John D. Bosler - Devlin Designing Boat Builders

ONE OF A KIND
John D. Bosler
DOUGLAS TRUMBULL WAS NOT ENTIRELY WITHOUt EXPERIENCE IN SMALL BOATS.
Earlier in his career there had been a 26-foot Cheoy Lee sailboat he was
too busy to use. And there was a plastic go-fast boat on a lake in
Canada.
His most memorable boating experience came the day he carefully
lowered himself into a canoe, powered by a small electric outboard,
and motored silently, slowly along a lakeshore, enjoying the sights and
sounds of the water and land.
“It was a sublime experience of being with nature and disturbing
nothing,” he says.
For a time, he thought about building a boat himself that he and his
wife, Ann, could enjoy cruising in Northeast waters. After realizing that
would be impossible, Trumbull began a search for the perfect boat,
visiting shows and talking with builders across the country. Nothing he
saw was just right enough, although he remembers touring a number
of nice yachts.
A Stitch In Time
Expanding his search to the Internet, Trumbull came across the web
page for Devlin Designing Boatbuilders, a company which uses a stitchand-glue
technology to build traditionally styled plywood skiffs, dories,
sailboats, and larger motorboats in an old shed on the shore of a small
bay near Olympia, Washington.
In this postcard scene, Sam Devlin has been designing boats in a tiny
office nestled against the shed since 1982. Design fixed, he then steps
Building
A Workboat
Classic The
Stitch-And-Glue
Way
by Robert M. Lane
photography by
Douglas Trumbull

Pilothouse (above) designed
for maximum visibility with all
the bells and whistles (right).
Clean foredeck (below) has a
recessed anchor well and
traditional dog house.
next door to help bring pencil lines to life in a
shop that has space for tools, one boat, and,
perhaps, a couple of skiffs.
“When I found Sam on the Internet I
immediately saw what I wanted, an aesthetic I
liked,” Trumbull recalls. Devlin’s larger boats,
“were tugboat-like, they were workboat-like,
they were functional…they were something
quite apart from a production boat.”
They talked and traded email. Trumbull flew
to the Pacific Northwest from his New England
home to Devlin’s old shed on Young Bay, a dent
in the shoreline of Eld Inlet. The builderdesigner
displayed his work and described his
philosophy of boat building. Trumbull, conditioned
by his boating experiences and dreams,
and by the rewarding, silent hours aboard the
electric canoe, began to sharpen his ideas for a
cruising yacht.
He and his wife liked the design for a boat
Devlin calls the Sockeye 42 and worked to make
it fit their needs. First of all, that it offer good
visibility all around, that it be safe, comfortable,
efficient—and quiet.
Workboat Features, Yacht Styling
The result was John D. Bosler, a 43-foot,
single-engine, plywood-epoxy resin-glass fiber
boat that looks something like a tugboat and

Pilothouse, cozy and
comfortable, (right)
has all the right tools
in the right places.
Helm has navigation
necessities front and
forward (below) with
chart table (inset) for
planning and plotting.

something like a fishing boat, but that is a
superbly designed and built cruising yacht. It is
safe, comfortable, and efficient, and is the
quietest motor yacht I have ever boarded.
She has the vertical pilothouse windows long
associated with workboats and the fantail stern
found on tugs, a rounded transom with no sharp
corners to bang against a dock or towed vessel.
Inside, however, one finds luxurious (and
practical) dark green leather upholstery on the
saloon settee and the pilot berth. Countertops
are made of solid cherry lumber, some of it cut
from trees that grew at Devlin’s home. The sole
is yellow cedar, with all screw holes plugged.
There is an espresso machine on the cherry
counter, and a French press.
A Stidd chair dominates the pilothouse and its
extensive bank of electronic equipment, which
is properly arranged directly ahead of the helm
for simple and safe cruising. As evidence of the
utility of this layout, when I visited John D.
Bosler, Olympia and upper Puget Sound were
engulfed in fog. Trumbull, using compass, chart
plotter, and radar, motored slowly along the
coast of Hartstene Island, crossed Dana Passage,
and entered Budd Inlet to the safety of his
boathouse.
The yacht has a steam whistle from an old
boat (now powered by an air compressor) that
is simultaneously a pure musical sound and a

