Tore Holm - Bronze Fastenings - Butterfly Skylight: The Magazine For Wooden Boat Owners, Builders, and Designers

282 TORE HOLM • BRONZE FASTENINGS • BUTTERFLY SKYLIGHT
THE MAGAZINE FOR WOODEN BOAT OWNERS, BUILDERS, AND DESIGNERS

AVENGER
SARAH ABBOT
Restoring LARK
Butterfly Skylight
Tore Holm
Tolman Skiff
September/October 2021
Lessons of a Schooner September/October 2021

A Vintage Alden Sloop Restored Number 282
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Page 74
Page 44
Page 58
56 AVENGER
Lessons of voyaging in a gaff schooner
Tom Gallant
Page 66
FEATURES
24 Tore Holm
Sweden’s master of the rules
Nic Compton
34 Building a Tolman Wide-Body Skiff:

Part 3
A rugged, handsome, and
easy-to-build boat 66 Learning from Noah
John Marples A gift of life-lessons
in the time of Covid-19
44 Building a Butterfly Skylight Randall Peffer
An elegant variation on
classic deck furniture
Page 34
Michael S. Podmaniczky
Page 24
74 LARK
Restoring the Old Bird
Nat Benjamin
2 • WoodenBoat 282
TOC282-Final.indd 2 7/20/21 5:47 PM

Number 282
September/October 2021
Reader Services
Page 102
107 Brokers
112 Builders
Departments 117 Kits & Plans
4 Editor’s Page 118 How to Reach Us

A Tale of Two Schooners
120 Raftings
6 Letters
122 Classifieds
14 Currents
127 Index
edited by Tom Jackson
84 Wood Technology
TEAR-out supplement Pages 16/17
Myanmar Teak
Richard Jagels Getting Started in Boats
A Spread of Canvas: Part 2
86 Launchings…and Relaunchings Advice from the experts
Delaney Brown Jan Adkins
90 Review
Fair Wind Fasteners Matthew P. Murphy Cover: Tom Gallant
has owned,
The Age of Wood Stan Grayson voyaged, and
Books received learned from
the 47' schooner
AVENGER , seen
96 Designs: Review here at the 2019
Antigua Classic
TREASURE Yacht Regatta.
A 45' world cruiser Page 56
Tad Roberts
Photograph by
Tim Wright
02 Designs: Sketchbook
1
LONGIDIENUS
A 39' outboard cruiser
WoodenBoat (ISSN 0095–067X) is published bimonthly in January, March, May, July, September,
Laurie McGowan and November in Brooklin, Maine, by WoodenBoat Publications, Inc., Jonathan A. Wilson,
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September/October 2021 • 3
TOC282-Final.indd 3 7/20/21 5:47 PM

A Tale of Two Schooners Subscription Services

Tom Gallant has owned the 47' schooner AVENGER for more than 40 years. In U.S. and Canada: 800–877–5284
his article describing his tenure with the boat (page 56), he describes his very first International: 937–610–0234
encounter with a gaff schooner under sail while driving along the LeHave River website: www.woodenboat.com
in Nova Scotia with his father in 1955. He was 9 years old. “She had a bone in her
teeth,” he writes, recalling the scene as if it we yesterday. “That day marked me for Chairman & Editor-in-Chief
life. It contained all the information a heart needs to attach itself to a dream that Jonathan A. Wilson
President & General Manager
only grew, became more serious, better informed, and, finally, a way of life.” James E. Miller
Years later, and through a circuitous route winding through a career as an Publisher
actor, author, and singer-songwriter, Tom found AVENGER , scraped together Andrew W. Breece
the resources to purchase her, and proceeded to cruise her tens of thousands EditorIAL
Editor Matthew P. Murphy
of miles. His article in this issue is a distillation of the lessons learned from the Senior Editor Tom Jackson
schooner over those years—from being a green new owner to one humbled and Associate Editor Delaney Brown
Editorial Assistant Elaine Gokey
made wise by the joys and travails of ownership. “The thing about sailing,” Tom Technical Editor Maynard Bray
further writes, “is, if you’ve managed to buy the boat, you’re automatically the Boat Design Editor Mike O’Brien
Contributing Editors Harry Bryan, Greg Rössel
captain, no matter how green and clueless you are.” Having visited with Tom Copy Editor Jane Crosen
aboard AVENGER on a few occasions in his home waters of greater Lunenburg, I Art & PRODUCTION
can attest to the fact that the man today is neither green nor clueless. He is one Art Director James Bartick
Advertising Art Designer Michelle Gawe
with his boat.
Circulation
There is a sidebar on AVENGER’s design in Tom’s article (page 60). It describes Susan Sidler, [email protected]
David Stevens’s background as a designer-builder and his conception of the Howard White, [email protected]
so-called “47s”— AVENGER’s design. He was at the height of his career when he Advertising
Director J. Nathaniel Arata
carved the model for this vessel for the sheer joy of it. The first one, built on Manager Laura Sherman
speculation, was launched as SKYLARK and later, under the ownership of Randall Classifieds Pat Hutchinson
Coordinator Elisabeth Ingoldsby
“Randy” Peffer, became SARAH ABBOT.
Sales Associates
Randy, a longtime and regular contributor to this magazine, has owned E ast Coast, M idwest, and E astern Canada:
SARAH ABBOT for a time equal to Tom’s with AVENGER . For many years, he Ray Clark, 401–247–4922; [email protected]
operated a seamanship and science program aboard her for Philips Academy in John K. Hanson, Jr., 207–594–8622;
[email protected]
Andover, Massachusetts—an experience that informed one of his many books,
Southeast, West Coast, and Western Canada:
Logs of the Dead Pirates Society (2000). Todd Richardson, 207–359–4651;
About six months into the pandemic lockdown last year, Randy called me with [email protected]
an article idea. “This one is a little unusual,” he said. He and his shipwright son, International:
207–359–4651;
Noah, were in the process of gutting SARAH ABBOT’s utilitarian interior and [email protected]
replacing it with a more functional and updated accommodation. He wanted to Research
write about the lessons of that—but more the life lessons rather than the nuts- Coordinator Rosemary Poole
and-bolts process of gutting and rebuilding. He had known, at the outset, that the Business
Office Manager Tina Stephens
interior project would lead to some colorful interactions with his son. “[A]s much Associate Roxanne Sherman
as Noah and I love each other, he knows that spending extended time with his old website
man will lead to more than a little head-butting. He’s a cautious, professionally Manager Greg Summers
trained mariner [and] carpenter.… I, on the other hand, gained my mariner’s THE WOODENBOAT STORE
www.woodenboatstore.com
chops dredging oysters aboard a Chesapeake Bay skipjack.” Randy’s experience 1–800–273–SHIP (7447); fax 207–359–2058
afloat, he said, is rooted in “the bravura and quick-and-dirty maintenance that Catalog Manager Ann Neuhauser
Associates Jody Allen, Chet Staples
comes with a hardscrabble life in workboats. Father and son, oil and water.”
WOODENBOAT BOOKS
Here was a serendipitous opportunity to combine the life lessons of two www.woodenboatbooks.com
schooner veterans in two articles. We leapt at the opportunity, and it’s been fun Book Publisher Scot Bell
and interesting to absorb the combined wisdom of these two men. As Tom writes WoodenBoat School
Director Rich Hilsinger
in his article, “There’s always more to learn. That’s why sailing is so interesting.” Business Manager Kim Patten
woodenboat show
www.thewoodenboatshow.com,
207–359–7751
Copyright 2021 by WoodenBoat Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reprinted without written permission from the publisher.
Contributions: Address all editorial communica
tions to Editor, WoodenBoat, P.O. Box 78, Brooklin,
ME 04616–0078. WoodenBoat is a largely reader-written
magazine. Care is taken with unsolicited contributions,
but we are not responsible for damage or loss.
Printed in U.S.A.
EdPage282-Final.indd 4 7/20/21 5:55 PM

