A client in Connecticut contacted me asking if I could do a restoration of their family’s Peterborough runabout, a small motorboat built in the 1950s. It required some deck repair, knee replacements and the largest items was an entirely new transom. Plus the varnish and bottom paint needed to be completely renewed.

Peterborough is a venerable Canadian builder of mainly strip-planked rowboats and small , outboard-powered motorboats in Peterborough, Ontario. They were active through the first half of the Twentieth Century. I had earlier restored a Peterborough rowboat so I was familiar with the construction.

The knees, transom and all framing in the boat are white oak. I carefully removed the transom and used it as a pattern for the replacement. I replaced bad planks in the red cedar foredeck and then sanded and revarnished throughout. These are lightly built boats but if the owner operates it prudently it should give another generation of his family enjoyment.