Browsing: #picnicboat

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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Martha Stewart’s Picnic Boat

It’s not a surprise that Martha Stewart, the doyenne of good taste in the United States for the past 30 years, owns an iconic Hinckley Picnic Boat. Indeed, she’s owned it for almost that long. The 36-foot-long Picnic Boat was the first boat Stewart ever owned, and she says “I learned how to drive it right from the get-go. It was the perfect size for me.” Stewart, if anything, is a hands-on person. After all, she won fame and fortune and created a media empire by showing the rest of us how to do things. Born 82 years ago in…

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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Iconic Hinckley Picnic Boat Turns 30

The late-morning fog had just lifted when I climbed on board Dasher, the just-launched hull number one of the Hinckley Picnic boat with Shep McKenney, the chairman of the company. A few lobster boats passed by the Hinckley dock in Southwest Harbor, Maine, as we cast off; he said their lines had inspired his idea for the boat. The Picnic Boat was a gamble for Hinckley. The company was suffering from the lasting effects of the 1990 luxury tax, which had decimated the recreational boating industry in the U.S. And the sailboat market, which had been Hinckley’s main business since…