BLUE HILL — Among aficionados of modern small rowing and sailing craft built to traditional designs, Iain Oughtred qualifies as a rock star.

Born in Australia before World War II, Oughtred learned to sail in Sydney Harbor. In 1966, he began his career as a draftsman for an English naval architect working “down under.” His reputation began to grow, though, in 1980 after he moved to England and opened a boat shop in Bristol, on the island nation’s west coast in Bristol, and began building wooden dories that he designed.

At the end of the decade, which included a six-month stint at WoodenBoat magazine in Brooklin, Oughtred moved to Scotland. Working first at the mystical village of Findhorn and, since 1995, on the Isle of Skye off Scotland’s rugged west coast, he developed a still-growing number of elegant designs for small rowing and sailing boats that he says are “loosely based” on traditional Scandinavian and Scottish hull forms.

Although he was himself a boatbuilder, he designed boats that retained the “clinker-built” or lapstrake appearance but that skilled (or enthusiastic) amateurs, as well as other professionals, could build from plywood using glued-lap construction. Currently, his catalog includes more than three dozen distinct designs that include prams, traditional rowing and sailing dinghies, rowing skiffs, dories, double-enders, small cruising yachts and Norwegian faerings.

All of the boats are pretty. Some are just plain beautiful.

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