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Homan Hollock handcrafts wood kayaks, paddleboards, and canoes at his home in Denton, Md. After working on and around boats for all his 81 years, he now creates what he loves most.
With the care and precise craftsmanship, he puts into these beauties, he only asks back the cost of his materials; $600 for a kayak; $500 for a paddleboard which includes the paddle. “I’m not in it for the money,” he jokes, “I do it to keep standing up.”
Homan grew up in Oxford, Md, where his father was an avid boatsman. “I was always boating or working on boats with my dad,” he says.
Homan moved from Oxford to Easton and then Caroline County, where he has lived for 25 years. Before retiring, Homan built marine construction docks, bulkheads, bridges and worked on tugboats. He helped build the Kent Narrows Bridge. He started building paddleboards after he had bought some for his niece and great-grand-nephew and realized he could make them himself and sell them. His family comes every summer for a few weeks, and they all enjoy boating together.
When he makes a kayak or a paddleboard, he cuts all the pieces out from 4 mm Okoume, a type of African Mahogany wood used in boat building. Then he wires all the pieces together, epoxies them inside and out, then pulls the wires out. He then adds fiberglass to the entire structure.
For his own boating pleasure, he built an 18-foot console boat with a power motor on it. But that type of boat won’t be available for customers - for now he sticks to building smaller boats.
In the back of his house is a “show room” where he has 3 paddleboards and one kayak ready for new homes. Each one weighs about 40 pounds. His next project is a canoe.