A generous dining area
with sumptous leather settee
and cherry table can be
converted to an extra berth
(below) when guests are along.
Looking aft, the day head to
starboard doubles as a storage
and drying area (right).
Quality workmanship and
honest style can be seen in
every corner of this
no-nonsense boat.
summons for the nostalgic. There is an antique
brass bell and Navy-style compass, as well as
radar, a chart plotter, VHF and single sideband
radios, a weather fax, and Ocean PC computer.
The hull is dark green and the house is white,
proper colors for a yacht that looks like a
workboat. She has a row of round, tug-type
bronze port lights along each side, cap rails and
rub strakes cut from purpleheart, and a John
Deere four-cylinder diesel one can barely hear.
She has a traditional doghouse in the
foredeck, to provide light and ventilation for the
single stateroom below. Trumbull and Devlin
toyed with the idea of giving John D. Bosler
wood-framed pilothouse windows that would
slide down into the walls of the boat, as one still
finds on old workboats. But instead she was
built with the newest doors and windows by
Canada’s Diamond SeaGlaze, and hinged only
the glass directly ahead of the helm.
“I wanted a wood boat,” Trumbull told Devlin
at one of their planning meetings. “But without
the problems that come with cedar, oak, and
fastenings.”
Trumbull asked for low maintenance, fine
woods, indestructibility , and “a very high visual
aesthetic.” And, he emphasizes, “I told Sam the
core thing is that it’s got to be quiet as a mouse.”
Coming Together
Devlin’s own exposure to boating began as an
infant. He slept in a sea berth in a “ship”
bedroom—complete with curved walls—built
by his father. The elder Devlin for a time
operated a marine supply store, and Sam played
in a skiff landlocked in the store.
In kindergarten he won a prize for drawing a
picture of a tugboat. “They have always made
me feel warm and comfortable,” he says.

Devlin earned college degrees in geology and
biology, and later worked on tugs in Alaska and
aboard fishing vessels. But he wanted to build
wood boats, so in the 1970s he left Alaska and
returned home to Eugene, Oregon, with a
commission for a 20-foot sailboat.
“Though there is little new under the sun, I
had lots of ‘what ifs’ and ‘how abouts’ and a
burning desire to see what these ideas would
look like, and, most of all, how they
performed,” he says. “So, in 1977 my wife, Liz,
and I pooled our resources and started the
business.”
The dream of boat building come true, he and
Liz in 1982 moved to Olympia to achieve
another dream: owning a shop on saltwater.
“We knew the minute we started that we would
get to saltwater,” he explains.
The Devlin Designing Boatbuilders’ yard is a
classic. You reach it by driving slowly along a
winding, rural road that passes woodlots, farms,
and cottages. Home sites slope to the bay, and
boats lie quietly on moorings. I wasn’t surprised
when a neighbor arrived with a bucket of
freshly-harvested oysters for the Devlins.
Interestingly, stitch-and-glue boat
building is not a Devlin invention. Others
built them, even before Devlin got the
idea. “It is a generic building style, and if
you go to a boat show it is not hard to
find stitch-and-glue boats,” Devlin says.
“Mostly, they are smaller boats.”
Devlin, however, has taken the
technique further, and made the technique
well known and accepted. A
designer rather than a naval architect,
he’s drafted plans and built about 400
traditionally-styled boats using stitchand-glue.
These boats range from skiffs
(great tenders) through a series of stylish
powerboats, to John D. Bosler, his largest
project to date. But he is now working
on plans for a 50-footer for a customer.
Devlin believes he inherited “a certain
degree of inventiveness” from his father
and grandfather.
“It’s a different approach to learning:
to figure it out on my own without
drawing on others’ experiences.
“So I figured out a way to put together
wooden boats. That was 23 years ago,
and the way I build them now is so
similar to my first efforts that it is almost
scary.”
The Reel McCoy
There is a temptation to make too
much of Douglas Trumbull’s career and
his decision to build John D. Bosler,
which is named for his father-in-law.
While Trumbull’s name may not be
familiar to most, his work probably is.
A Hollywood film producer known as a
special effects visionary, Trumbull worked on
futuristic films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey,
The Andromeda Strain, Close Encounters of
the Third Kind, Star Trek—The Motion Picture,
Blade Runner, and Brainstorm. He wrote and
directed Silent Running and now is president
and chief executive officer of Entertainment
Design Workshop in Sheffield, Massachusetts,
a digital design firm specializing in creative
content, development, and production for
films, television, and theme parks.
He also produced and directed Back to the
Future—The Ride for Universal Studio theme
parks in Florida and California. He created
Secrets of the Luxor Pyramid for the casino
resort Luxor Las Vegas.
In 1993, Trumbull shared an Academy
Award for the Showscan CP-65 Camera
System, a process of high-speed 70 mm
cinematography.
Reprinted with permission. Copyright 2001 © Dominion Enterprises (888.487.2953) www.passagemaker.com
Galley stretches
along the starboard
side of the saloon
(above). Separate
freezer and fridge
are installed below
cherry countertops.
Propane stove with
work counter (left)
is situated on the
port side in front of
the dining settee.
Cedar wainscoting
highlights the
bulkhead.