SparkmanStephens_ROP-281.indd 5 7/18/21 12:35 PM
Up from the Ashes of the boat. I was particularly struck by Dear Matt,
Dear WoodenBoat, the elegant finishing work, interior and First, I would like to admit to a certain
The article “SKIPPER: Up from the ashes,” exterior, so artfully executed by Spar- bias in my remarks on the story of the
was an inspiring story of how ingenu- tan Rubacha and beautifully captured rebuilding of SKIPPER, because my
ity, skill and modern and ancient tech- by Bruce Kemp’s photographs. I loved brother, R. Montgomerie (Montie)
nology can bring a beautiful craft back discussing the project with Spartan and Masterson, was the lead hand at Sirens
from the grave. I live not far from Sirens can’t wait to revisit the shop when the Boatworks when SKIPPER was built. I
Boatworks, where the four-and-a-half- pandemic’s over! feel it is important that your articles
year project took place, and I was lucky Ian McMaster endeavor to tell fully the whole story.
to be able to follow the re-emergence via email If a boat, as a subject of an article, was
built by one person then there is one
person’s story to tell. If, as in the case
of SKIPPER, a team in a commercial
yard built it, then the team needs to be
recognized (think of the 10 minutes
of credits following a major motion
picture). The author did touch on the
Order On-line today at www.woodenboatstore.com

certain challenge that a reconstruction
such as SKIPPER represents, but Andrew
Lee, as owner of Sirens, didn’t build the
boat singlehanded. My brother is men-
tioned briefly (albeit misidentified as
“Lee” Masterson) and one other worker
is identified in a picture caption, but
this fails to acknowledge the full crew
involved or the lifetimes of accumulated
skill and experience it takes to produce
the level of craftsmanship demonstrated
in SKIPPER. The reason that a number
of other yards around southern Ontario
turned down this project was a lack of
skilled staff to accomplish it. I hope
future articles in this magazine will strive
to better acknowledge a team effort
where it is due.
Jeremy Masterson
via email
Due to an editing error, Montie Masterson,

The 40th anniversary edition of this incomparable wall lead builder on the SKIPPER project,
was misidentified as Lee Masterson. We
calendar is now available! Special treats inside include a regret the error.
page showing you all forty covers, as well as an alpha- —Eds.
betical list of every boat that has graced the pages—and
No. 281: A Few Thoughts
includes the years each boat has appeared, as well as if
Dear Matt,
that boat has been a cover shot. There’s real meat in Harry Bryan’s article
on lapstrake planking. It’s a keeper.
Captions are written by the insightful Maynard Bray, The legendary boatbuilder Joe Liener
and images are by one of the mostly highly regarded nau- sketched a little drawing of his lapstrake
tical photographers, Ben Mendlowitz. They have been
working together, along with designer Sherry Streeter,
since their first calendar was produced in 1982. It's quite
a remarkable collaboration.
The
WoodenBoat Calendar of Wooden Boats Order On-line
STORE
PO Box 78, Brooklin, ME 04616
Item #800-222 $17.95
(plus shipping)
or Call Toll-Free
1.800.273.7447
Letters-282-ADFinal.indd 6 7/18/21 4:50 PM

planking gauge in the endpapers of upon a copy of your May/June 2021 display (or perhaps even teach!) at my
one of my boatbuilding books; readers issue (No. 280) in my local Tasmanian city’s biannual wooden boat festival.
might find it of interest, so here’s a copy library and opened it on a whim. What a Thank you both to Mr. Stanley and Mr.
of that sketch. It’s a multifunctional delight it was to find the article by Milo Brooks for a wonderful eye-opener.
fit-stick indicating bevel width, fastening Stanley about Douglas Brooks! It is a Mark Diamond
spacing, and distance of fastening from long time since I have had the same Margate, Tasmania, Australia
the plank edge. It’s made to match the immediate feeling of, “I have to find out
planking thickness. more,” as I did on finishing Stanley’s
The article on foiling was interesting. article. Perhaps Hobart will be fortu-
In her discussion of other foiling classes, nate enough one day to have Mr. Brooks
Y;Z
Delaney Brown did miss the most user-
friendly, well-thought-out production
Call, click or come on in!

foiler, possibly because it is built out of
fiberglass. It is in production on three
continents and some hundreds of units
have been built; it’s friendly enough 800-639-2715 • HAMILTONMARINE.COM
so you and I can sail it. It’s called the
Foiling UFO. I think the prototype may
have been in wood. Based on the old
Alcort Catfish, it can be sailed right up
to the beach because the foil and rud-
der retract, and it can be sailed as a
non-foiler.
The article about Andrew Denman
was great. The future of wooden boat
building looks like marrying the com- Hamilton Marine is
puter and CNC cutting with the appro-
priate construction method, to be able one of the largest
to send complete kits to someone who independently owned
can cut and package them. marine stores in the
And the piece on the drawings of
Robbert Das by Nic Compton was a real
Northeast, with 6
treat. It brings to mind another Dutch locations along the
artist, Peter Dorliijn, whose work illus- coast of Maine and
trating the Dutch inshore sailing fishery
is extraordinary. I’ve not seen anything
over 30,000 in-stock
like it on other fisheries. items. We supply
Ben Fuller the recreational,
Cushing, Maine boatbuilding, and
On the Cover?! fishing industries,
Mr. Murphy: carrying a unique
Really? On the cover?! [in reference to mix of traditional
the experimental foiler on the cover of
WB No. 281]. To quote Daniel James and state-of-the-art
Brown, author of The Boys in the Boat, “A supplies to serve
boat is a work of art, an expression of the them all and for
human spirit, with its unbounded hunger
for the ideal, for beauty, for purity, for
every season.
grace.” What you have shown on the
cover of your latest issue is a toy, like a
Ski-Doo.
Richard Ogden
Warner Springs, California
Where Is This
Horse Bone From?
Editor:
I am not a wooden boat builder, nor even
a wooden boat owner, but I happened
Letters-282-ADFinal.indd 7 7/18/21 4:50 PM

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CURRENTS
GRAHAM McK AY
PLIMOTH PATUXET MUSEUMS

Above—After restoring a 33' shallop built in 1957 as a re-
Homeward bound creation of a 17th-century boat, a crew of apprentices from
Lowell’s Boat Shop joined staff from the marine department
in a Pilgrim shallop of Plimoth Patuxet Museums to sail her from Amesbury,
Massachusetts, to her berth alongside the restored
MAYFLOWER II in Plymouth. She is seen here off Plymouth
by Graham McKay Long Beach on her approach to the harbor. Inset—Whit Perry,
head of the museum’s marine department, joined the voyage
O ver the past few years, I and other boatbuilders at Lowell’s

Boat Shop in Amesbury, Massachusetts, restored the
MAYFLOWER II shallop built in 1957 in Plymouth, Massa-
to help mentor young apprentices from Lowell’s, among them
helmsman Lokys Saffo.
chusetts. The project was an unusual one for us, and we took
advantage of the opportunity to introduce our apprentices
to the skills involved in building boats larger than the dories turn favorable. We also had the luxury of stopping for sand-
and skiffs that have been the heritage of Lowell’s since 1793. wiches downriver in Newburyport, where a crowd, like the
After the heavily built 33' shallop’s relaunching April 28, we one earlier at Lowell’s, cheered us on. Motorsailing out of the
also introduced our students to 17th-century boat handling river, still against the wind and current, took some time—
by sailing the shallop home to Plymouth on her own bottom. which sounds like a metaphorical summation of the previous
We planned to depart June 10, and when the day came the Covid-19 year. Once we passed the Merrimack River jetties,
forecast was actually favorable—northeast wind of 10 to 15 we could finally fall off the wind and really begin to sail.
knots, which is almost unheard of on the Merrimack River. The shallop is no AMERICA’s Cup boat. She’s rather round
We departed Lowell’s Boat Shop at 9 a.m. with a crew consist- and full, with leeboards and her loose-footed spritsail and
ing of staff from the marine department of Plimoth Patuxet jib giving her limited windward ability, as you might expect.
Museums, the shallop’s owner; five apprentices from Lowell’s, Given those conditions—and the fact that our forecast north-
all of whom had worked on the project; and me. We quickly east wind proved to be 10 to 15 knots out of the east—we
had an introduction to the challenges of the Pilgrims’ era of couldn’t work to weather enough to clear Halibut Point at
seafaring: wind and tide were against us, the first of numerous the northeast tip of Cape Ann, which we had to round to
impediments we faced. reach the historic port of Gloucester. In an earlier time,
We motorsailed out the river. You read that right. Part of a sailor with local knowledge might have tried to take the
the shallop’s restoration included mounting a 20-hp electric Annisquam River’s tangle of passages south across Cape Ann
Torqeedo pod motor on the rudder’s lower edge to allow close and through to Gloucester Harbor, but the 21st-century navi-
and safe maneuvering in crowded harbors. The motor is out of gation problem blocking that course was a railroad bridge
sight and runs in silence; its batteries and controls are hidden renovation that limited clearance to 16'—far too low for our
within the boat. We had the luxury of auxiliary power, and mast.
we didn’t have the 17th-century sailor’s luxury of waiting an Instead, we set out on a lovely sail across Ipswich Bay
indeterminate amount of time for winds and currents to toward the cape. We had it all to ourselves, and the experience
Currents-282-ADFinal.indd 14 7/19/21 6:34 PM

