Phil Bolger

Philip C. Bolger (December 3, 1927–May 24, 2009), prolific boat designer, was born and lived in Gloucester, Massachusetts. He began work full time as a draftsman for boat designers Lindsay Lord and then John Hacker in early 1950s. Bolger also cites being influenced by mentors L.F. Herreshoff, Nicholas Montgomery, Howard Chapelle and his brother Bill Bolger.

The Gloucester Light Dory, one of Bolger's better-known designs

Bolger's first boat design was a 32' sportfisherman published in the January 1952 issue of the magazine Yachting. Since then, he has designed more than 668 different boats, making him one of the most prolific boat designers of the 20th Century, from the solidly conventional to extremely innovative, from a 114 foot 10 inch replica of an eighteenth-century naval warship, the frigate Surprise (ex-Rose), to the 6 foot 5 inch plywood box-like dinghy Tortoise.

Although his designs range the full spectrum of boat types, Bolger tended to favor simplicity over complexity. Many of his hulls are made from sheet materials—typically plywood--and have hard chines. A subclass of these designed in association with Harold Payson, called Instant Boats, so named because they are intended to be easily built by amateurs out of commonly available materials. Bolger was also considered to be a modern expert in the design of the sharpie sailboat type and advocated the use of traditional sailing rigs and leeboards.

Since the 1990s, Phil Bolger teamed with his wife, Susanne Altenburger, designing boats under the name Phil Bolger & Friends Inc. During this time period they emphasized the design of sustainable and fuel efficient boats for the fishing industry. Also, they participated in a large military commission with the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, D.C. on new designs for military landing craft utility boats.

He was prolific, having written many books, the last being Boats with an Open Mind, and 550 magazine articles on their small craft designs.

He died 24 May 2009 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His wife explained that "His mind had slipped in the last several months, and he wanted to control the end of his life while he was still able."

Instant Boats

A Bolger-designed sharpie schooner, built of plywood in the "instant boat" style

In the 1980s Phil Bolger began a collaboration with Harold 'Dynamite' Payson which resulted in the design of a series easy to build plywood boats which have come to be known as Instant Boats. Unlike traditional boat construction, which involves building of jig and full size lofting of the shape of the hull prior to construction, the Instant Boat method uses expanded panels on permanent frames. This results in quicker construction and less requirement for skilled craftsmanship, and has proved appealing to amateur boat builders.

Bolger sharpies

File:AS-19 iso.png

The Bolger-designed Advanced Sharpie 19. A cat yawl designed for shallow water sailing.

Phil Bolger is well known for designing a series of single chine sharpie boats, often long and narrow, sometimes called Square Boats.

Advanced Gloucester Fisherman Project

Isometric rendering of the hull shape of the composite plywood, fiberglass and foam 70 ft x 14 ft x 3 ft draft, 25 ton displacement, 160-200 hp, 10.5 knots, capable of being owner built. The Advanced Gloucester Fisherman Project boat.

Since November 2002, Bolger and Altenberger have advocated for a re-examination of the fisheries paradigm, a paradigm presently undergoing a collapse both globally and locally in their hometown of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Their proposal centers on the principle that, especially in an era of high fuel cost and economic pressure for gentrification of depressed fishing ports, sustainable fisheries require a balance of business economics and public planning versus the available fishery resources. Key to this is a restructuring of the fishing fleet towards boats with lower complexity, lower initial cost, fuel economy and lower operating costs.

Most modern vessels are horsepower intensive concepts with often oversized drive trains that cost extra in terms of hardware, operation, repair and replacement. ... Today this is as economical and sustainable as taking a Suburban™-size SUV to the mall to buy a pair of socks.

Large expensive complex boats demand taking a high number of fish to be economic, and that simpler lower powered and lower cost boats can still be economical with lower fish catch rates. They express concern that existing governmental fishing permits are issued based on length of the fishing boat, which creates an incentive to use inefficient wide and deep fishing boat hulls. If the fishing permits were issued based instead on displacement tonnage of hull, then the incentive would be for the fishing to use long, narrow and shallow hulls which would be more economical to purchase and to operate per ton of fish caught.

The existing fishing fleet, comprised of ever larger boats with high construction costs, debt loads and operational costs, in the long run forces fishermen to search for ever increasing catch sizes to remain economic, in a fight against regulatory quotas.. Ultimately, fishermen would find it more economically sustainable to do more with less. A consolidated fleet could make it possible for fishermen to survive with lower catch rates, lower debt load, lower fuel burn, lower insurance rates and lower depreciation.

This idea is described in the September 2004 issue of the magazine National Fisherman, and again in 2007 as a series of essays published in the magazine Messing About in Boats.

External links

Bolger related websites

• Square Boats a web site dedicated to Bolger's boxy sharpies
• Philip C. Bolger a brief biography of Phil Bolger
• Instant Boats online catalogue a catalogue of the Instant Boat class of Bolger plywood boats.
• Messing About in Boats magazine Phil Bolger and Friends currently publish a regular article in the magazine Messing About in Boats.
• Yahoo! Bolger Group A Yahoo! discussion group dedicated to Phil Bolger designs
• Bolger Design Database The Bolger Yahoo! group maintains a partial listing of Bolger boat designs.
• Bolger Boats on the Web a large collection of websites with photos of Bolger Boats under construction and on the water
• Bolger Wiki A Bolger wiki website

1. Bolger small sailboats wiki.
2. Bolger rowboats wiki.
3. Bolger medium sailboat wiki.

Bolger rowboats

• Nymph Nymph, design #455

Bolger sailboats

• Sweet Pea Peapod 'Sweet Pea' design #
• Birdwatcher I Birdwatcher I
• Birdwatcher II Birdwatcher II
• Seabird'86 Seabird'86, design #525
• Superbrick Superbrick
• http://www.friend.ly.net/~dadadata/boat/bolger_maib_wb.html Schorpioen design #649, trailerable, foldable, trimaran
• Eeek! "Eeek!" An 11'9" Sailing Canoe

Bolger power boats

• Houseboat Barge Houseboat design #481
• Wyoming Wyoming #520
• Bonefish Concept, a 20"0" x 7'9" x 1"6" sportfisher with aircooled engine.

Notes and references

Bolger books

• Bolger, Philip C. (1973). Small Boats. Camden, ME: International Marine. ISBN 0-87742-036-X.
• Bolger, Philip C. (1976). The folding schooner, and other adventures in boat design. Camden, ME: International Marine. ISBN 0877420831.
• Bolger, Philip C. (1980). Different Boats. Camden, ME: International Marine. ISBN 0-87742-134-X.
• Bolger, Philip C. (1982). Thirty Odd Boats. Camden, ME: International Marine Pub. ISBN 0-87742-152-8.
• Bolger, Philip C. (1983). Bolger Boats. Camden, ME: International Marine Pub. ISBN 0-87742-168-4.
• Bolger, Philip C. (1986). Schorpioen: A novel of southern Africa. Camden, ME: International Marine Pub. ISBN 0-941997-00-6.
• Bolger, Philip C. (1994). Boats With an Open Mind. Camden, ME: International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press. ISBN 0-07-006376-1.
• Bolger, Philip C. (1998). 103 Sailing Rigs "Straight Talk". Gloucester, ME: Phil Bolger & Friends, Inc. ISBN 0-9666995-0-5.