So, a man celebrated for pushing the
technology of motion picture production and
visual effects in futuristic films builds a boat
whose style is a century or more old, but built
with contemporary materials and techniques.
What do I make of that?
He has good taste, that’s all.
The Process
Stitch-and-glue is almost as simple as it
sounds. The technique uses marine plywood,
baling wire, fiberglass tape and cloth, epoxy
fillers, hardwood flour, and epoxy resin.
Building a fiberglass boat requires manufacture
of costly plugs and molds, at least for the
hull, deck, and house. Building a traditional
plank-on-frame wood or cold-molded boat
similarly requires the use of molds to produce
the desired lines. Devlin’s boats require neither.
“Such expensive tooling generally stops much
of the evolution of an individual boat design,”
Devlin says. “Stitch-and-glue construction does
not bear this initial burden.
“With no building molds or tooling to
consider, a stitch-and-glue design has a chance
to constantly evolve and improve, and that’s
important. I believe any design can use
refinement, and as my work has evolved, I’ve
found ways to increase the ability of the stitchand-glue
boat to suit its purpose and meet its
owners’ performance requirements.
“The goal is to use a minimum number of
parts, yet to do it with elegance and grace,”
Devlin adds.
The lower up-front capital cost does not mean
that a Devlin boat is a cheap boat. Construction
of a stitch-and-glue design requires more highly
skilled labor than a production fiberglass boat,
for one, and Devlin’s crew is better than most.
Each can do any job on the schedule.
Construction of John D. Bosler required 10,500
hours of labor. As a result, completed and
commissioned, she is a $600,000 yacht.
Careful lofting (scribing the shape of hull
panels on plywood) and cutting is a must for a
successful project.
On John D. Bosler, Devlin and his shipwrights
beveled the edges of plywood panels to create
an overlapping (or scarf) joint and glued fourfoot-by-eight-foot
sheets of plywood together,
Reprinted with permission. Copyright 2001 © Dominion Enterprises (888.487.2953) www.passagemaker.com

