The Soundings’ staff pick for photo of the week is this shot of a Pulsifer Hampton by Onne van der Wal. He took the image in a shed at Clark Boat Yard & Marine Works in Jamestown, Rhode Island, as the boat awaited the coming of spring.
The Pulsifer Hampton is an enduring design that has survived for more than a century, tweaked and modified by builders along the way.
For more than 40 years, Dick Pulsifer hand-built his version, the Pulsifer Hampton, in Brunswick, Maine, turning out 113 hulls. Long before Pulsifer started producing the design, Charlie Gomes built Hampton boats for a half-century on Maine’s Casco Bay, beginning with sailing models in 1902. An inboard engine soon replaced the sails, and the Hampton became an ideal motorboat for fishing. With a spray hood, the boat could venture out safely in nearly any kind of weather.
Many experienced boaters have said the same about Pulsifer’s version. The 22-footer’s round-bilge, built-down hull has a plumb bow, a fine entry and a flat stern. Also inboard-powered, a 29-hp Yanmar diesel delivers an 11-knot cruising speed. Dick Pulsifer’s strip-plank construction didn’t change much over the years. Oak was used for the backbone, floor timbers, frames and deck beams, with white pine for the planking and floorboards.
Pulsifer built his last boat in 2017 and transferred the business to former employee and co-worker John Lentz in January 2018. “It’s a well-built boat that was developed for Casco Bay,” Lentz told Soundings that year. “It’s the perfect boat for the area.”
