Born and raised in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, I found it prudent to enlist in the US Coast Guard after high school.  Afterwards, the GI Bill provided funding for a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH.  A decade in home construction followed (my heart was in woodworking) (…besides, it paid better than teaching in 1978) before a cabinet shop we built on our little farm in Bradford, Vt. became a canoe shop, becoming Fiddlehead Boatworks in ‘91.

We began by restoring wood/canvas canoes, drawing from all over New England and beyond. We built a line of 14’ tortured plywood canoes and a wide 17’ wood/canvas recurved stem canoe from a mold found at one of Vermont’s summer camps.  Graduate school in Maryland tempted my wife, and we moved to Annapolis in the summer of ‘95 aboard a 60’ Belamy trawler. I started doing odd joinery repairs in the area boatyards, found Winston at a local sailing school and incorporated Fiddlehead Boatworks LLC in ‘98.  Odd yachting jobs became a calling and somehow, 21 years went by.  

We now perform almost any and all yacht system repairs and installations.  Sailboat rigging repair takes up much of our time, but carpentry, interiors, electronics, plumbing and electrical systems get worked in as needed.  I (Mike), after a long career as a wood butcher, became an ABYC Master Marine Technician with certificates in Marine Systems, Marine Electrical Systems, and Marine Corrosion.  Winston grew up in Annapolis. A sailor since weaning, he’s built and maintained rigs for decades and is one of the few local riggers still climbing masts without a crane.