The Boat Shops

 The renowned local style of wooden boat building, as practiced by its famed craftsmen in Osterville, the Crosby family, is traced through four adjoining Boat Shops.  Each shop is unique in its offerings, housing full-sized boats, antique tools and boating artifacts.

 

 

•  The original Herbert F. Crosby boat shop, circa 1855, resides at the Museum, complete with tools and a catboat shown in mid-construction.

• An adjoining shop features the Museum’s extensive collection of Crosby designed half models, used as guides for building boats, and two rare “hawk nests” designed by Oliver Hinckley, another Osterville boat builder who produced a large number of coastal schooners.  A Crosby catboat, the Cayuga, is also on display.

• Photographs chronicling the development of boat building in Osterville are housed in yet another shop that is home to the Sonata, a Crosby lapstrake dinghy.

• The largest shop contains a Wianno Senior and a Wianno Junior, two vintage one-design local racing classes, a photo exhibit and a Vernon Coleman mural. An open shed shelters the Frances, a 1968 fully restored Crosby catboat.