Spaulding Wooden Boat Center, Maritime museum in Sausalito, California.

The Spaulding Wooden Boat Center is a maritime museum on the Sausalito waterfront in Marin County, California, where wooden boats are built and restored by hand. The site combines open workshops, exhibition space, and a school of traditional boatbuilding all in one waterfront compound.

The center traces back to 1951, when yacht designer Myron Spaulding began building wooden boats on the Sausalito waterfront as a private endeavor. After his death, his widow Gladys established a charitable trust in 2002 to keep the work going as a public organization.

The center keeps the working boatyard of Spaulding Boatworks in continuous use, and since 2007 it has housed the Arques School of Traditional Boatbuilding, founded by Bob Darr in 1996. Its core apprenticeship takes just six students, who learn plank-on-frame construction. The school also maintains a fleet of classic wooden boats for on-the-water public programs, and in 2008 local students aged 12 to 18 built a 12-foot Norwegian sailing pram and then sailed it on San Francisco Bay.

The workshops are most active on weekdays, so a midweek visit gives a better chance of seeing boat builders at work. The site sits right on the water, so bringing a layer of clothing is a good idea since the bay breeze can be cool even on warm days.

The Arques School of Traditional Boatbuilding, housed on site, teaches plank-on-frame construction, a method that few boatbuilding programs in the country still teach in a hands-on way. During active courses, visitors can watch apprentices building real boats under the guidance of experienced builders, which is not something most waterfront museums offer.