end-to-end, to create eight panels that are 46
feet long for the hull and topsides.
Small stitch-and-glue boats require no framing
or internal bracing. The plywood skin provides
the necessary strength.
But vessels the size of John D. Bosler need
interior framing for strength and support, and
Devlin’s shipwrights draped the long and
unwieldy plywood panels over four bulkheads,
two athwartship and two longitudinal. Then
they stitched the seams and made them fast with
epoxy resin and fiberglass.
Creating the basic hull shape took Devlin’s
crew about six weeks. When it was completed,
they rolled the hull out of the shop, turned it
right side up, and then pushed it back under
cover to begin finishing work.
A Clear View
After the deck was in place, shipwrights built
a quick mockup of the pilothouse to be sure
that visibility would be according to plan. “I
wanted incredible visibility,” Trumbull says.
The five pilothouse windows are sized and
spaced so the horizon is at the middle of the
glass. No deck gear, such as the
anchor, windlass, or burgee staff,
obscures that view.
“That was difficult to achieve,”
Devlin recalls. “It took a lot of work.”
In most boats, the anchor is in plain
view atop the forward bulwark. In
Trumbull’s boat, the anchor feeds
through the bulwark, a bit starboard
of the centerline, out of sight from the
helm.
“I am really pleased,” Trumbull says
of the view from his pilothouse.
Devlin likens his technique to
monocoque aircraft and auto
construction, in which the skin is part
of the structure. He also compares it
to a peeled banana: Each piece has a
specific shape, and if you could trace
the outlines of the pieces on paper
and then cut and glue the paper
together, you’d have a banana.
To him, a stitch-and-glue boat is a
series of peels designed through
intuition, and with the aid of a
computer-drafting program. He then
puts the peels—built of high quality marine
plywood— together to form a boat.
The plywood panels are temporarily “stitched”
together with baling wire through holes along
the seams of the panels. The stitches are not
continuous, as in the connection of a sleeve to
a shirt, but are single stitches spaced several
inches apart.
With stitching complete and hull panels in
perfect alignment, the seams are coated with
epoxy mixed with hardwood flour, and covered
with fiberglass tape. When the seam compound
has cured, the hull is turned right side up, the
wire stitches are removed, and the small holes
plugged.
This yacht hull is one-and-a-half inches thick.
Plywood that massive can’t be easily bent to
form sexy shapes, so
Devlin starts with a halfinch
panel that follows the
shape of the hull and transom,
then overlays quarterinch-thick
plywood sheets
bathed in epoxy. The hull
exterior is later sheathed
with fiberglass cloth saturated
with epoxy resin.
“This produces an incredibly
stiff yet relatively
lightweight hull that is immensely
strong,” the builder
says. “And if it is done right
it can be pretty, too.”
When a stitch-and-glue boat is completed, all
wood will have been totally encapsulated with
epoxy. Devlin says moisture will never get into
the wood, so it will retain its strength. The
exterior of the Trumbull yacht was painted with
Imron, a coating Devlin expects to last 10 years.
Such paint treatment does survive. In my visit
to the Young Bay yard, I saw a 35-foot Devlin-
Reprinted with permission. Copyright 2001 © Dominion Enterprises (888.487.2953) www.passagemaker.com

Heading down from the pilothouse (left, inset), looking aft in the stateroom (left), head
is to port. State room, filled with natural light, makes the most of the bow area (above).
Head has two compartments, painted surfaces and cedar grating on the floor. (right).
built Czarinna in the shed for refurbishing after
11 years of service, some of those years in
Florida. Its Imron paint showed some discoloring
and slight crazing, but it still was
passable.
With new paint and new Diamond Sea Glaze
windows it will look better than new.
A Closer Look
The fog gone, we found Trumbull and his
boat in her shed on Budd Bay in Olympia. From
every angle the green hull of the John D. Bosler
was perfectly fair and the paint flawless.
We boarded through the starboard pilothouse
door, via a step on the float. Under way, a pair
of lifelines stretching from the anchor pulpit
would be hooked to connections just aft of the
door to keep anyone from tumbling overboard.
The pilothouse is compact but workable.
Steps to the master stateroom, head, and engine
room doors curve forward and down from the
starboard side.
Amidships are the massive Devlin-built helm
station and the Stidd chair.
The 20-inch wheel is something
special: Trumbull built it
from Nicaraguan coco bola
wood.
Compasses and chart plotter
are dead center, the radar screen slightly to the
right. Depth sounder and engine gauges are on
the lower corners. Radios are overhead, on a
shelf above the windscreen. The helm receives
an “A” for design and function.
Stretching fore-and-aft on the port side is the
pilot berth, which (with a couple of pillows)
makes a wonderful watch station as well. On
the aft bulkhead are chart table and locker.
Magnets keep charts in place, even with a
breeze through an open door or window.
The Stidd chair rotates easily 180 degrees to
give the captain quick access to paper charts
should he need more information than can be
found on the plotter and radar screens.
On the starboard side, aft of the door, is a seat
for another guest.
Reprinted with permission. Copyright 2001 © Dominion Enterprises (888.487.2953) www.passagemaker.com