Edited by Tom Jackson
of sailing a 17th-century undecked boat on the open ocean adventure, in my estimation. For the Lowell’s crew, the voyage
was as close as I will ever get to knowing the conditions the was an unforgettable experience, and all will feel a connection
Pilgrims faced. They, however, often dealt with hunger to the shallop for the rest of their lives.
and frostbite while we were well fed and staving off only
sunburn. Graham McKay is a boatbuilder, educator, and executive director
The five high-school apprentices set up a watch rotation of Lowell’s Boat Shop in Amesbury, Massachusetts; www.lowells
and ran the boat. Toward midafternoon, we found ourselves boatshop.com.
still needing to work 3 miles to windward to weather Cape
Ann. We tried our hands at the oars, which was difficult
against the wind and with the rig and leeboards in the way. Around the yards
We were able to make a mile or two of headway before we
resorted to motorsailing. At that point, the shadows were n Nic Compton writes from England with news of an interest-
getting long, so having seen a TowBoatUS boat pass by, we ing boat construction project in Southampton: “They were
called them on the phone—which wouldn’t have been possible once the cutting edge of warship technology: boats capable of
even 20 years ago—and took a tow 5 miles to windward in up to 30 knots and able to fly over enemy minefields to deliver
about 45 minutes. After casting off the tow line, we found lethal loads of torpedoes. Designed by John I. Thornycroft &
ourselves again under our own power just south of Thachers Company in 1915, the Coastal Motor Boats (CMBs) started
Island, which is east of Cape Ann off Rockport. From there, off as 40-footers but eventually reached 55' and 70' long, the
we sailed on a lovely reach at about 4 knots to the Glouces- fastest capable of over 40 knots. The boats played an impor-
ter Harbor breakwater. Once we rounded into the harbor tant role in World War I and, immediately afterward, in the
and flat water, we could be certain of our remaining battery fight against the Russian Red Army.
power, so we juiced it for the harbor, making about 5.5 knots “Now, volunteers and students at Boathouse 4 in Portsmouth
at half throttle. Cannon salutes welcomed us to Maritime Historic Dockyard are building a replica of a 40-footer. A
Gloucester, where we stayed a few days to display the boat. former naval facility, Boathouse 4 is currently used for the
Next, we sailed for Hull, which is about halfway between restoration and maintenance of a fleet of small Royal Navy
Gloucester and Plymouth on a peninsula among the outer boats and houses the Portsmouth facility of the International
islands of Boston Harbor. It was 20 miles straight to the south- Boatbuilding Training College. The organization recently
west—and for a shallop it would be a tall order to reach it. In received CMB 4 by loan from the Imperial War Museum. The
the warm-weather months, the wind prevails from the south- boat earned its commander a Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest
west, and the boat has only slightly better windward ability military honor, by sinking a Russian cruiser in the Baltic Sea.
than the NIÑA , PINTA , or SANTA MARIA . We
got underway just after sunrise, intending to
take advantage of the calm to test the range
of the electric motor in flat water at 4 or 5
knots. Abreast of The Graves Light on the
outermost of Boston Harbor’s islands, the
Plymouth harbormaster, knowing our plans,
arrived to tow us through Hull Gut.
After sailing and showing off the boat for
a few days in Hull and Hingham, we again
took advantage of the early-morning stillness
to motor around Point Allerton and back to
sea, heading south along the shore. By late
morning, a west wind came up, giving us
a good reach at 4 knots to Gurnet Point at
the entrance to Plymouth Bay. Unlike the
Pilgrims, who were sucked into the safety
of Plymouth Harbor during a northeaster
by Providence (and a flood tide), we got
our assistance from SeaTow. Their 5-mile
upwind haul allowed us to sail through the
gut and on to Duxbury to stage the shallop’s
homecoming.
On Saturday, June 19, with the crew dressed
in period outfits, the shallop was reunited on
the Plymouth waterfront with the restored
NIC COMPTON
MAYFLOWER II (see WB No. 274), to more

cannon fire and fanfare, where she will serve
the Plimoth Patuxet Museums’ education
programs.
A trek such as ours would have been com-
A 40' Coastal Motor Boat is being cold-molded to a 1915 Thorneycroft
monplace in earlier centuries, undertaken
design at the International Boatbuilding Training College at Portsmouth
thousands of times in far less seaworthy craft.
Historic Dockyard, England.
The hyper-safety concerns of our society
these days tend to get in the way of a good

The boat’s dramatic shape and impressive history inspired is the first traditionally planked one to be built in many
the college to build a replica. decades.
“‘These boats have a vast historic background,’ lead ship- “The original half-model still exists, and a lines plan was
wright David Griffiths said. ‘They were the precursors of the drawn—but they differ from each other slightly, as does the
MTBs [motor torpedo boats] of World War II and were criti- boat as first built. I and my business partner at the time,
cal players in the history of the British coastal forces. They are Simon Sadubin, took the lines off the original boat in 2004,
among the first hydroplanes, with a single step amidships and and I’m working to these lines. As I put it when addressing
flat aft section.’ the Wooden Boat Association of New South Wales, ‘The
“The new boat will be a direct reproduction of the origi- Ranger is the ideal boat for Sydney Harbour, small enough
nal CMB but built using modern materials, with cold-molded to sail alone and maintain easily, big enough to take a bunch
khaya planking and fiberglass-and-epoxy sheathing replac- of people out, and faster than anyone has a right to expect.’
ing the original two layers of fore-and-aft planking with cal- The active racing group at the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club,
ico between the layers. The original 250-hp V-12 Thornycroft founded in 1872, regularly sees class boats outfooting and
engine will be replaced by a 450-hp Cummins diesel, giving even outpointing larger vessels. I’ll join the racing fleet when
nearly twice as much power on a much lighter hull. it doesn’t clash with racing in my replica of the historical
“Built by a team of 25 to 30 volunteers and students, the 18-footer BRITANNIA [see WB No. 222].
boat is expected to be launched in spring 2022. It will then “Launching is more than a year away. The designer’s son,
join Boathouse 4's collection of historic war craft, which is Bill Gale, now 95, who raced the boat from the 1930s until a
open to public viewing. few seasons ago, will dedicate the boat in person if he makes
“The original CMBs had an unusual way of activating their it, or on an already-filmed video if he doesn’t. I am docu-
torpedoes, launching them tail-end first off the stern of the menting the construction on the Carvel Planking Playlist
boat, so they faced the same direction. A trip wire between on www.youtube.com/c/IanSmithBoats and on www.smithys
the torpedo and the boat activated the torpedo’s engines, boatshed.weebly.com/blog.”
whereupon the CMB would have to get out of the way as
quickly as possible. It’s not thought that the new boat will be n Lauren de Remer writes from Sausalito, California, about
replicating this exercise.” her extensive project to restore a Ted Geary–designed power
cruiser from 1930:
International Boatbuilding Training College Portsmouth, Boat-
house 4, Main Rd., HM Naval Base, Portsmouth, P01 3PX, U.K. “One-man-shop marine railways on the West Coast, partic-
ularly in California, have dwindled over the last few decades,
n In an Inner West suburb of Sydney, Australia, Ian Smith, a even in Sausalito. Today, there are two shipyards with marine
retired boatbuilder and longtime boatbuilding instructor with railways still operating, one of which is Richardson Bay Boat-
Sydney Wooden Boat School, is building a 24' Ranger-class gaff works & Ways. If you happened to walk by that yard between
sloop, an iconic boat of Sydney Harbour (see WB No. 227). March and August, you may have spotted TAUTIRA , a Geary-
“It is carvel-planked with Huon pine, a rare Tasmanian tim- designed Lake Union Cruiser built at Lake Union Dry Dock
ber that I’ve had in stock since 1983, on spotted gum frames, in Seattle, Washington. Originally named RUNAWAY, she was
stringers, and keel,” Smith wrote. “The original Ranger was custom-built for motion picture director King Vidor, who
designed by owner Cliff Gale and launched in 1933 by Bill used her on Puget Sound. She is 52' LOA , with a beam of
Fisher at La Perouse, near the entrance of Botany Bay south- 11' 6", draft of 4' 6", and displacement of 25 gross tons; she is
east of Sydney. Five near-sisters were built by Fisher and double-planked in Port Orford cedar, bronze-fastened, has
others in the following decade, along with a couple of smaller a teak wheelhouse, and is currently powered by twin 130-hp,
versions and a couple of 28-footers and a 26-footer. Two six-cylinder Isuzu diesel engines.
laminated hulls have been built in recent years, but my boat “She had languished in the brackish water of the Sacra-
mento–San Joaquin River Delta in the 1980s. After
turning up for sale in the North Bay, she caught the
eye of local builder and former woodworker Dana
Hayden, son of the actor, author, and noted sailor
Sterling Hayden. Dana owned TAUTIRA and lived
aboard for 25 years; then in 2018, he was diagnosed
with terminal cancer.”
Hayden spent his remaining days aboard, visiting
with friends and family and his partner, de Remer, all
of whom helped him with an aggressive prognosis. He
died in July of that year, and the boat eventually came
into her ownership. Since early 2019, she said, she has
invested over $100,000 in maintenance and repairs.
“It was important to me to hire the right people for
the work,” she wrote, “so I turned to local shipwrights,
especially Ross Sommer, who owns Richardson Bay
Boat Works & Ways. Ross’s father, Harold, restored
many boats in this area, most notably the schooner
TRICIA SMITH
WANDER BIRD, now back in Germany as ELBE NO. 5

