Artemis, a 31-foot sloop built at Gannon & Benjamin, earned the 2017 title for Best Traditional New Build from Classic Boat Magazine.

The Irish green hull of Artemis, a 31-foot gaff-rigged sloop designed by Nat Benjamin, was showered with bubbly Friday and launched.

Nat Benjamin opened the Sail MV winter lecture series, talking about his 2014 voyage to Haiti aboard his schooner Charlotte to deliver supplies and donations to an orphanage on Ile a Vache, a small island off Haiti.

The Gannon and Benjamin boatyard on the Vineyard Haven harbor was the scene of a festive launch Monday for a new design created by the venerable wooden boat yard. The Sheldrake is a gaff sloop daysailer and Nat Benjamin’s 85th original design.

Nat Benjamin’s Juno and Ross Gannon’s Eleda placed first in their class at the Caribbean regatta held over the weekend. Races concluded Monday. Eleda also won the Arne Frisell Prize for greatest attention to structural integrity and safety.

When Nat and Pam Benjamin and their two-year-old daughter Jessica sailed into Vineyard Haven Harbor in 1972, Nat wondered aloud to his family, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a boatyard to fix up some of the wrecks around here and maybe build some new boats?”

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 year was 1978, and Martha’s Vineyard confronted a big decision about its character. It could take a big step toward becoming part of generic America or fight to maintain its individuality.

A property had come up for sale on Vineyard Haven harbor, and the multi-national purveyor of junk food, McDonald’s, was lined up to build its 5,110th restaurant on it.

Winter is the ideal season when wood shavings fly, drills and sanders sing and Vineyard boat builders assemble and repair boats.

At one of the Island’s smallest boat shops, Rick Brown of Far Cry Boats in Vineyard Haven is working on two. Space is a premium inside his 15 by 36-foot workshop with limited heat. His fragrant shop is at Maciel Marine, next door to John Thayer’s cabinet shop, and has one of the best views of Lagoon Pond. The air smells of fresh-cut oak.