enlarge Doug Jones/Staff Photographer

Below decks, the Island Rover will have plenty of space for crew and equipment when it is completed. Harold Arndt says he hopes to launch the schooner in 2009.

enlarge Harold Arndt has been building a steel topsail schooner in his Freeport yard for the past 13 years.

Doug Jones/Staff Photographer

TO READ MORE The Portland Public Library suggests the following reading material related to boatbuilding: • "Boat Book," by Gail Gibbons. • "Boatbuilding Down East: How to Build the Maine Lobsterboat," by Royal Lowell • "Dory Glory: Building a Boat from Stem to Stern," by Andrea Mabee • "Ralph Stanley: Tales of a Maine Boatbuilder," by Craig S. Milner and Ralph W. Stanley • "46 Boat Designs from the National Fisherman," by National Fisherman • "Wooden Boat Renovation: New Life for Old Boats Using Modern Methods," by Jim Trefethen • "Boatbuilder," by Hope Herman Wurmfeld

That was 15 years ago. Today, a 113-foot rust-streaked hull, constructed entirely of industrial scrap, rises up among the pine trees in an overgrown sheep pasture beside Arndt's house off Byram Avenue in Freeport.

As amateur boatbuilding projects go, this is about as ambitious as it gets. But Maine is a place where many people pursue boatbuilding dreams in their backyards. Alongside the centuries-long tradition of Maine craftsmen building boats and ships for sale, there is another tradition of amateurs, often gifted with time and vision but short on money and experience, setting out to build themselves a boat.

Whether it is a canoe, or, as in Arndt's case, a 110-ton vessel that is the largest ship built in Freeport in nearly a century, amateur-built boats often defy economic logic but make sense in terms of their owner's aspirations and enjoyment.

Harold "Dynamite" Payson, a 79-year-old designer of do-it- yourself boats from South Thomaston, said he has sold boat plans to people from all walks of life, from lobbyists to airline pilots. What they're all generally looking for, he said, is a sense of self-achievement, a challenge and a way to get out on the water.

"It's quite satisfying to take a board that's laying flat on the floor and doing nothing and then bend it around and all of a sudden there's the shape of a boat," he said.

Another wooden boatbuilder, Andrew Malcomb, has helped guide dozens of students through the process of building a West Greenland kayak during a four-week course he teaches at the Apprenticeshop in Bath. Malcomb said few other hands-on projects can compare with building oneself a boat.

"It's a very personal experience," he said. "The boat is a culturally accepted symbol of freedom, of the free spirit."

In some towns on the coast of Maine, it seems almost everyone is building a boat. Or they just finished building one. Or they're planning to start.

In Freeport, for instance, a few hundred feet up Byram Avenue from Arndt's driveway, Peter Thompson is in his seventh year rebuilding a classic wooden schooner, Blackbird, under a shed beside his home.

The two men are driven by different dreams. Arndt is intent on making a statement about the world's wastefulness with his boat built out of recycled materials. He envisions the Island Rover as an educational vessel that will help students develop an awareness of Earth's limited resources.

Thompson, a past-president of the American Schooner Association, is working to preserve a piece of nautical history. He and his wife, Sandy, intend to sail into their retirement on Blackbird when the boat is finished.

But in their patient approaches to the long, complex projects they have undertaken, the two builders overlap.

"I don't view it as beginning and finishing a boat," said Arndt, who is 64. "I deal with it as individual projects that all happen to be revolving around the same structure."

Thompson, an engineer by profession, said he concentrates on each step rather than the ultimate goal of restoring the 77-year- old schooner to its original condition. "It's a progression of small projects," he said.

Thompson originally thought he was getting involved in a four- year project when he decided to replace the centerboard on his schooner in 2000. He wanted to improve the sailing performance of the 43-foot schooner and ready the boat for a voyage to St. Croix, where he and his wife plan to retire.

After jack-hammering several thousand pounds of concrete away from the boat's keel, the remnants of an earlier owner's repair, he discovered that the keel timber, a complex piece of wood between the hull and the 5-ton ballast, was rotten and needed to be replaced. To accomplish...