Philip C. Bolger has been a designer for much of his long life, and a prolific one at that... he has literally hundreds of plans available. Eschewing the modern, on-line world, he works and interacts by mail and mostly fax . He doesn't have a catalog online (or even in paper, I believe). The preferred method seems to be sending him a fax describing what you want and he'll send you a listing and short description of various designs that he feels will meet your needs.

He also takes custom design work, but currently seems to have a large backlog.

Anyway, on to the book... Mr. Bolger has published several books of plans, of which this is one. It is a collection of 75 plans ranging from small rowing craft to fairly large voyagers, from sail to power. One near constant is that his designs are a bit unconventional. Mr. Bolger is known for his "slab sided" and flat-bottomed (with a "shoe") keel craft, but there are some much more traditional designs included. Each design has a commentary describing the plan, and often some background about how it came to be.

Many of these plans are re-published articles from various periodicals that Mr. Bolger contributed to over the years, including Small Boat Journal and WoodenBoat Magazine.

There are basic tables of offsets and line plans given for most (all?) of the plans, but you best have good ideas and a good bit of experience to build straight from what's in the book.

Regardless, I enjoyed reading his writing, seeing a wide variety of craft, and learning more of what I liked and didn't.

Also check out the Bolger group(s) on Yahoo! for more of his design work.

Plans: Mr. Philip C. Bolger, P.O. Box 1209, Gloucester, MA, 01930, Fax: (978) 282-1349