For over 40 years Sam Devlin has been a pioneer in wooden boat building technique and a boat builder with a distinct sense of traditional style. He got there from the love he felt as a boy for boats that he shared with his Dad to his college summers in Alaskan fishing boats and tugs to his complete obsession with restoring a 1934 Tacoma built northwest salmon troller to a point where it’s even prettier today than the day it was launched and yet it retains the full heightened design sensibilities of its era.
When he independently came up with the stitch and glue building idea as a very young man he brought to it all of his heartfelt awe at the beauty of all Northwest and Northeast design legacies. Plywood, epoxy, fiberglass and sandpaper became the medium for honoring this historical design legacy and bringing wooden boat building into a new and contemporary form.
For all of us who love wooden boats Sam Devlin offers us everything necessary to create our own beautiful and contemporary boat. Many dozens of complete building plans, many hundreds of study plans and concept drawings, hundreds of boats completed at the shop and gracing waters throughout the US and Canada. And now through professional and amateur builders in over 85 countries around the world his boats are realities gracing international waterways and touching hearts everywhere.
We want you all to have the opportunity to be a part of this through our construction plans for all types of boats from 7 feet to 65 feet and through our custom builds for those who want a Devlin design built at our shop in Olympia, Washington.
This is maybe the most unique attribute of Devlin Boat Company. Sam designs and builds and then goes cruising throughout the Northwest. This combination of builder, designer, and active boater in one person brings something to his plans and boats that few other companies can offer.