Every summer, Paul Curran and Jill Walsh from Oak Bluffs haul their Bahamian Sloop, Mary Eleanor, onto the railway at Gannon and Benjamin in Vineyard Haven.

More than 80 people gathered at Gannon and Benjamin Marine Railway in Vineyard Haven Saturday for the launch of Nat Benjamin’s 100th design, a custom 26-foot, gaff-rigged sloop called Marta.

On Saturday Ted Box launched The Seeker. The event stopped traffic as passers-by watched a historical event in the making.

A flock of mallards quacked outside and a small wood stove crackled from within Rick Brown’s boat workshop on Lagoon Pond in Vineyard Haven, where he was sanding an oar and preparing to replace the ribs of a 14-foot wooden wherry.

Situated on its familiar corner of the Lagoon Pond in Vineyard Haven, Maciel Marine holds a respected place in the long history of boatbuilding on the Vineyard.

The craft of building, restoring and loving wooden boats was celebrated Thursday, Nov. 10, at the Vineyard debut of the movie Wood Sails Dreams screened at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Society in Vineyard Haven. The one-hour documentary is a New England coastal story and it is a Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket story.

Ted Box of Vineyard Haven hopes to launch his 70-plus-foot schooner, a scow, in June. The building of the wooden boat in full view on a vacant lot of the Boch property off Beach Road is visually arresting. The boat building project began over a year ago and is picking up pace.

Gannon and Benjamin Marine Railway, a well-known boatbuilding operation on Beach Road in Vineyard Haven, has a new partner. Ross Gannon and Nat Benjamin have been running the boatyard since 1980 and together have built 50 wooden boats and a far-ranging reputation in preserving the heritage of wooden boat building.

Now, Brad Abbott, who has worked day to day in the shop for nearly two years, has joined with the two in running the business.

The story of the building of the schooner Charlotte is a true Vineyard tale. Tonight at 7 p.m. the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival will open the weekend’s festivities with a documentary about the building of this wooden boat.

The film is called Charlotte. But the title feels too narrow for it is far more than a story about one big sailboat or one beloved boatyard. It is the story of a people and a community with a love of the sea.

Tom Dunlop will speak about his new book Schooner: Building a Wooden Boat on Martha’s Vineyard at the Chilmark Public Library on Wednesday, Sept. 8 at 5:30 p.m.

Cruising World, in its June 2010 issue wrote: “It was the most festive launch in more than a generation: the christening of Rebecca of Vineyard Haven, a 60-foot, 76,000-pound schooner designed and built, plank on frame, at the Gannon & Benjamin Marine Railway, one of the leading traditional boatbuilding yards on the U.S. continent.