Bras d’Or Boatworks provides high level custom marine services. Included in these services are structural and cosmetic repair and restoration to wood, fibreglass and composite vessels, power and sail.

Peter Patterson grew up in a small seaside fishing community where he was introduced to boatbuilding by his lobster-fisherman/boatbuilder grandfather. At an early age he enrolled in the local learn-to-sail program, eventually becoming a nationally accredited Instructor Evaluator. Peter turned his obsession with youth sailing into a lifelong career in the recreational boating industry. His formal training began in the early ‘80’s with a two year education in wooden boatbuilding followed by an  apprenticeship building million dollar wooden fishing vessels in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Afterward, Peter packed his toolbox and set sail for the Eastern

Caribbean where he honed his skills working as ships-carpenter and skipper on a number of charterboats and vintage racing sailboats. Peter has continued to build on his knowledge of marine systems while logging nearly 20,000 deep-sea miles as master on various sailboats and motoryachts to 102’loa. This experience has exposed Peter to most of the common, and many of the not-so-common, onboard problems. He has been a major contributor in several refits, developing experience in wood, composite and steel vessel maintenance. Peter owned and operated a small marine services business in the 1990’s providing onsite service for inshore fishing vessels and has been a marine technician and customer service rep. in a number of yacht yards in Nova Scotia and the Virgin Islands. His experience sitting on both sides of the Boatyard Managers desk makes him uniquely suited to assist you in solving your maintenance issues. When not living and working abroad, Peter makes his home in Baddeck on the shores of Bras d’Or Lake.

David Moncton is a Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Director of the MIT Nuclear Reactor Laboratory. An experienced project executive, he managed construction of two billion-dollar scale accelerator research projects: the Advanced Photon Source  at Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago, and the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

David combines this extensive project management experience with a life-long passion for sailing and boatbuilding, and for Cape Breton and the Bras d’Or Lake. He first met his wife Nancy bicycling in Cape Breton in 1973, and later sailed from the US to Cape Breton with their two children on two occasions in the 1990’s. Their sailing has taken them to the Bahamas, all along the eastern coast of the US and Canada from Chesapeake Bay to Nova Scotia, and to PEI, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and Labrador. They built a waterfront residence on the Washabuck peninsula across from Baddeck in 2004, and spend 8-10 weeks a year there. Dr. Moncton has built a number of small boats and worked closely with master boat builders to build a 20’ Simmons sea skiff, and most recently to build a 31’ plank-on-frame sloop to a 1934 design by Frank Paine. Most of these boats now find their home in Cape Breton, and have been Dr. Moncton’s inspiration to work with Peter Patterson to establish Bras d’Or Boatworks, with the aim of providing a high level of custom marine services to discerning boat owners.