Boatbuilder Profile: Sam Devlin

Forever Underway

Legacy stitch-and-glue artist Sam Devlin is still building boats at 70 and shows little sign of slowing down.

It would be easy at first glance to not fully appreciate the boatbuilding significance of Sam Devlin’s Olympia, Washington, homestead-turned-boatshop. Rain pitter-patters through the deep green of the mossy forest. A boat transom with rudder is mounted to the flank of a venerable unpainted wood barn. A shy German shepherd approaches for a pet.

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Perhaps most importantly of all, the quirky outbuilding dubbed Goose Lodge II sits across from a babbling brook amidst sword ferns and cedar boughs. The cabin/design office hybrid is covered in nameplates from Devlin’s projects, from commercial fishing boats turned yachts like the iconic traditionalist love letter Josephine to Electric Philosophy, a 40-foot, 100 percent solar propulsion yacht launched in 2021 that cruised to Alaska and back in 2023 without a single input from shore power.

In short, Devlin’s Cascadian farmhouse styled HQ exemplifies the builder’s core design philosophy: Whimsical. Unusual. Unpredictable.

“I think that it’s really important that boats have a very strong whimsy factor,” said Devlin. He reasoned that pleasure boats specifically make little practical sense, so artistic, human, and frankly, fun elements are of fundamental value. To access the daydreams of boaters with unique character and charming lines is his goal—and superpower.

Devlin’s explanation of boatbuilding sounds more like a painter or musician: “It’s an excuse for this expression of art.”

Current Projects

Devlin’s two large barns are full of boat projects from clients. Foremost at the time of this writing was the construction of the first in a line of traditionally styled seagoing passenger canoes for the Suquamish tribe. The indigenous canoe culture of Puget Sound has rebounded over recent years, serving as an important pillar in the communities to keep their people fit and connected. The tribe approached Devlin last year and working with them will be a staple of his work for the foreseeable future. 36-foot and 19-foot versions of the canoe are also in the works.

“It’s stitch and glue, that’s my method,” Devlin explained. “It’s got a lot of shape up forward to get it as close to the original dugout shape as we can. They want something that can be built faster and more economical.”

A Surf Scoter 24, a more typical Devlin build, sits in the same barn. “This is one of my 37- or 38-year-old Surf Scoters. It’s in for repaint,” said Devlin. “It belongs to some local people. They just purchased it so we’ve stripped some hardware off and we’re going to repaint the topsides … we’ll give her a complete facelift and she’ll go out looking like pretty much a new boat.” The little overnighter is an outboard model. With an enclosed head, she’s designed to be an ideal couples’ cruiser. However, when looking for a Surf Scoter, Devlin points out that one should double check the features before knowing exactly what one is looking at.

“I’m not clever enough to come up with a lot of different names for these,” explained Devlin. “The [Surf Scoter] boat we’re building now is really very different than the boat that’s in the shop. Very different. But I … for whatever reason, I haven’t renamed each of the designs as I’ve moved forward as a separate entity. I’ve kind of carried the name through. That probably makes it very confusing for our customer base, but you know that’s the reality … I’ve always been really big on the idea of evolving a boat.”

Another boat sat in the barn, this one a Candlefish 18—another Devlin mainstay. The boat is owned by a Rhode Island-based customer and is ready for final primer before painting. It’s going to be outfitted with a 60-horsepower outboard and a removable house. Devlin explained the Candlefish platform—which true to Devlin form comes in a variety of sizes and layouts, including center console—was inspired from local fishing boats he admired as a kid.

“Great boats,” said Devlin, barely concealing a fatherly pride.

Origin Story

Sam Devlin did not come from a boatbuilding or “yachty” family. The Oregon native and University of Oregon alum started seriously engaging with boats when working on commercial Alaskan tugs to pay his way through college.

“In 1974 I was working on an old tugboat, the Amak,” related Devlin. He was off watch in the galley sipping coffee “that really wasn’t coffee” when he cracked open the debut issue of Wooden Boat magazine. “I remember musing to myself that that would be an interesting thing to do.”

Devlin also attributes his boat designer origin to his 1970s Pacific Northwest surroundings, namely the disillusionment from the “mainstream” coming off the Vietnam War and the shakeup between many people and The Establishment.

“You didn’t have to follow a conventional path,” he said. “There wasn’t as much pressure to do that. Choosing this goofy little notion that I can make wooden boats wasn’t abhorrent. When I told my folks, I think I’m going to build wooden boats, they didn’t go oh, you’re crazy. Or you’re stupid. There just wasn’t that approach to things.”

His life in those days was a blend of sea-salted Alaska gigs on tugboats and an aborted crabbing season in Kodiak that ended with him sleeping on a fellow deckhand’s bus and spontaneously securing an early boatbuilding deal. His construction industry dad also ordered a boat and the two fell into the stitch and glue process together in the younger Devlin’s first Eugene, Oregon, shop.

Wood, and specifically plywood, grabbed his attention. The regional availability and versatility of the material appealed to Devlin. He and his dad figured out the first boat in a self-taught fashion, leading to a major epiphany: an improvised plywood gluing and bail wire stitching construction method that turned out to be a breakthrough.

“By God, it worked,” said Devlin. “So a couple of hours later, we had this little boat stitched up and ready for gluing. And it looked like a boat. And the feedback was almost instantaneous. The joy of seeing the boat shape as almost the first part of the process was visceral.”

Devlin immediately realized the potential of this method. “We can build giant boats with this,” he said. “That scope of versatility—of being able to scale up and down was tremendous.” The adhesives, fabrics and computers of today may be different, but the core building process from that day with his father remains the same. “What still blows me away even today, after 46 years, is it’s very, very, very similar to what we originally did.”

Leaving a Legacy

Succinctly summarizing Devlin’s decades of largely custom boat projects is impossible. One of his larger, go-to-Alaska style motor trawler designs was the 45-foot Sockeye, which had a production run of three hulls. A 52-foot custom pleasure boat called Moon River is another one of his yacht builds. He has even worked on the commercial side building ferry boats. For Devlin, shop size has always been the limiting factor. He has been operating on his own land for the last eight or so years and that’s working out just fine.

Devlin was a few weeks shy of 70 years old at the time of this writing, but the chronically early riser had no plans of slowing down. “I’ve always got an interesting mix of custom design work and servicing,” he said. “I’ve written a couple of books and I’ve done some magazine writing; I wouldn’t be accused to sitting around too much.”

Devlin owns several boats and his newest acquisition is a focus of his life. Puffin is a 47-foot, Bill Garden-designed double ender that Devlin plans to take on a leisurely four-month cruise to and from Alaska this summer. He knew Garden personally and has always been inspired by his work.

“I’ve gone back and forth to Alaska probably a dozen times, but I want to do this so it’s not a delivery trip,” said Devlin. “Not what I call a blitzkrieg trip where I’m dashing up and dashing back. I really want to try to take the time to see if I can slow down and see if I can really appreciate that area where I worked 50 some years ago and enjoyed so much at that time. I’ve always been a worker. I want to try to not work so much. We’ll see how that goes.”

In addition to this reflective northerly cruise across formative waters on a boat designed by one of his artistic influences, Devlin spoke of his two sons, Mackenzie and Cooper. Mackenzie diligently worked on the Surf Scoter in the barn while Devlin reflected: “My dream would be that we can figure out a way to keep it [Devlin Designing Boat Builders] going past my energies. I flirted with the idea of retiring, but I’ve pretty much discarded that. I like my work, I like doing what I do and hope that I can just do it until the last day I drop.”

This article originally appeared in the June/July 2024 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.