Sam Chamberlin has been designing boats for Rockport Marine—a custom wooden boatbuilding and yacht restoration yard in Rockport, Maine—for 14 years, and previously spent four years building and designing boats for Brion Rieff, a builder based in Brooklin, Maine. Chamberlin’s portfolio encompasses everything from Downeast cruisers to center consoles to sailing yachts, and his job involves working closely with clients to fulfill custom design briefs. We talked with Chamberlin for some insight on his career and some of his recent projects.
When did you become interested in boat design?
I grew up in Massachusetts outside of Boston, and both of my parents’ families were in and around the water their whole lives, so I grew up with boats. I spent my summers as a kid at an island here in Maine called Isle au Haut out in Penobscot Bay. It’s very remote and there’s always a lot of back and forth to the mainland, so we always had small, open,
