

The most beautiful is this sailboat built by Fred Rettig.

Fred Rettig, Mobile, AL: These three lines lined up and as I'm getting these three lines to line up and I did not plan it. It just happened that way. When I saw it I concluded that boat builders of yesteryear were whispering in my ear. "Do it this way. This is the way you do it."

He admits as the work progressed and the hours turned into days and months he wondered what he had gotten himself into.

Fred Rettig, Mobile, AL: There were many days I thought I'd lost my mind. "What am I thinking."

And the funniest. A canoe made of paper inspired by a book written in the 1870's.

Gordon Towle, Westbrook, CT: This gentleman built a similar canoe and went down the Mississippi one summer and he wrote a book about it and all he had to work with was paper and wood and white glue and varnish.

Gordon did the same thing using newspaper.

Gordon Towle, Westbrook, CT: A couple of Sunday papers, same day, and we stole the funnies out and that's what we used. Gordon, what does it say about you that you chose the funnies and not, say, the financial page? Well, I don't know, my terrific sense of humor, I guess.

Those are a very small fraction of the marvelous wooden boats on display... not to mention the other exhibits... from 9 to 5 through Sunday at Mystic Seaport.