[see WB No. 280]. ‘TAUTIRA’s bilges are dry, and she’s
in decent shape below the waterline; it’s actually
quite remarkable,’ Ross said. He knew her well,
Ian Smith, a regular sailor in 18-footers with his BRITANNIA of having hauled her in previous years. He and the
2001, a replica of a 1919 classic, is now building a Ranger-class 24' marine surveyor Rick Whiting, both of whom had
sloop for racing on Sydney Harbour in Australia. been friends with Dana, helped prioritize my list of
pressing topsides issues.

GETTING STARTED IN BOATS
from the Editors of Magazine
Volume 87 A Spread of Canvas: Part 2

Advice from the experts
GettingStarted_Vol87-282-EDFinal.indd 1 7/21/21 7:02 PM

A Spread of Canvas: Part 2
Advice from the Experts
by Jan Adkins
A
proper sail is not a table-
cloth, nor even a fitted
sheet. The sails we fly
are mathematically tuned air-
foils that transform energy into
movement smoothly and qui-
etly. They’re not truly canvas
(cotton is out of date) but thin
synthetic fabric of surprising
strength, designed and stitched
to assume an ideal shape.
But the sun that powers the
wind that powers us persistently
degrades our sails. Ultraviolet
(UV) light unlinks the complex
chain molecules of synthetic
fibers, weakens their bonds,
and frays our stitching. Slowly
this wear will lead to failure, but
long before the sail fails cata-
strophically its airfoil shape is We may see the local winds in catspaws, but we recognize their connection
compromised. to the spinning earth and its variegated peel of air. Our funny little vessels
In the previous “Canvas” fea- are solar gliders. When we set sails, we are plugging into the energy of
Earth and sun.
ture in WB No. 281, we described
some first aid for sail rips and
seam failures. And while those
are useful, we must be honest:
there is a drawback. Whenever
you reinforce or repair any part
of a tension-structured airfoil,
you will always concentrate
stress on the “unlike” part you’ve
created. An emergency repair
meant to get you home must be
addressed more deeply; it is a
larger failure waiting to happen.
This is the basis for Canvas,
Part 2, in which we refer you to
the professional sailmakers and While we caution you about your sails in the sun, it’s a good time to
invite their expertise on the caution you about you. Put plainly, prolonged exposure to the sun’s
considerations every sailor must ultraviolet energy is radiation poisoning. UV wavelengths are small
ponder. enough to dismantle long-chain synthetics, and they also do damage to
the DNA chains within your cells. Forget tans and sunburns but remember
skin cancer. Take care of yourself and don’t use your exposure to UV rays
as a measure of how tough you are. Provide yourself with sunblock, long
sleeves, broad hats, and even faceguards.
2 • Canvas, Part 2 (SUPPLEMENT TO WOODENBOAT NO. 282)

Time to Head to the Loft
Failing Sails
HOW DO I KNOW IF
MY SAIL IS FAILING?
There are many ways to tell if a sail is failing.
Most important, inspect your sails for signs of
degradation by UV light. Sail fabric, the thread
that’s holding the sail together, and even the plastic
hardware and nylon webbing (where applicable)
can break down from sun exposure. Keep an eye
on sail fabric for yellowing or darkening, keep an The only time you should be fixing
eye on the stitches of thread for breaking, watch your own sail tears and failures is
for frayed webbing, and check your plastic sail
windows for cracking and weakening. when you’re out to sea and have
—Alison Wood, absolutely no option to get the sail
Port Townsend Sails, Port Townsend, Washington
to a professional sailmaker. Sea
Stitching failure is common, especially on the repairs happen; it’s the nature of
leech and foot of roller-furling headsails. Mainsails
see more UV exposure along the leech of the sail, the often unpredictable world of
which is exposed when the sail is flaked on the sailing. But bring your sail to a
boom. A simple tear test can be done by pinching
the cloth and attempting to tear it both vertically sailmaker when you get back to
and horizontally. shore so the repair doesn’t cause
—Ben Sperry
Sperry Sails, Marion, Massachusetts more damage over time.
—Alison Wood
Sailcloth will stretch over time, so if your sail looks
a lot deeper and the cloth is softer than when you
got it, that means it could be time for a recut or a
replacement. Your local sailmaker will guide you in A competitive sailor might condemn a sail much
the right direction as to which is needed. sooner than a cruising sailor. A sail that’s lost its
Another way to tell is if the cloth looks discolored refined shape can still satisfy the casual, less-
on the leech, or if the thread breaks easily. That particular owner. When seams open up and can
means that the sail is UV-damaged and that the be easily pulled apart, that’s failure, but it can be
cloth is at risk of tearing. easily repaired.
—Carter Cameron —Grant Gamble
Quantum Sails, Annapolis, Maryland Gamble & Hunter Sailmakers, Camden, Maine
Canvas, Part 2 (SUPPLEMENT TO WOODENBOAT NO. 282) • 3

Sail Maintenance
S
hape degradation will happen slowly over
a long period of time. With age and abuse,
sails will stretch, creating a deeper draft
which can cause the boat to lose some of its abil-
Sail Covers
ity to point into the wind. As your sails lose their
shape you may notice your boat beginning to
slow down and heel more.
BOOM
SAIL
COVERS
Will sail covers

really save my sails
from destruction?
HOW DO I PROLONG Simply put, yes.
THE LIFE OF MY SAIL? —Ben Sperry
Don’t leave them rigged on your boat for long

periods of time without use. UV exposure is
one of the most common killers of a sail. Even Do not wash your sails with bleach. Do not
if you have UV covers on your sail, those can leave them uncovered (or furled backwards) and
be destroyed by prolonged periods in the sun susceptible to UV damage. And absolutely do not
as well. The UV covers will have to be replaced store them unsecured in your boat, your barn, or
every few years, but it’s much better to sacrifice your basement for the winter.
that than the sailcloth itself, which can be much —Robin Chase,
more expensive to repair. Bohndell Sails and Rigging, Rockport, Maine
If your boat needs to be winterized, the ice and Don’t wash them in a washing machine. Don’t repair
snow can make the cloth tear much more easily. with messy, sticky duct tape. Don’t ever use acetone
Mold and mildew will build. on a sail. Don’t leave the battens in all winter. Don’t
—Carter Cameron put them away wet. Don’t store them on the floor
in your barn, or in your damp boat. Don’t assume
Avoid bleaching; avoid prolonged UV exposure; because you sail all the time, you don’t need sail
avoid flogging. covers. Don’t get me started.
—Ben Sperry —Grant Gamble

