The last century saw the introduction of two technologies destined to change wooden boatbuilding forever. The first was epoxy bonding. By making marine glue joints practical, epoxy bonding changed boat joinery as radically as electric-arc welding changed steel fabrication. The second new technology is computer aided drafting and cutting. From a numerical model of the subject vessel, the loftsmans computer programs produce files depicting the true shapes of a boat's parts--quickly, accurately and repeat-ably. Computer aided drafting replaces the painstaking approximations of traditional lofting. Computer-controlled cutting machines can use the files to automatically produce actual parts from planar materials, such as plywood, at little more than material cost.It is the message of Capt. Nat's New Boat that although today's boat builders have become familiar with epoxy and computerized lofting, these new technologies are far from fully exploited. Capt. Nat's New Boat describes Sanford Boat Company's nine innovations that will transform today's cold molded hull into a stringer-built boat. Sanford's stringer-built boat begins with the realization that the diagonal layers of a cold molded shell structurally replace traditional frames, leaving the builder free to shape the hull and stiffen its shell with easy to form stringers. The other eight proceed from there. The result is a boat offering the strength and beauty of traditional wood construction combining indefinite longevity with lower cost. If you are a lover of wood boats or are thinking of buying one, read Capt. Nat's New Boat to discover what you can look forward to. Or, if you are a boat builder, read it and surprise your competitors. In an era when American women were expected to marry and bear children, the artist Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin (1850-1930) broke new ground. Raised in Brooklyn, New York, and decended from Nantucket Quakers, she attended Vassar College, where she became a brilliant protege of Nantucket-born Maria Mitchell, America's first woman astronomer. In the early 1870's, Coffin was among the first women accepted to the prestigious Hague Art Academy in the Netherlands. Later, she became the first person to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree in the United States. Coffin made her mark on the New York art world, becoming an early member of the Art Students League and several other important art organizations. A friend of renowned painters Thomas and Susan Eakins and William Merritt Chase, she exhibited her paintings in major exhibitions across the United States. Margaret Moore Booker is associate director and curator of the Egan Institute of Maritime Studies. She is the author of The Admiral's Academy: Nantucket Island's Historic Coffin School and has contributed numerous articles and essays to magazines and museum publications. She has lived on Nantucket since 1994