Remote Control
Trumbull chose a sophisticated Mathers’
Micro-Commander control system. Using handheld
remotes, he can shift gears, power up the
bow thruster, and control the autopilot from one
of three stations. One is in the recessed anchor
well on the foredeck, allowing him to motor
into an anchorage and drop the hook singlehanded
from a seat on the foredeck. Another
plug for the remote is in the pilothouse, and the
third is in the aft cockpit, handy for backing into
a moorage.
Although the boat does
not have a flying bridge,
Trumbull plans another
Mathers’ outlet on top of
the pilothouse, as well as a
Wooden doors cleverly
disguise access to the holy
place from the stateroom.
couple of informal seats and some canvas
screening. After initial cruises, he discovered the
horizon-to-horizon view and total silence from
atop the boat and so now intends to enjoy them.
Workboat styling continues in the master
stateroom, which has naturally finished trim and
roof beams. The overhead is tongue-and-groove
Port Orford cedar strips, painted white. Eight
ports and a skylight hatch provide an
abundance of natural light. A large hanging
locker set into the after bulkhead allows access
to the engine room, when major work is
needed, via a second set of heavy and wellinsulated
doors. A secret doorway, indeed.
On my first tour of the boat I was shown a
smaller doorway into the engine room in the
head and wondered how anything serious could
be accomplished. The second time around,
Devlin laughed and gave it away.
The two-compartment head lies aft of the
stateroom on the port side. Sink and cabinets
come first, followed by a shower and toilet
room. Rather than clutter up this tight space
with doors, Devlin uses roll-up fabric screens for
privacy and to contain the shower spray.
Cedar grating covers the sole in the head. It
squeaks a little underfoot, but is in character and
can be cleaned easily. The cabinet and
countertop are painted wood; if they get messy,
Devlin says, just bring in a hose.
Comfort Center
From the pilothouse, recessed step lights mark
the way aft to the saloon, galley, and day head.
First impressions that remain: the quality of
finish work, particularly in the thick, heavy
cherry countertops, and the generous dining
area that is convertible to a berth.
The sink (flanked by under-the-counter
freezer and refrigerator) and a long counter are
on the starboard side. The propane stove is in a
U-shaped area on the port side, ahead of the
settee and table, with a work counter to the
right. The forward bulkhead is surfaced with
cedar wainscoting.
Varnished beams provide ceiling support and
accent the off-white vinyl headliner.
The day head, which doubles as storage and
drying area, is aft on the starboard side near the
door to the cockpit.
Bronze port lights continue the workboat
styling, while large Diamond Glaze windows
offer super views.
Room To Move
On many boats one needs to be a
contortionist to find a seat at the dining table.
John D. Bosler, however, has generous spaces,
and settling in for a meal or coffee is effortless.
Reprinted with permission. Copyright 2001 © Dominion Enterprises (888.487.2953) www.passagemaker.com