Sail Maintenance (continued)
JIB BAG ROLLER-REEFING

COVER
JIB SOCK
SHOULD I
LEAVE MY SAILS
TENSIONED WHEN
I HARBOR FURL? Don’t harbor-furl your sails. Even
if you’re motoring along for a short
There’s no harm in keeping halyard
tension on your sails when not in use. period of time or you’re only anchored
If you feel like easing the halyard when for an hour or two before sailing again,
the sails are furled, just remember to
pull it back on the next time you go you should furl your headsail well and
sailing. get a cover on the mainsail. UV damage
—Carter Cameron
is cumulative over time, so get in the
Within reason. Some outhaul tension habit of protecting your sails.
is fine when sails are furled, but
easing tension isn’t a bad idea. —Robin Chase
—Ben Sperry

Custom Sails
Loft
Advice
IF I BUILD MY
OWN BOAT, CAN A
SAILMAKER TAKE
MEASUREMENTS
AND CREATE A
SAIL OR SUIT OF
SAILS?
Most definitely. At Quantum, we do
more custom sails than anything
else. Our salesmen are trained in
measuring boats, and sail designers
know how to optimally design a sail
to those measurements.
—Carter Cameron
OR SHOULD I BUY USED
Yes, but get the sailmaker-rigger involved
early in the process. SAILS AND HAVE THEM
—Ben Sperry RECUT?
Yes, having a sailmaker measure is a great
way to create a sail or two or three. Working Because only the length of the leading edge of a
with a sailmaker is the best as you are there to headsail is critical, used headsails are easier to
ask questions and the sailmaker has a chance find than mainsails. Mainsails have slides, slugs,
to ask their own. There is no better way to boltropes, jacklines, reefpoints, and battens that
ensure good fit and function—especially if the may or may not be appropriate for your particular
boat is a one-off. application. They can be swapped out, of course,
—Frank Schattauer,
but when shape surgery is required, on top of a
Schattauer Sails Inc., Seattle, Washington
hardware swap, things add up.
—Grant Gamble
Although there are kits sold online and
instructional how-to videos for DIY sail Used sails can be a great solution if the fit is right.
fabrication, nothing replaces the experience a Recutting can be a fine option, but it’s important to
professional sail loft can offer. consult your sailmaker about the costs and benefits
before jumping into an expensive recut on a used
Most home sewing machines can’t handle sail.
sewing sail fabric, and additional tools to —Ben Sperry
complete the sail aren’t included in the kit. If
the boat is new-to-you, have a professional This can be hit-or-miss. If you buy sails from a similar
sailmaker offer a quote on a new suit of sails. boat, less work will have to be done to recut them to
Maybe you can’t afford to purchase more fit your boat. Sometimes the cost of recutting a used
than one sail per season, but you will be sail in the United States can be as much as a new sail
up and running with new sails in a couple built in Sri Lanka that perfectly fits your boat. This is
seasons. due to the difference in labor costs.
—Alison Wood —Carter Cameron

Dollars and Sense
SHOULD I ASK MY SAILMAKER TO “WINTER” MY SUIT

OF SAILS? IS IT WORTH THE MONEY?
Sails and canvas can go for many seasons without
major repair, but we recommend inspection every The off-season is a great time for
season and cleaning primarily to remove salt. You
can clean and inspect your sails and canvas yourself. inspections, repairs and cleaning
Cleaning is many times priced by the pound; you can when time is less critical. We
expect between $3 and $4 per pound. Inspection make repairs in-house and will
and repair will be charged by the hour. The cost for
cleaning and inspecting the sails of a typical 25’ boat send sails out for cleaning.
will be upwards of $300. The benefit of professional Doing repairs over the winter is
service is that you won’t be stuck waiting for the
sailmaker to repair your sails and canvas in July beneficial for both keeping lofts
after your first windy day of sailing. busy and your ability to get out
—Ben Sperry
in the spring when time on the
Routine maintenance is key to protecting your sails water is most desirable.
and sail covers. Salt is attractive to small animals,
so a sail that is stored improperly and covered in —Frank Schattauer
salt is susceptible to rodent damage as well as
mildew. Sails and sail covers are expensive pieces
of equipment, so why risk having them damaged in
the off-season? Also, if we can make
a small repair before it becomes a big
repair, the customer is happier in the
long run.
Inspecting and repairing your sails and
covers will help them function better
for longer. Our service program costs
much less than a new sail!
—Robin Chase
Absolutely! We highly recommend

taking your sails off your boat when
it’s not being sailed for a prolonged
period of time. You can bring them in
just for storage, but the best thing to
do is to have them checked over and
get all the necessary repairs done.
—Carter Cameron
Make notes and bring your sails to

your sailmaker in the fall while you can
still remember what and where the
issues are. If you don’t have the space
or you’ve had problems with critters,
store the sails with the sailmaker. You
can wash them yourself, but don’t
shove them into a washing machine;
hose them off on the lawn or hang
them on a line.
If you’ve got the money, have
someone look them over each year.
Bring your sailmakers a good list so
they don’t have to search around for
things. If you’re tight on money, do
what you can yourself.
—Grant Gamble

Working with Your Sailmaker
W
hat is the busiest time for a sail- the busier time. The Quantum Sails loft in
maker? There is no hard-and-fast downtown Annapolis spends the off-season
rule. It depends on location and the making repairs in order to get sails back on
unique mix of the sailing community there. masts come April. But no matter the season,
Ben Sperry in Massachusetts and the folks at don’t be afraid to reach out. As Maine sail-
Bohndell in Maine agree—May, June, and maker Grant Gambel says, “If it’s a minor
July, when summer-circuit racers hit the water problem, it shouldn’t take long for a sail-
once again, are the busiest months through- maker to reply. We’re not replacing hips.”
out New England. In Annapolis, Maryland, Get to know the ebbs and flows of your home
where racers hit the water for weekly race port, and remember that it’s never a bad time
series, the summers are slower and winter is to bring brownies.
WHEN SHOULD I CONSULT MY SAILMAKER?

Whenever you have a question. I can’t speak for all Consult your local sailmaker anytime, but we
sailmakers, but we are always just a phone call or depend on workflow through the fall and winter.
quick email away. We would rather communicate —Ben Sperry
openly and up-front with our customers than have
people shy away and create a larger problem for
themselves and their sails. Sometimes a simple There is never a time when you
question will get a simple answer and you’ll be on
your way. Sometimes a simple question leads to shouldn’t bother us. Our main
a much larger and more in-depth discussion that goal as sailmakers is to educate
furthers your education about your sailboat and
your sailing equipment. customers about their sails and help
—Alison Wood them optimize their performance.
April through July is the busiest time for us in the Talking to your sailmaker at least
Pacific Northwest region. Fall and winter are less
hectic and a great time to bring over the rum-
once a year is a good idea.
infused brownies for a chat. —Carter Cameron
—Frank Schattauer
WHAT CAN I DO WITH MY OLD SAILS?

One of the most common uses is Recycled sailcloth seems to have
duffel bags. There are companies various meanings these days. We
that specialize in making bags out of have customers pick through our
recycled sails. Another thing is to make scrap bins all the time for their own
a sunshade for your back porch. It’s creative projects, and we often donate
cool to have the shadow of your sail our sail fabric scraps to schools and
number outlined by the sun! local art programs. As far as used sail
—Carter Cameron fabric goes, the applications for reuse
are somewhat limited. Old sails are
Sailcloth makes an excellent tarp or replaced and retired for a reason. The
makeshift awning. There are also many fabric can be weak and brittle, but no
companies constructing tote bags and doubt if you find the right used sail you
other luxury goods with used sailcloth. can make a great tote bag.
—Ben Sperry —Robin Chase
WOODENBOAT PUBLICATIONS, INC.

