Wooden Boat Show 2026
Craftsmanship, Hospitality and New Beginnings
The Master Mariners Wooden Boat Show brought the fleet to Corinthian Yacht Club in Tiburon on June 21 for a day celebrating wooden boats and the people who care for them. The awards recognized fine craftsmanship, patient restoration and the work of keeping these vessels sailing. Behind the show was another shared effort: making room for visiting boats and welcoming their owners and the public.
In a note after the weekend, Randall von Wedel thanked everyone who had worked to make the show a success. He singled out Corinthian’s board, members and staff, especially Commodore Marcus Canestra and Cassidy Ratiani. At the annual members meeting the evening before the show, Gena Egelston had also thanked Randall and Neil Gibbs for arranging the weekend, while Craig Swayne acknowledged Corinthian members who moved their boats to accommodate the visiting fleet.
That hospitality helps make the show possible. For Master Mariners, the gathering is a chance to share the boats with a wider community and support the Master Mariners Benevolent Foundation’s work preserving wooden vessels and traditional skills. For Corinthian, it brings the wooden boat community to its own docks—and, this year, there was news of a wooden sailing boat joining its fleet.
Randall’s June email highlighted the classic Bird boat Grey Goose, recently acquired by young Corinthian member Miles Daly. He described her arrival as the return of a wooden sailing boat to the club’s fleet after roughly a decade without one, following the sale of its last original wooden Knarrs and two Farallon Clippers. It was an encouraging example of a younger sailor taking on the care of a classic boat, and a reminder that this tradition depends on new owners as well as longtime hands.
Restoration was also part of the weekend’s welcome for new Master Mariners member David Schwartz. At Saturday’s meeting, David described about two and a half years of work on Queen of the Coast and her recent sailing on San Francisco Bay. The following day, she received the Corinthian Trophy for Best Owner Maintained.
Honors for the Fleet
Encore, owned by Bert Damner, received the Stone Cup for Best in Show. Alongside Queen of the Coast’s owner-maintenance award, Neil Gibbs received the Al Lutz Alma Trophy for Best Preservation Effort. Visitors chose Mark Sanders’s Hurrica V for the People’s Choice award.
The inaugural Nunes Trophy for Best Small Craft under 25 feet went to Velerosa, owned by Hans Hansen and Mark Harris. Introduced by KC Crowell at the annual meeting, the trophy honors the Nunes boatbuilding tradition in Sausalito and gives the fleet’s smaller classics a place of their own in the awards.
The trophy also carries a small mystery. Its Bear Boat half-hull model has an uncertain history, and KC invited anyone who recognizes it to help establish its provenance. Even a new award can open a conversation about the boats and people who came before us.
Honorable mentions were announced for Wiletie, Hummingbird, Random and Annie O. Congratulations to the winners and to everyone who brought a boat to share.
The show’s lasting value lies in those connections: owners carrying out restorations, younger sailors taking up the work, volunteers arranging a welcome, and a host club making space for the fleet. Our thanks to Corinthian Yacht Club and to all the members, staff and volunteers whose work brought the weekend together.