‘Meet the Boat Builders’ panel kicks off Greenport Maritime Festival week

Greenport’s maritime history will be celebrated this weekend – but its current place as a boatbuilding hub takes center stage a few days earlier, before the village is swarmed by modern-day swashbucklers.

Four veteran East End boatbuilders will headline a Times Review Talks discussion Wednesday on the craft, skill and problem-solving behind designing, building and restoring boats on the North Fork.

The panel for the “Meet the Boat Builders” event — which will run from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Wooden Boatworks’ shop in Southold – features Shelter Islander John Needham, Patrick Brennan, Anders Langendal and Paul Gartside.

The foursome followed very different paths into boatbuilding, design and restoration.

Brennan, Greenport Village’s deputy mayor, trained as an architect and builder before turning to boat restoration with Wooden Boatworks, which operates the Southold shop where Wednesday’s discussion will take place.

Langendal began learning the trade as a teenager in Sweden before coming to the East End, where he eventually passed the craft on to his sons.

Gartside grew up in his parents’ boatyard in Cornwall, England, and today designs and builds boats from a small shop in East Hampton. His career has taken him from England to Canada and the United States, and he continues to design boats for clients around the country.

Needham spent decades building, repairing and restoring boats at Coecles Harbor on Shelter Island.

“I’ve been in ‘the game’ for my whole career,” Mr. Needham told The Suffolk Times ahead of the event. “I love learning. I love being on the water — except during hurricanes or nor’easters. I am primarily on the repair and maintenance end of the business. My brother, Peter, is the creative and driving force of our building program.”

He said working alongside the yard’s craftsmen and women remains one of the most rewarding parts of the job.

“Seeing the finished product roll out of the building and get launched never gets old,” Mr. Needham said, “as well as seeing the proud owner beaming at his new vessel and the adventures ahead.”

Wednesday’s discussion will focus on the work itself — how the four got into an unusual trade, how boats are designed and built, memorable projects, difficult problems they have had to solve and what they still enjoy about the craft after years of doing it.

It is also expected to steer through Greenport’s evolution from a whaling and shipbuilding center to the concentration of marine trades and boatbuilding talent that remains there today.

Wooden Boatworks also operates from the historic Hanff’s Boatyard on Sterling Street in Greenport, tying Brennan’s work directly to that boatbuilding tradition.

Among the projects expected to come up is a complicated sailboat repair Gartside and Brennan worked on together that required replacing a heavy keel without tearing apart the boat’s interior.

The moderated discussion will be followed by questions from the audience.

Tickets for the event, held at 2700 Hobart Road in Southold, are $25.

The talk — sponsored by Suffolk Security, Stony Brook Eastern Long Island Hospital, First and South and North Ferry — comes days before Friday’s kickoff of the 36th annual Greenport Maritime Festival.

The Land & Sea Gala, held at Mitchell Park this year, begins at 6 p.m. and will feature food and drink from local restaurants, music and dancing. General admission is $125. The annual fundraiser benefits the East End Seaport Museum in Greenport.

The celebration continues Saturday and Sunday throughout the village with the Maritime Parade, live music, food and craft vendors, family activities and maritime demonstrations.

The popular parade steps off at 11 a.m. Saturday, while weekend events also include community rowing, an oyster-shucking contest and the traditional cardboard boat races.

Saturday and Sunday festival activities are free.