P.O. Box 78 (41 WoodenBoat Ln.), Brooklin, ME 04616
Tel. 207–359–4651 • www.WoodenBoat.com
1–800–273–7447 (U.S. and Canada)
Subscribe to WoodenBoat Magazine: 1–800–877–5284

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Now Available at Fisheries Supply
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independent design office in Göteborg.
The Ohlson Brothers firm is arguably best-
known in the United States for designing per-
formance cruising yachts, especially the Ohlson
36, of which about 140 were built, almost all of
them for U.S. clients. In Europe, they were at
least as well known for their phenomenal suc-
cess with 5.5m-class Olympic raceboats, most of
them built in wood, first by Swedish boatbuild-
LAUREN DE REMER (BOTH)
ers and later all over Europe. Einar, who stud-

ied the science of boat design and worked in a
state-run tank-testing facility for six months, was
the lead designer, though he was not formally
trained as a naval architect. Carl-Eric brought
practical skills in boatbuilding and sail racing
to the firm; he was on the team that sailed the
first Ohlson-designed 5.5m to a bronze medal in
Left—Lauren de Remer is undertaking restoration of a 52' power cruiser the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, Finland. By
in Sausalito, California. Right—The most recent work, done chiefly by 1965, a third of the boats in the 5.5m Olympic
Ross Sommer of Richardson Bay Boat Works, has included reframing, fleet were designed by the Ohlson Brothers, and
replanking, and deck repairs. their reputation for designing winning boats
continued through 1968, after which the class
was dropped from Olympic competition. (The
“ We installed 40 new frames and 30 new topside planks, class still survives, and one of its three divisions is devoted to
refinished the wheelhouse and aft cabin, splined transom classic boats; see www.5.5class.org.)
planking seams, and added new deckbeams. We also repaired “ We have collected all drawings available and have had
the sheer clamps, areas of the deck, and rebuilt the starboard them scanned, thus making them available on the Internet,”
break between the side deck and foredeck. Two through-hulls writes Lutz von Meyerinck, who initiated The Ohlson Project
were plugged, and we gave the aftermost propeller struts new (www.ohlsonyachts.com) and owns an Ohlson 38 in Hamburg,
backing blocks, and refastened the shaftlogs with G-10 rein- Germany. Some 1,600 plans are involved. The digital scans are
forcement. Although most of the recent repairs are only a being done in Stockholm by volunteers at the Veteransbåts-
partial fix, I believe they will ‘buy time’—a vital move while föreningen, or vintage boats association, which has already
raising capital for a full restoration. established a remarkable trove of publicly available boat
“In addition to being a maritime professional, I work in plans (www.veteransbaten.se, Swedish only). As of this writ-
healthcare communications. In the shadow of loss and care- ing, some links from The Ohlson Project website lead directly
giving for Dana, I hope to ‘pay it forward’ by creating a non- to www.register.veteranbatsarkivet.se, the archive portion of
profit to run palliative care programs for Bay Area cancer the website, which requires registration but no fee; a demon-
patients and their families aboard TAUTIRA . Most people stration video on the Ohlson site is helpful for non-Swedish
think I’m nuts, of course, but I believe in this boat, as Dana speakers. By midsummer, Meyerinck wrote, more of the scans
did. She has something incredibly special to offer. For me, were expected to be loaded to the Ohlson site, Among those
tending to her rot has been very symbolic to cancer; after this are a number of 5.5m racers and the popular cruising boats,
chemo treatment in the yard, she is right where she needs to from the Ohlson 36 to the Ohlson 44. There are also several
be—in remission.”
For more information, see www.tautira.org or
contact Lauren de Remer, [email protected], or Ross
Sommer, Richardson Bay Boatworks & Ways, richardson
[email protected].
Offcuts
n Word comes from Sweden that a new initia-
tive—demonstrating an excellent use of the Inter-
COURTESY OF THE OHLSON PROJECT
net—is helping to spread the story of Einar and

Carl-Eric Ohlson, whose Ohlson Brothers yacht
design office attained a global reputation in the
mid-20th century.
The brothers grew up in Hälleviksstrand on
the island of Orust, on the Swedish west coast,
and apprenticed in the boatyard of their uncle,
Hjalmar Johansson, whose yard built the first
Dragon boats designed by Johan Anker of Nor-
way. They began designing their own boats in
the 1940s and quickly found success with cus- Einar Ohlson’s design for a cruising yacht, the Ohlson 36, is arguably his
tom sailboats. They won a Royal Göteborg Yacht best-known work. The design of that yacht and many others, including
Club small-craft design contest in 1949 with a this kosterboat of 1944, are available for download from a new website
pram-bowed skiff, more than 1,300 of which devoted to the Ohlson Brothers firm of Sweden.
were built. By 1951, the brothers had opened an

LymanMorse-282-02.indd 19 7/20/21 6:45 PM
to-die-for kosterboats, including the K6 of 1944, the broth-
ers’ first successful design, which they drew for a sailing club
competition.
“Beyond that,” von Meyerinck wrote, “we have produced
and will continue to produce videos of the lives and work of
the boatbuilders and designers and their boats.” The videos,
which are narrated in English, with subtitles as necessary,
are informative. “I believe at the end of the day what needs
to happen is that this work of these two gentlemen has to
be recognized as being part of Swedish maritime history,
because they were so prominent people at the time for boat
design, and that needs to be recognized and needs to be
paid justice,” von Meyerinck said in one of the short films.
Einar Ohlson died in 2004 and Carl-Eric Ohlson in 2015.
KENT LEWIS
MARINER V, based in Smithfield, Virginia, is one of a dozen
38' deadrise workboats built in the wake of the original
MARINER of 1980, which is now in the collections of The
Mariners’ Museum of Newport News, Virginia.
n “Forty years ago this year, Chesapeake Bay boatbuilder

Billy Moore and his two sons completed the construction
of MARINER , a 38' deadrise workboat for The Mariners’
Museum in Newport News, Virginia,” Kent Lewis writes
after having moved to the state recently. “The goal of the
project, supported by the museum and the National Trust
for Historic Preservation, was to document the distinctive
boats, used for working the shallows of the bay’s oyster beds.
The V-bottom shape helped the boats to knife through the
choppy waters of the bay and the James River while making
fast runs to local buyboats.
“MARINER was started in the fall of 1980 with the selec-
tion, shaping, and squaring of her pine keel from a local
Meticulously handcrafted using forest,” Lewis writes. “Her bottom is cross-planked and
sheathed in fiberglass cloth set in epoxy. Her side planks
only the finest materials, our sails are of juniper and her deck is laid with two layers of 3⁄4"-thick
marine plywood sheathed in fiberglass. MARINER worked
perfectly fit, power, and oyster beds on the James River and delivered her first catch
complement any boat. to the buyboat F.D. CROCKETT of the Deltaville Maritime
Museum.
“MARINER is now stored at The Mariners’ Museum,
We specialize in new sail design where plans are in the works for her restoration. [The
and construction, repair, annual museum reopened May 28.] But a second goal of the proj-
ect was to inspire the construction of additional deadrise
maintenance, cleaning and storage. workboats, and to date 12 variations on the original MARI-
NER , numbered II through XIII, have been built for busi-
We look forward to collaborating ness and pleasure use. The locations of all but MARINER
III are known, and several of the boats regularly participate
with you on all your sail needs! in the annual Harborfest Workboat Races in Norfolk, Vir-
ginia. Two of the boats are currently berthed at Smithfield
Station, and another is running private charters for Rover
Mike Bartles, Sailmaker mhbsailmakers.com
Marine out of Norfolk.”
73 Corey Lane [email protected] The Mariners’ Museum, 100 Museum Dr., Newport News, VA
Boothbay, Maine 04537 Loft: (207) 315-6016 23606; 757–596–2222; www.marinersmuseum.org.

K ATE GAHS
The Classic Wooden Sailboat Rendezvous & Race will

gather boats of a wide variety September 11–12 in
Annapolis, Maryland.
n The Classic Wooden Sailboat Rendezvous & Race, spon-

sored by the Chesapeake Traditional Sailing Association and
Eastport Yacht Club in Annapolis, Maryland, will go ahead as
planned this year. The event, billed as a gathering of wooden
classics with low-key racing, is scheduled for September 11–12
in Annapolis. The race, on show Saturday at 11 a.m., is for
boats with wood (or primarily wood) hulls designed before
1970 with overall lengths less than 65'. (Registration for the
race closed August 23.)
Across the bar

n Dave Mullens, 75, June 16, 2021, Shoreline, Washington.
Mr. Mullens grew up in the decidedly not-maritime town
of Tombstone, Arizona, where he nevertheless developed
an interest in wooden boat building. After graduating high
school, he moved to Seattle to enroll at Edison Technical
School’s boatbuilding program. He completed that program
in 1965 and immediately went to work at Vic Franck’s Boat
Company on Lake Union with his former instructor, Earle
Wakefield. Among the boats he worked on was KAKKI M, a
104' yacht designed by Bill Garden. He then moved on to The
Boat Yard Inc., formerly Blanchard Boat Company. He men-
tored numerous young boatbuilders along the way and also
became president of the Shipwrights, Joiners, and Caulkers
Local No. 1184. In 1976, he was recruited to join the marine
carpentry staff at the technical school from which he had
graduated, which by then had been renamed the Gompers
Branch of Seattle Central Community College. He taught
there for 34 years ending in 2010. He became the lead faculty
member in boatbuilding, cabinetry, and carpentry, teaching
the construction of innumerable small craft and repair of
larger ones, among them GLORYBE (see WB No. 187), owned
by one of his students, Betsy Davis, who is now director of the
Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding in Port Hadlock.
He oversaw the construction of a new building to house the
Seattle program just before his retirement. On the side, he
maintained his own business, Mullens Marine, for boat con-
struction and repair, and after retiring from the school he
volunteered at The Center for Wooden Boats. He owned a
succession of powerboats and often cruised to the San Juan
Islands.