The cherry table folds opens for meals. Fold it
closed for coffee or drinks; it has built-in fiddles
that will keep peanuts and glasses in place
regardless of the weather. An electric drive
raises or lowers the table.
In boats with rounded transoms and cockpits
one usually finds a seat of some kind, with
cushions for lolling about. On this boat,
however, that after part of the cockpit is filled
with a storage locker that contains vented space
for two propane bottles and deck lines, fenders,
and steering gear. The waist-high locker and
bulwarks make the aft cockpit safe in the
roughest seas.
Inside the locker you’ll see a Devlin
innovation: The floor is finished with truck
bedliner material, painted by Devlin’s crew. It
shows up in many places throughout the boat.
The cockpit sole is covered with a cedar
grating, finished with Decks Ole. Devlin
believes this to be much easier to keep clean
than fiberglass or other materials—and it also fits
the image. Old tugboats have wood grating
underfoot, as well.
Searching For Silence
Trumbull’s campaign for a quiet boat appears
to have been successful.
The sound level in the pilothouse while under
way is about 63 decibels, according to
measurements by Trumbull, which is the level of
noise you would find around home. At first, the
decibel reading was about 60, but it was
accompanied by a harmonic in the exhaust
system. Modification to the mufflers eliminated
the harmonic but increased the noise level
slightly. Devlin continues to tweak the system.
A sound meter commonly would register 70
to 75 decibels or more in the pilothouse of a
powerboat. Devlin and I took the boat on a
demo run on Budd Inlet while Trumbull went
shopping, and even with the John Deere at full
throttle we chatted as easily as when we were in
his rural office on Young Bay.
Silencing the 85-horsepower John Deere was
a major effort, as diesel engines are not silent,
but the work helped to control other nuisance
noise sources at the same time.
Normally, any wood around an engine acts as
a sound box to transmit diesel sounds
throughout a boat. To defeat such resonance,
Devlin built engine room bulkheads and decks
from plywood containing a sound barrier. The
material, called Db Plywood, is made by Greenwood
Forest Products of Portland, Oregon. It
consists of two layers of plywood separated by
a material that does not transmit sound energy.
In addition, Devlin applied three inches of
high-density fiberglass wool insulation to the
SPECIFICATIONS
S P E C I F I C A T I O N S
John D. Bosler
Length Overall 43' 1"
Length on Deck 42' 1"
Beam 12' 10"
Draft 5’
Hull Form Full displacement
Displacement 28,000 lbs.
Ballast 2,000 lbs.
Engine Deere Power 85-hp diesel
Genset Fischer Panda 8kW
Fuel Capacity 590 U.S. gallons
Water Capacity 260 U.S. gallons
Waste Capacity 130 U.S. gallons
plywood. Next to it went a vinyl-lead barrier, an
air space, one inch of fiberglass wool, another
air space, and a outside protective surface of
perforated aluminum sheeting.
Trumbull and Devlin chose a naturally
aspirated diesel, fearing that a turbocharged
engine would have added yet another level of
undesirable sound. The boat didn’t need the
extra horsepower, either.
It all works. The diesel rattle from the Deere
is only background noise.
Trumbull rejected a diesel furnace because of
the whine generated by the burner. Instead,
John D. Bosler has two other sources of heat.
Under way, two electric heaters are used,
powered by a Fischer Panda 8kW generator
housed in a sound shield below the cockpit
deck. Trumbull started the genset while I was
standing in the cockpit, and all that could be
Douglass Trumbull (center) and his daughter, Andromeda Mylenek,
enjoying a peaceful moment on the water with builder Sam Devlin.
Reprinted with permission. Copyright 2001 © Dominion Enterprises (888.487.2953) www.passagemaker.com

For More Information:
Sam Devlin
heard was the exhaust
Devlin Designing Boatbuilders, Inc.
cooling water splashing
2424 Gravelly Beach Loop N.W.
into the bay.
Olympia, Washington 98502
In port, with shore power
360-866-0164
available, electric heaters
www.devlinboat.com
provide soundless heat.
Trumbull searched the
market before finding
electric units that passed his
stringent noise tests.
At anchor, Trumbull lights a pair of bulkheadmounted
Soapstone propane heaters. They are
romantic, he says, and they keep the boat warm
without a hint of noise.
Furthering the anti-noise effort, Devlin
installed an Aqua Drive system because it helps
isolate propeller sound. The boat carries a fivebladed
propeller, for smoother and quieter—if
slightly less efficient—operation.
Devlin figures only 42 horsepower are needed
to drive the displacement boat to hull speed,
which is about eight knots. The Flo Scan meter
indicates fuel consumption of two gallons per
hour at eight knots (2,100 rpm). At seven knots
fuel burn drops to 1 GPH.
Creeping home in the fog at three knots, the
Flo Scan hardly registered fuel use, Trumbull said.
He liked slow speed, as John D. Bosler moved
in and out of fog to reveal the sun and crowds
of sea birds. Trumbull’s fuel bill will be small.
On The Way
Originally, Trumbull considered cruising
waters near his Massachusetts home. Now,
however, John D. Bosler will be moored in
Olympia with a view of Mount Rainer from her
boathouse. Trumbull is even thinking about
moving his home to the Pacific Northwest.
About now, he’s probably headed north for a
summer in Southeast Alaska aboard his tugworkboat-yacht.
If he stops in port cities along
the way, Trumbull will spend a lot of time
answering questions from dockside admirers.
Equipped as she is, Trumbull won’t need to
make many stops, however. The boat will do
just fine in any of the big water crossings along
the Inside Passage, and she’s well equipped for
just hanging on the hook in remote—and quiet
—anchorages.
Sadly, Trumbull will be making the trip only
with friends. His wife, Ann, died last year just
before John D. Bosler was completed. ●
Reprinted with permission. Copyright 2001 © Dominion Enterprises (888.487.2953) www.passagemaker.com