If you go for an interview with Cameron Chislett, be prepared to keep up. He likes to joke. He greets prospective employees on the shop floor and then takes the stairs to his office two at a time. If they aren’t right behind him when he gets to the office, he locks the door. Steve Dalzell, Yacht Design instructor during Cameron’s time at The Landing School, sums it up in his succinct English manner “No shortage of energy”
An import from the antipodes, Cameron grew up in Durban, Sth Africa. His father, lost in a car accident when Cameron was 10, had instilled a love of boats in his son. He “hung around” the yacht club, even if he wasn’t participating. At 14 he built a small inflatable….and sold it. And built another, and sold it. A pattern he repeated.
While at high school he interned with Hard Glass Marine, the biggest local builder, employing ~ 40 building up to 30’ power cats and inflatables. At this time he hated sail and was a committed motor head. His foundations in powercats and inflatables would follow him, but with mixed success.
Cameron wasn’t always a builder of boats…he also dreamed of design, and had a stack of sketches he’d been doing since he had crayons. At high school he aced technical drawing (100%) and loved it. He always thought he’d be an architect. One day he asked the technical drawing teacher what they called an architect that drew boats. The teacher thought it might be marine architect…turned out it was naval architect. Aware there was such a job he jumped on the internet (last century !) and tried to find out more. Going to university in Southhampton didn’t appeal. You will find Cameron doesn’t like to take a long time to do anything he thinks he can do in a short time. The Landing School appealed and he applied…and was accepted into Yacht Design. But such was the timing of northern and southern hemisphere school years he bided his time with an informal apprenticeship with Hard Glass Marine after high school…as he waited to start at TLS. After two days of lamination he asked for something different and was assigned to the tooling side of the operation, where both composites and “boatbuilding” skills are valued. Somehow making the first one, and developing the product before it was in production, was more attractive than pushing a roller.
With no significant visa issues in those days, he sold up what he had and with a back pack, limited clothes (he didn’t own a jacket) and his BMX bike in a box he headed to the US of A. He’d been here before racing his BMX….but this was a new start. Mermaid Taxis from Logan after a long flight, dropped him on the side of the highway at 11pm…and he was here…or close to here.
He knew it was going to get cold but was a tough kid from South Africa – how hard could it be ? Come early October when it got to the low 40’s Jim Cuminskey said they saw him shivering in light clothes and suggested he get a jacket. “I’m good”. He’d not seen snow before coming to ME. He did get a jacket.
He took Yacht Design in the class of 2000/2001. That was the last year of Walter Whales, with the later classes lead by Jim Cuminskey, with Cy Hamlin making a weekly appearance, as well as more “guest lectures” from the likes of Eric Sponburg, Roger Martin, and Donald Blount. He had a great breadth of experience and ideas in front of him. Eric spoke at length about unstayed masts. Cy, whose portfolio might have leaned towards the commercial craft, gave him wonderful insight into powerboat design, which was where he thought he was headed. However it was at TLS that he was introduced to sailing and became a convert. A few of his classmates (Ross Weene and Eli Slater) were building their own stitch and glue plywood Cape Cod Frosty – at 6’4” one of the smallest racing yachts you could imagine. Another student had abandoned his attempt and rather than throw it away Cameron seized the opportunity, finished it, and then learned how to sail. While he has had a business in powerboats since, he still has a passion for sail. His current “project boat” is the refit of a lifting bulb keel to a Mirage 338
He returned in 2001/2002, as a TA (teaching assistant) under Steve Dalzell, who must have wondered what teaching assistants did. Cameron didn’t get much time to assist with teaching…..as he had a project. In a tent erected in the carpark he set about designing and building the first composite boat at The Landing School. This was a 20’ robust center console workboat for General Marine, just down the road in Biddeford, Maine.
He actually built the hull plug from which they took a mold which is still in use today. The plug was constructed in the “bead and cove” strip planked method, over male frames, using Corecell not cedar or pine. This new fangled “soft stuff” was being promoted by Eric Heilshorn, a 1991/1992 YD graduate, and with fiberglass skins inside and out, produced a light, stiff shell without the need for a full mold.
