return to section: Owner and Managing Director John C. Harris manufactured some of the very first CLC kits in 1994. Long before that, he had a fascination with small boats and boatbuilding. He designed and built his first boat, a rowing shell, at age 14.
As a boatbuilder and designer, Harris’s work has been featured in almost every English-language paddling, sailing, and small boat publication, including WoodenBoat, Yachting World, Popular Mechanics, Sea Kayaker, Canoe and Kayak, Paddler, Soundings, Sailing, Cruising World, Classic Boat, Watercraft, and many more. Harris’s portfolio includes every wooden format, including strip-planking, cold-molding, carvel, lapstrake, and of course stitch-and-glue. He has taught at the esteemed WoodenBoat School in Maine since 1999, and has led scores of boatbuilding classes and workshops over the years.
As a business owner, Harris has been profiled in the Washington Post, Forbes FYI, the Washington Business Journal, Corridor Magazine, Soundings, the Baltimore Business Journal, the Baltimore Sun, and others. Chesapeake Light Craft has won many awards, including the Chamber of Commerce Small Business of the Year. Professional Boatbuilder Magazine and Chesapeake Bay Magazine featured CLC in cover articles. John recently hosted a boat design roundtable with interesting insights on the business of small wooden boats.
In 2001, Harris wrote, co-produced, and starred in a series of television shows about boatbuilding for the DIY Network, which ran for several years. Also that year, he wrote and produced a one-hour boatbuilding video for CLC, which has received rave reviews and sold thousands of copies. In 2011, the History Channel aired an episode of "Modern Marvels" featuring boatbuilding at CLC. Chesapeake Light Craft has been featured on the Today Show and the Voice of America.
Harris’s boat design work ranges widely, from dinghies to a 28-foot power catamaran used for surf tours in Nicaragua. His CLC designs include the Chesapeake 14, Eastport Pram, Pax 18, Pax 20, Sport Tandem, Skerry, Chester Yawl, West River 18, John’s Sharpie, Passagemaker Dinghy, CLC SailRig MKII, Peace Canoe, San O’ paddleboards, Mbuli, Kaholo paddleboards, Northeaster Dory, PocketShip, Madness the Proa, the Peeler Skiff, Tenderly, Jimmy Skiff II, Lighthouse Tender Peapod, and many others.
