Chuck Paine’s name is synonymous with classic yacht design. Now there is another association, that of artist.

In T-shirt and jeans, with longish hair, Payne seems to fill the artist’s role with ease. But after five years – since wife Debbie gave him a set of paints – painting has remained a sideline to his work as a marine architect. Paine is unpretentious and unstinting, a gentle but firm taskmaster for himself and others.

Somehow, into the wee hours, he manages to find time to paint in the studio he built into his house and barn in Tenants Harbor. The hours at his easel often follow a full day’s work at his office, a suite overlooking Camden Harbor from the Wayfarer Marine wharf.

“I’ve done 70 or 80 canvases, and fortunately I’ve been able to get rid of them,” Paine said, playing down his artistic success. It takes him about three days to complete a painting; sometimes he can knock one out in a day, and for him that lends it a special freshness. “I’d like to think that people value the ability of an artist to do things by hand,” he mused, citing the glicee prints that he considers fakes. “There are those who still value original art.”

For Paine art is not just a hobby but also a long-held ambition: “I want to become great as a painter,” he admitted. His biggest show each year takes place at the Sea Studio in Tenants Harbor. “That’s where I sell most of my stuff. I have a collector who comes from San Francisco. A third of my paintings I sell to people who own my yachts. If you own a million-dollar Chuck Paine yacht, you certainly can afford a $1,000 Chuck Paine painting to put over the fireplace in the wintertime, when you’re not using your yacht.”

But don’t mis-read the artist. He doesn’t do commissions. “It’s too commercial, there’s no other reason to do it than for the money, and I’m not doing this for the money – yet.” He acknowledged artists like John Singer Sargent and Claude Monet painted for the money. “But they were brilliant. I’m years and years away from that.”

Not surprisingly, Paine’s subject matter tends toward sailboats underway, and the moods of the sea. He has painted Monhegan Island, Marshall Point Light in Port Clyde, even the Baptist Church two doors from his home. There’s a painting of PETUNIA, his beloved 1937 Herreschoff 12 1/2. He has painstakingly refastened her, using dental tools to extract slot-less, thread-less screws. Neighbor Jamie Wyeth, the artist, has a couple of 12 1/2s moored in Tenants Harbor. And artist Norm Tate of Port Clyde, 87, has an original 12 1/2, which he races against PETUNIA – and sometimes Tate wins. “If I ever design a boat as good as a Herreschoff 12 1/2,” said Paine, “I’ll hang up my hat. I’ve had more fun with that damn boat.” This from a man who designs yachts of well over 100 feet.

Whether sailing or painting, “What’s great about it is, you’ll never be good enough. No matter how great you get. I picture John Singer Sargent standing there – as brilliant as he was – saying, another ten years and I’ll be good at this. My more recent paintings are more satisfying to me than my earlier work, so there is some hope.”

Thirty years ago, Paine moved from Rhode Island, where he grew up, to Maine. He simply decided to build boats. “In those days I was a young hippie radical,” he said. “I didn’t believe in big companies, so it was natural not to insure myself.” But a retired army colonel who rented him the use of a fully equipped boat shop was more conservative and carried insurance. Payne’s first boat – a Francis 26 – was nearly finished when the shop – and the boat – burned. With typical pluckiness, Paine built another Frances 26, this time in Tom Morris’s boat shop. The two men hit it off, and Paine said that since the first joint venture, “Tom has built 170 some boats to designs that I did, and every one of them beautiful, because he is an artist, too.”

Back in high school, Paine took special art classes at Rhode Island School of Design, but got no support from his parents to become a career artist – his dad was an accountant. Now Paine is again pursuing that early love. “You’ve got to do more than one thing in life,” he said.