The Maine Boat Builders Show in Portland drew large crowds on all three days, March 14-16. With everything imaginable from old hand tools to start building a traditional wood boat to a 40' fiberglass motor yacht that could be launched into Portland Harbor from the show’s site if that’s what you had to have on that day.

The sprawling Portland Yacht Services facility is a cavernous interconnected 19th-century industrial building museum in itself. Small engines, monster engines, new bark canoes, 100-year-old canvas canoes, reclaimed bronze hardware, rare nautical books, old gadgets, new gadgets, maps, life rafts … and there were 180 exhibitors.