About
Built & Launched is a public record of home-built and amateur-built boats: what they are, who built them, how they were built, and where they float.
Thousands of boats are built every year by people who are not boatbuilders. They are built in garages and barns, on driveways and in spare bedrooms, from plans bought by post, from kits, or from an idea drawn on a sheet of plywood. Most are never recorded anywhere. When the builder moves on, the story usually goes with them.
This registry exists to keep that record. Every vessel entered here receives a permanent registry number and a page of her own — her specifications, her design, her builder, her hailing port, her photographs and the journal of her construction.
Principles
One
A boat may be registered at any stage — a set of plans, a hull upside down on sawhorses, a fit-out that has taken nine years, or a vessel thirty seasons afloat. Boats under construction are not lesser entries here.
Two
Mini tugs, sailing cruisers, skiffs, runabouts, steam launches, canoes, kayaks, houseboats, workboats and one-off experiments. If a person built her, she has a place in the register.
Three
Records belong to the people who made the boats. An owner chooses what is public, how precisely her position is shown on the chart, and may keep a record entirely private while a build is under way.
The Record
“Every Boat Has a Build Story.”
Questions, corrections and additions to the register are welcome at risoam@earthlink.net.
