26' Roberts Picnic Cruiser (2015) - RÊVERIE

This baby picnic boat is a homemade, cold molded Berry Point 26 designed by Tad Roberts, who was a naval artchitect on the Hinckley Picnic Boat. It was built over the course of 4 years by Jeff Lapratt in Florida. I had it hauled to my home port of Portsmouth, NH in Jan. 2021. The Berry Point 26 was designed to fulfill a need for a traditionally stylish, trailerable, moderately fast and capable family cruiser. She had to be shallow draft, economical to operate and simple enough for the experienced home builder or small yard to take on. These criteria originated in a discussion on the WoodenBoat design forum concerning the ideal small powerboat. Numerous hull forms were suggested and discarded as being better at one speed or sea state but to/ systo deep or slow or not economical, or just ugly.
As the new owner, I have made some improvements and continue to. A flush toilet/tank combo from Dometic is in the enclosed head replacing a port-a-potti along with discharge and pumpout capabilities. An additional fresh water tank for the toilet was located in the head. A Solbian 175 W flexible solar panel was installed in custom aluminum channels on the hardtop. The system has a new battery bank and inverter. During this process, additional fuses & breakers were added, much wiring was upgraded or run through new conduit to tidy things up. The exterior fuel filter was upgraded. The hydraulic steering lines were upgraded with high pressure Seastar lines and a full flush of the pump greatly added to maneuverability. The linkage in the throttle was adjusted to facilitate a peppier take-off when engaging into forward and to allow full opening of the throttle in the down position as it was impeded by the construction of its wood mount. The wood wheel was replaced with SS for easier handling. A new Garmin Fantom 18 Radar was installed on the front of the hardtop adding to the Garmin GPS. The boat was designed to have a sealed bilge which simply didn’t work so 2 bilge pumps were added along with 6 passive vents.