Meet the Hoods
Mark Hood grew up in a sailing family in Marblehead, MA, and the nephew of renowned sailor and boat builder Ted Hood. Both his father and uncle were successful America's Cup sailors. After graduating from Franklin Pierce College in 1978 with a B.S. in business, he married his wife Deb who also grew up in Marblehead. Marks brother Chris Hood owns and operates CW Hood Yachts in Marblehead, MA. building quality yachts for the discriminating Yachtsman. Mark still produces canvas for his brother's boats through the new owner of Hood Canvas in Marblehead.
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The Hoods founded Hood Canvas in 1981 with the desire to be the best in the business. Mark identified areas of fabrication of the day he did not like. Specifically, gaps in the corners of biminis and exposed zippers. This led to leakage and a not so clean look on the inside. Through model making and much thought these areas of concern were solved and implemented into the system they use and teach today. It is a sequential, modular method of fabrication which speeds high end fabrication. In addition to custom fabrication the Hoods also ran a canvas school for 13 years. They taught many successful shops from around the world on how to make quality canvas.
​​​​​​​​​Mark is a MFC (Certified Master Fabric Craftsman) and has written numerous articles for Marine Fabricator Magazine. They are available to download for free in PDF format on this site. They also maintain a YouTube Channel with many how-to videos. Mark has written two published books on Marine Canvas Fabrication available for purchase in their website store along with other downloadable videos and guides. Mark and Deb are now semi-retired and living in Rhode Island to be near their son. They still write and consult on a daily basis as well as some light fabrication work for other fabricators in their basement shop. Their spend their summers sailing Narraganset Bay, Cape Cod and the Islands aboard their sloop "Dodger".