This was a major solo effort which meant teaching wasn’t high on the priority list. General Marine did send in a crew for the bigger glassing days, but Cameron “owned” the fairing (it’s been the “sanding” school of boatbuilding for some time !).
He followed the boat to General Marine for six months, but after three years in the cold, was drawn to Florida, where he got a job in the (then) small team at Applied Concepts Unleashed, under Steve French. Here he learned the importance of scketching, while also getting up to speed with AutoCad, as he worked on a range of “Carolina style” 38-85’ sportsfishers, in both cold molded wood and fiberglass. Despite not having a formal naval architecture degree, he understood how small boats, not ships, were designed and built. He started on interiors, which is a field unto itself. But given the breadth of background he’d had in the Yacht Design course he soon found himself building hull models and tank testing in Hoboken, NJ. The year he spent in this “full service” design house really helped Cameron crystalize his plans for the future….and they didn’t include Florida.
In 2003 he formed Chislett’s Boating and Design, moved back to NE, and started to earn a crust generating CNC files and undertaking small design contracts on his own. Of course hanging up your own shingle is tough at first, so he worked a 4 day/40 hr week with General Marine, and then three full days on his own jobs. During this time he developed the “MonoCat” design, built a prototype and then tooling…and couldn’t sell them ! Powercat’s were big in South Africa. His 24’ x 8’-6” trailerable asymmetrical hull cat, with a nacelle or “nose” in the forward sections of the wetdeck that gave it the appearance of a monohull from some angles, rode “like a magic carpet”. Twin 90 hp outboards would push it along easily at 35 mph. But, as Cameron learnt, people buy what they know, and the NE market wasn’t ready for this sort of departure from the tried and true monohull.
In 2006, after a few years working in the shadow of General Marine, he moved south to Portsmouth, NH and a 3600 sqr ft facility (with additonal tents in the car park !). This enabled him to build production composite parts for other boatbuilders, and to survive the 2008 downturn. Five years ago, after buying the Maritime Boats brand and business from Kenway Corp, they moved again to the present 12,000 sqr ft facility in Dover. Here they produce a range of center console designs from 15-25’ under both the Noreast and Maritme brands.
They are all infused fiberglass, with a combination of single skin, Soric, and foam cores. There is not a chopper gun in sight (although he may acquire one for a particularly heavy larger tool currently in plug stage). In house kitsets are cut on the 4 axis CNC table, and the shop, while small (and crowded…his Mirage project boat has found a corner) is very well organized. You can see evidence everywhere of Cameron’s no nonsense approach. Vacuum bag consumables are on a set of rolls on the wall, so they can be rolled off (with a counter) and then moved directly to the tool without damaging the film in the process. The CNC machine is housed in a “ballistic” box to contain errant tools. The office space is functional, not flash.
His work with the non-leisure market has added another dimension to the business capabilities. They are now dialed in to the appropriate level of documentation and QA systems necessary to win them contracts with the US government. As a sub-contractor they have been delivering high performance smaller craft to the navy, boats you won’t see on their website. Underway at the moment is tooling for a >34’ model, a project which illustrates Cameron’s innovative and cost effective take on anything he tackles. Rather than farming out the machining of the plug to someone with a bigger CNC footprint, he has developed a system for utilizing his 4’ x 8’ machine. The male building jig, of CNC cut plywood frames at close spacing, is “tiled” with bocks of CNC cut high density PU foam tooling board. These have all been CNC cut to shapes generated from the 3D model…and fit together like a glove despite the numerous chines and strakes which need to be aligned fair.
Cameron is a long time supporter of The Landing School, and serves on the Program Advisory Committee (PAC).Despite nearly 20 years since he was in class he still maintains the students should get taught “everything I learned….and more”.This year he is putting the school to the ultimate test – he has employed Kevin Rickon (Composites 2017/2018 & Yacht Design 2018/2019).Six months in and it looks like a good fit.Kevin is learning to work at Cameron’s pace, but still thinks he’ll have time for a “project boat”. He has just purchased an Atlantic 30’ one design classic sloop.Given that it was at a price a recent graduate could afford, it will definitely fit in the category of “needs TLC but will reward the effort by being a true classic”. He could do a lot worse than to tackle this under the tutelage of Cameron, who has no shortage of energy.