OUR HISTORIC SITE
The late Myron Spaulding— yacht designer, boat builder, marine surveyor, sailor and symphony violinist—left his historic boatworks in charitable trust, with instructions to preserve the site as a working and living museum, to restore historically significant wooden vessels, and to teach others traditional wooden boat building skills. The Spaulding Boatworks is the oldest marina and boatyard on the historic Sausalito waterfront and one of the last remaining wooden boatyards in the San Francisco Bay Area. It has remained unchanged and in continuous use since it was built in 1951.
The plain white exterior of the Spaulding Boatworks conceals the living history that lies within. Stepping through the small door cut into the large rolling entry door, you pass back in time to the days when Sausalito was home to many boatyards building a range of wooden craft, including Bears and Birds, sailboats designed especially for the unique conditions of wind and currents on San Francisco Bay. Many of these boats are still maintained and restored at the Spaulding Boatworks today. The historic boatyard is filled with the same tools and materials Spaulding utilized during his long career, and these will continue to be used in the pursuit of the Spaulding Wooden Boat Center’s goal of demonstrating and teaching the traditional skills and values inherent in the construction and restoration of wooden boats.
