About Us
Wooden Yacht Restoration, Traditional Boatbuilding & Long-Term Care
The Work Has Always Come First
For more than three decades, Snediker Yacht Restoration has specialized in the construction, care and restoration of wooden boats and yachts. The shops have changed. The scale of the projects has grown. The standard of the work has remained remarkably consistent.
Snediker’s roots reach back to 1988, when David Snediker and Bill Taylor established Taylor & Snediker in southeastern Connecticut. The early shop was modest by any measure — at one point little more than a timber frame covered in plastic — but the work taking place inside it was anything but.
Boats were built and restored using the traditional skills David had developed as a shipwright, along with an increasingly deep understanding of how wooden vessels were designed, constructed and meant to perform. Much of the work was done by hand. Pieces were fitted carefully. Details that would eventually disappear beneath decks, paint or joinery were given the same attention as those that would remain visible.
That approach became the foundation of the company.
Built Around the Boats
As the projects became larger and more complex, the business grew with them.
The original Pawcatuck shop remained the center of Taylor & Snediker’s work for decades. When Bill Taylor retired, David continued the company as Snediker Yacht Restoration, carrying forward both the traditional boatbuilding knowledge and the standards established through years of working together.
Later, the restoration of DORIS, the 1905 Herreshoff cutter, required something considerably larger. The Old Mystic shop was created to accommodate a project of that scale and today serves as Snediker’s primary facility for major yacht restoration.
The contrast between the early photographs and the present shop is considerable. The philosophy behind them is not.
Attention Where It Matters
Traditional wooden yacht restoration is often a process of working through details that few people will ever see.
A frame has to land correctly. A plank has to lie fairly. A fastening must belong where it is placed. A repair must work structurally while respecting the construction around it. Sometimes the most consequential decisions in a restoration disappear entirely once the boat is put back together.
That is why Snediker’s emphasis has never been simply on finish.
Quality begins much earlier — in understanding the boat, choosing the appropriate repair, selecting the material, making the fit and being willing to take the time necessary to get it right.
A Tradition of Handwork
While equipment, materials and techniques evolve, much of wooden boatbuilding remains remarkably tactile.
A shipwright learns through the hands as much as the eyes: feeling whether a surface is fair, reading grain, fitting pieces incrementally, understanding when something is right before it becomes permanent.
Those skills are difficult to separate from experience. They accumulate project by project and are passed from one craftsperson to another in the shop.
Snediker has intentionally remained a relatively small operation, allowing experienced members of the crew to stay closely connected to the boats they work on and to the decisions made throughout a project.
Preserving More Than Material
Historic yachts rarely arrive exactly as they were built.
They carry repairs, alterations, new systems, old damage and generations of decisions. Some changes are worth preserving. Others obscure the original design or compromise the structure. Often the boat itself contains evidence that no drawing or written history records.
Understanding that evidence is an important part of restoration.
Snediker approaches each yacht individually, considering its design, construction, surviving material, provenance, condition and intended future use before determining the appropriate course of work.
The objective is not simply to make an old boat look new.
It is to understand what should remain, what needs to change and how the work being done today becomes part of the yacht’s continuing history.
Still the Same Work
Today, Snediker Yacht Restoration works from its shops in Pawcatuck and Old Mystic on vessels ranging from small Herreshoff yachts to major historic restorations.
The surroundings are different from those visible in these early photographs. The boats may be larger. The research can be more extensive. The projects can span years rather than months.
But the work still comes down to much the same things:
Knowing the material. Understanding the boat. Making careful decisions. And paying attention to the part in front of you.