Founded in 1967, CABBS brings together people who share a passion for building, sailing, paddling, and motoring in boats. Visitors are always welcome at CABBS activities.
Let’s start with this year’s kid’s model boat, a sailing catamaran designed by Jerry Priebe. The CABBS kid’s boatbuilding workshop is a legendary feature of the boat show. CABBS members led by program director Mike...
Attending the Richardson Boat Owners Rendezvous Hop aboard shipmates as we head to Lockport, New York where we board Heidi for a 140 mile trip on the Erie Canal. Our destination is the Richardson...
You didn’t need the fastest boat but it helped. During the 1920’s, Prohibition outlawed alcoholic beverages in the USA. But few stopped drinking. Many relied on smugglers who ran Canadian booze across the lake...
John Mikolich’s 16 ft. Swampscott dory will be seeing water soon, but exactly when he is reluctant to say. It’s been a slow but steady build process from scratch. John worked from the plans...
Presentation by: Rick Blamer, CABBS member Rick Blamer fired up his steam box and gave a live steam bending demonstration. To show how its done, he brought along a bending jig to make a...
To be competitive today a racing sailboat is not rigged with stainless steel cables. Rather it is rigged with composite cables woven from hi-tech fibers such as Kevlar®, carbon, or other proprietary molecules. Jon...
CABBS Optimist Construction Photos Long-time, big boat sailor, Frank Manley, built a strong, trim Opti using the CABBS Optimist plans and materials sourced at his neighborhood home center. He photographed his progress and donated...
Guest Speaker: CABBS Member Wes Roepke Love is blind. But to say it better, love is blinding. We know not how an invisible arrow from say the sight of auburn hair in the setting...
Our February guest speaker, Max Peterson, is a professional woodworker and amateur boatbuilder from the Pittsburgh area. He’s tried many ways to sharpen his tools to a razor’s edge. He searched for a quick...
Epoxy plays many roles in boatbuilding. It’s glue, filler, and encapsulator. This versatile material is just short of miraculous in what it can offer to make strong watertight joints. Jim Stumpf dons the sacrificial...
FEATURED SPEAKER: Amitan Bar-Even, Case Western Reserve University Robotics Club.
We’ll pick up the topic of underwater robotics and get an inside look at underwater devices and drones built by these national champions of university-level robotics competitions.
Field Trip to National Museum of the Great Lakes, Toledo
Date: February 22, 2026
Time: 10:00 am - 7:00 pm
This wonderful museum presents the maritime history of the Great Lakes from birch bark canoes to three masted schooners to thousand foot ore carriers. Our field trip price includes museum admission and a light lunch. Sign up for the trip on-line. Click on ‘SHOP’ in the menu line above and open the ‘membership’ Category. We will arrange car pooling for the trip to Toledo.
GUEST SPEAKER: Susan Taft, canoe builder. Susan has spent 40 years building extremely light-weight cedar strip canoes made for rugged canoe-camping adventures.
The CABBS Six-Hour Canoe boatbuilding class will start March 3, 2018. Over five consecutive Saturdays, you will build a boat. Interested? Follow along here.
Looking for a great boatbuilding activity for you or a young person? Take a look at our plans for building the CABBS Optimist dinghy.