Professional BoatBuilder

3 days ago | proboat.com | Aaron Porter

Reading the Small PrintEasily stored in a garage or closet and transportable on a bicycle, surfboards are some of the simplest buoyant watercraft on the market today. But as any haiku poet or headline writer can attest, it’s a mistake to equate simple with easy. Getting the little things right can be just as challenging and gratifying as solving the complex equations.

2 weeks ago | proboat.com | Aaron Porter

Until recently the pursuit of sustainability has set any boatbuilders who subscribe to it on a rough and somewhat lonely path. Since the dawn of series-built composite boat production in the 1940s, our industry focus has been on manufacturing efficiency and the durability of the vessels we create. As new technologies allowed onboard systems to become more affordable and efficient, they have, in many applications, become more powerful and complex.

1 month ago | proboat.com | Aaron Porter

Recycling end-of-life composite boats or the production waste from composite boat building has been a subject of interest at IBEX and Professional BoatBuilder during the past decade. As with many emerging materials and processes, we started with experimental projects and proof-of-concept prototypes including the promising potential for composites made from thermoplastic resin to be recycled.

2 months ago | proboat.com | Aaron Porter

In this age of relentless automation, even boatbuilding is subject to tech-driven change as everything from components assembly and supply-chain management to service scheduling and systems diagnostics are being entrusted to algorithms and glitchy software. The results are decidedly mixed. To my eye, new builds are neither more timely, nor of consistently superior quality compared to historical norms. And boat operations are not reliably easier or safer based on technological advances alone.

2 months ago | proboat.com | Aaron Porter

As the tides of editorial staff and contributors at Professional BoatBuilder ebbed and flowed through my two decades with magazine, I’ve been grateful that one of the constants in our lineup is Technical Editor Steve D’Antonio. In the publishing world, where judgement and depth of experience matter, Steve excels at both. That’s why he’s my last consult at the end of any trade show we attend together.