TYLER FIELDS | PHOTOGRAPHY
WBShow-281-01.indd 22 7/18/21 2:03 PM

Celebrate Summer at
The 29 Annual th
Show
Mystic, CT ✯ August 20–22, 2021
The WoodenBoat Show offers something

for every wooden boat enthusiast:
✯ Expert Skills Demonstrations
✯ I Built It Myself Reader-Built Boats
✯ Mystic Seaport’s 19th Century Seafaring Village
✯ In-Water and On-Land Boat Displays
✯ Concours d’Elegance
✯ Marine accessories, books, art, tools, kits, and so much more
Hosted at
www.thewoodenboatshow.com
WBShow-281-01.indd 23 7/18/21 2:03 PM

Elisabeth Holm-Lagnelöv
Tore Holm
Sweden’s master of the rules
by Nic Compton
K
nut Holm had a grandstand view of the 1887 Manufacturing Company in Bristol, Rhode Island. And
AMERICA’s Cup defender trials. Standing in the yet, despite being fluent in English and having good
rigging more than 60' above the deck of the 100' prospects in this rich, exciting country, the following
MAYFLOWER , winner of the previous year’s cup, he year he decided to return to his native Sweden. It was
could see every tack and sail adjustment of her rival, almost as if he had seen into the future from the
VOLUNTEER . His job was to make sure the topsail set top of that mast and realized his destiny was to go
clear to leeward, without getting tangled up in any home and establish a great boatbuilding dynasty—
rigging, but in between tacks he cast an anxious eye on a father-and-son lineage that would yield hundreds of
the two boats, as VOLUNTEER slipped steadily ahead beautiful boats and countless race wins. Rather than
in the light airs. Despite his boat’s defeat, he must have being small fish in the big American pond, he and his
felt on top of the world as MAYFLOWER sliced through son, Tore, would become big fish in the smaller Baltic
the waters of Lower Bay, New York, with Staten Island pond before swimming out into the world.
and New York City rising to the north and the empty Back in Sweden, Knut worked for several years in sail-
Atlantic Ocean to the east. At that moment, anything ing ships before settling down at the age of 30 in his
must have seemed possible for the ambitious 23-year-old childhood home of Gamleby, 110 miles south of Stock-
from southern Sweden. holm. There, like his father before him, he skippered the
Knut had arrived in the United States seven years coastal ferry to the Swedish capital before becoming har-
earlier and had worked as a seaman on American cargo bormaster. He married and had three children, Yngve,
ships before becoming a U.S. citizen in 1886. He had Tore, and Magda, all born between 1895 and 1898.
performed in a Swedish opera in Chicago and possibly From 1897, Knut was a keen competitor in the races
worked as a boatbuilder at the celebrated Herreshoff organized by the local sailing organization, and in 1903
Above—Knut Holm (center) with sons Tore (left) and Yngve at the 1919 Sandhamm Regatta in the Stockholm Archipelago.
Tore and Yngve sailed the 40-Square-Meter BIMBI, designed and built by their father, while Knut sailed MAYFLOWER VI,
designed by Tore. Between them, they won six out of 15 possible trophies in a fleet of 88 boats.
Tore Holm 282-Final.indd 24 7/13/21 12:03 PM

Tore Holm’s first fully independent
design was the 55-Square-Meter
MAYFLOWER VI, which he designed
when he was just 22. Eighteen years
later, aged 40, Tore (inset) took over
his father’s boatyard in Gamleby.
Most were built to the Skerry

Cruiser Rule, which was devised in
Gunilla Edfeldt
1907 (see WB No. 114). The system

was a Scandinavian alternative to
the International Rule prevalent
in the rest of Europe and the Uni-
versal Rule governing racing in the
United States. International Rule
boats are recognizable by their
Meter-class designations—for exam-
ple, 6-Meters, 8-Meters, and 12-
Meters; Universal Rule yachts are
recognized by their letter-class
designations—R-class, Q-class, P-class,
Swedish National Maritime Museum
and the mighty J-class that briefly

contested the AMERICA’s Cup. The
Skerry Cruiser Rule, or Square-
Meter Rule, aimed at creating
boats that were not too expensive
to build and could be used for
cruising as well as racing, compared
to the all-out racers produced by
the other rules. The classes were
determined by sail area, starting
with just four classes (22-, 30-, 45-,
he built his first boat. The 19' BRIS was built in the attic and 55-Square-Meter) but eventually growing to 10
of an outbuilding, but when completed she was too big ranging from 15-Square-Meter to 150-Square-Meter.
to go through the door. Part of the roof and wall had to Both Knut and, later, Tore, proved to be masters at
be dismantled to allow the boat to be hoisted out. At building fast boats to the rule, whose popularity spread
this point, Knut was heard to exclaim a sentence that worldwide, ultimately contributing to its demise
would soon pass into family legend: “Vad är huset för because their designs grew more extreme and the boats
en båt?” or “What is a house, compared to a boat?” less durable.
BRIS was launched in 1904 and,
with her modern fin keel set on a
narrow hull, was unbeatable in local
races.
Her success soon led to orders for
more boats. In 1905, Knut built three
more, including the first to his own
design, simply called S. By 1908, he
had opened his own boatyard in
Gamleby and soon acquired a repu-
tation for building affordable, well-
built boats; the yard launched 11 in
1914, and 15 per year through World
War I. By the time Knut retired in
the mid-1930s, his yard had built
about 500 yachts.
Birgitta Holm
The first boat Knut Holm built was the

19’ BRIS, launched in 1904. He had to
dismantle part of the building to get her
out, but she soon proved unbeatable.

A new hull takes shape at the Holm boatyard. Knut started
building boats professionally around 1908. By 1914, he
was building 11 boats per year.
to be given away in the annual lottery of the Royal

Swedish Yacht Club (KSSS). ARNA VI was an exceptional
boat and established a lifelong collaboration between
Tore and Sweden’s most prestigious yacht club.
From the outset, it was clear that Tore was not only a
remarkable designer but an accomplished sailor, too.
When the 30- and 40-Square-Meter classes were
Birgitta Holm
accepted as Olympic boats for the first and only time in

1920, Sweden duly sent two 40-Square-Meters: SIF,
designed by Tore and built by his father the previous
year; and ELSIE, designed by Carl Holmström. There
were no other competitors. Tore was skipper, with Yngve
The young Tore was seven years old when his father’s and two others as crew, and won three out of four races.
first boat was hoisted through that hole in the roof. It Aged 23, he had won his first Olympic Gold medal on a
must have left a strong impression on the boy, who later boat he had designed himself, a remarkable achieve-
sailed with his father to Sandham to race. From an ment by any standard and a sign of things to come.
early age, both Tore and his older brother, Yngve, con- Luck also played its part. On his way home from the
tributed to the designs their father built, though as the 1920 Olympics, Tore stopped in Gothenburg and
boats were simply credited to “Holms Yachtvarv, Gam- strolled over to the city’s recently named Götaplatsen
leby,” it was impossible to tell who did what. All that Square to while away a few minutes until his train was
changed once Tore began studying naval architecture due. While he was there, he was accosted by Erik Åker-
at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, lund, the director and part-owner of a large publishing
and the extra kudos this status conveyed on the house. Åkerlund had just had lunch with two other
designs meant that from 1918 onward his
name increasingly appeared on his father’s
boatyard drawings.
Tore’s first fully independent design is
generally acknowledged to be the 55-Square-
Meter Skerry Cruiser MAYFLOWER VI, built
in 1919—the sixth boat to be symbolically
named after Knut’s famous AMERICA’s Cup
steed. Tore’s timing was auspicious; that year
the offshore race course at Sandham was
fully opened for the first time since the start
of World War I in 1914. Despite a poor start,
MAYFLOWER VI beat entries designed by
the best designers of the day, including
Erik Salander and Gustav Estlander. The
Holm family dominated that year: while
Knut was sailing MAYFLOWER VI to victory
in the 55-Square-Meter class, Tore was at
the helm of the Knut Holm–designed BIMBI
Gustav Grahm/Swedish National Maritime Museum
in the 40-Square-Meter class, winning the

inaugural Scandinavian Gold Cup. The
Holm dynasty that Knut may or may not
have foreseen all those years before had well
and truly arrived.
Tore’s success with his first design, when he
was a 22-year-old college student, soon led to
more orders, including a new 30-Square-Meter
One of Tore’s most successful 6-Meter yachts

was MAY BE VI of 1946, four-time winner of the
One Ton Cup. Boats built to his designs won the
Cup a total of 14 times—a record unbeaten by
any other designer.

