On a handful of islands in the Aegean, a small number of master shipwrights still build wooden boats the way their grandfathers did – by eye, without formal plans, shaping each vessel to the particular waters it will work. Their yards are among the last places where this knowledge is still practised rather than merely remembered.
This project follows the full arc of the craft: the selection and curing of timber, the raising of the keel and ribs, the caulking and painting, and finally the launch. Alongside the boats themselves, it records the wider world that sustains them – the fishers who depend on them, the festivals that celebrate them, and the vocabulary of a trade that has never been written down.
Between disappearance and renewal
As demand for wooden caiques has fallen and younger generations have moved away, the number of working yards has dwindled sharply. Yet there are signs of renewal: new interest in traditional sailing, heritage protection, and small workshops passing skills to a new generation of builders.
By documenting these practices while they are still alive, the project aims to keep the craft legible – a resource for shipwrights, historians, and communities working to ensure that the knowledge of the sea is not lost with the last of its masters.