Everything happening in San Francisco is founded on the curriculum, tools, and pedagogy that Rocking the Boat developed over 27 years in the Bronx. That continuity is essential. Yet the environment is distinctly its own, and Rocking the Boat’s West Coast team is embracing local conditions to shape the program's texture and style.

While Rocking the Boat’s New York location brings access and attention to the hidden gem of the Bronx River, the San Francisco shop is the centerpiece of India Basin Waterfront Park, a spectacular new amenity with prominent city support. The venue attracts a remarkably wide cross-section of visitors: neighbors from Bayview-Hunters Point, explorers from across the city, even tourists, all drawn by curiosity about what's being built and whether there's a place for them in it. Rocking the Boat’s San Francisco site is quickly absorbing that local energy and reflecting it back, creating a unique identity.

While the lines of our Whitehall follow the same tradition as East Coast boats, the wood tells a different story.  From Maine to the Chesapeake, Atlantic White Cedar has been long prized for its exceptional rot resistance and high strength-to-weight ratio.  The Bronx recently harvested two century old White Oaks from the New York Botanical Garden which yielded enough raw material for our next four to five boats. The West Coast equivalent is Port Orford Cedar, named for the coastal Oregon town where it grows, and it shares many of the same qualities.  Due to prohibitive shipping costs, the team instead chose another strong California workhorse: Douglas Fir.  It has a long history in West Coast ship building and has been used in everything from boats to bridges Alderbrook’s planks will use this Douglas Fir, plus more well-known White Oak for the stem, keel, and frames.  It's the kind of practical material choice that working boatbuilders have always had to make: they build with what the land around them provides.