The 53’ HAVSÖRNEN was considered a bit of a freak when
she was launched in 1937, but she was a winning racer under
the Cruising Club of America’s 1928 Bermuda Rule.
Reijo Rüster/Swedish National

prominent Swedish industrialists, and all had agreed
they should support the sport of sailing by ordering
Maritime Museum
new boats. It must have seemed like fate when he
spotted Tore and, after congratulating him on his
Olympic victory, ordered a boat. The result was one of
Tore’s most successful designs and a relationship
between owner and designer that would last throughout
his career.
When Tore designed the 95-Square-Meter BRITT Sweden for the next decade—so much so that by 1923 it
MARIE , he already had more than 10 years of experi- had even succeeded in winning the Mälardrottningen
ence watching his father design and build boats to the Trophy. Established in 1903 in honor of King Oscar II
Square-Meter Rule, so he knew its strength and weak- and described as “the most coveted trophy in the world
nesses. He took full advantage of this by designing a after the AMERICA’s Cup,” the trophy’s deed stipulated
boat that, at 21.27m long (about 70' ), was longer and that a boat must win the race three times before being
narrower than any other boat in her class. The result able to keep the cup for good. Although two other
was exceptionally fast, and it dominated the Sandhamn boats had managed to win the event twice, BRITT
Regatta as well as most other races on the east coast of MARIE clinched the vital third victory.
In his biography of the designer, Tapani
Koskela credits the boat as breaking, once
and for all, the Swedish designer Erik
Salander’s dominance in the Square-Meter
classes. And Koskela quotes Holm’s own
tribute to BRITT MARIE: “Surely the fastest
boat I have ever sailed. Ten knots on a reach
was nothing unusual.”
T
hese were the golden years of the
Square-Meter classes, and during the
mid-1920s Tore designed 24 of them,
mostly in the small sizes. Several were
exported to Swiss and Austrian lakes while a
few went to the United States, including
four 30-Square-Meters and one 55-Square-
Meter. Most of the competition for the
Swedish boats, however, came from neigh-
boring Finland, with the Baltic Sea between
the two countries acting as “a kind of labo-
ratory,” as Koskela puts it, noting that “the
laboratory was full of vitality.” As the designs
became more extreme, however, the boats’
structural integrity suffered, because the
long hulls were strained by towering rigs
and leaks became an increasing problem
even on new boats. By the late 1930s, the
class was in decline.
As the International Rule’s meter-boat
classes (and, to a lesser extent, the Universal
Rule’s boats) came to dominate interna-
tional racing, it became clear that Sweden
Engwall Family Archive
would have to transition from the Square
The 10-Meter yacht ZIBELINE was Tore Holm’s

second-largest design. She was built in 1934
for the royal furrier and is still sailing under the
name of ITAKA .

Meter Rule to the International Rule if it wanted to con- in 1929. Not to be outdone, Carl Mathiessen (known as
tinue to compete in international events. As early as the “Banana King” due to his success importing
1907, the year the International Rule was published, bananas into Sweden) ordered three in a row, too: LIL-
Knut commissioned drawings for his first meter boat, IAN in 1927, LILIAN II in 1928, and FRIDOLN in 1930.
the 7-Meter BAMBI II. The 7-Meter class never caught But Tore’s greatest success in the 6-Meter class was
on in Sweden, and Knut raced her in the 90-Square- Åkerlund’s third foray into the class, BISSBI II. In her
Meter class at Sandhamn the following year, where he first season, she asserted her dominance by winning the
swept the board. One Ton Cup—only the second time Sweden had won
Tore designed his first Meter boat the 6-Meter the cup in the 30 years since its inception. BISSBI II suc-
TUTTAN, in 1922; this was followed by the 6-Meter VERA cessfully defended the cup the following year, and her
in 1924. His chance meeting with Åkerlund continued successor, BISSBI IV, completed Sweden’s hat trick in
to bear fruit, as the publisher ordered a series of 1931. Holm maintained his grip on the One Ton Cup,
6-Meters: BISSBI in 1924, BITTABI in 1928, and BISSBI II which at that time was the most important annual
SILÈNE III: A Little Box of Treasures

T apani Koskela didn’t know much about Tore Holm
when he bought a 6-Meter yacht designed and built
by the famous Swedish designer.
winning numerous races both in Switzerland and, after
a short journey by train, on the fashionable Mediterra-
nean circuit. On one memorable occasion, she very
“Having sailed a Star, boats with large sail areas nearly clinched the record for the famous Bol d’Or, a
attracted me,” he says. “Having seen a convoy of 6-Meters 165-mile race up and down the length of Lac Léman.
arriving at Hanko one summer in late 1980s, I was con- Racing neck-and-neck with the Sparkman & Stephens–
vinced that those were the most beautiful boats I could designed YLLIAM IX, she suffered a broken mast just 3
ever find.” miles from the finish line; SILÈNE III had to pull out of
A few years after that seminal experience, Koskela the race, while YLLIAM IX sailed on to claim a course
persuaded a couple of other Finnish wooden-boat record that would remain unbroken for 26 years.
enthusiasts to buy a boat with him. Even though Fin- Along the way, the yacht acquired three new owners
land has one of the biggest fleets of 6-Meter yachts in and three new names, winning the Swiss Champion’s
the world, they eventually focused on one particular title in 1965 as FARDADET VI, the Semaine Printemps
boat in Switzerland which they spotted in the “for sale” (three times) as BOSCO, and the Régates Royales in
section of a 6-Meter magazine. 1983 as SILÈNE (without the “III”).
“We soon understood she was relatively new (1950) By the time Koskela and friends appeared on the
and designed by a famous designer. We also deduced scene, SILÈNE was nearly 40 years old but still competi-
that the Swiss never purchased any poor boats from tive in the classic 6-Meter fleet. Two weeks after seeing
Scandinavia because they were rich and required high her, they agreed to the purchase, but they then had to
quality. Our curiosity quickly rose to unmeasurable get her back to Helsinki, 1,200 miles away. The easy
dimensions, and in January 1989 we went to Geneva to
see the boat. It was a calm and sunny day and Lac
Léman [aka Lake Geneva] was so beautiful. Things like The 6-Meter SILÈNE III in 1991, soon after her return to the
that may influence how one feels about such matters.” Baltic.
But it wasn’t just the Alpine air or the coffee offered
by the owner that influenced their decision, for SILÈNE
III had an inspiring history. Built at the Holm yard in
Gamleby, she was shipped by train to Geneva for her
first owner, the department store owner André Maus of
Maus Frères SA, in April 1950. She was the second of
three 6-Meters owned by Maus, his first being designed
by Knud Reimers and his third by Sparkman & Ste-
phens. All were named SILÈNE after the small jewelry
boxes that were popular in the 16th century.
SILÈNE III joined a fleet of famous 6-Meter yachts
that had been snapped up by wealthy Swiss sailors to
race on the Swiss and Austrian lakes, including several
Holm designs, such as BISSBI II, MAY BE III, IAN IV, and
Kimmo Kienanen
YLLIAM IV. They would later be joined by MAY BE VIII

and MAY BE IX.
With a professional skipper, Jack Duval, at the helm,
the latest addition to the fleet soon proved her worth,

event for the 6-Meter class—for the next 30 years, with sailor, Salén is credited with inventing the overlapping
his designs winning a total of 14 times. The only other genoa.
designers to come close to this record in the history Racing for the 1927 Gold Cup took place off the
of the cup were Bruce Farr with ten wins and Sparkman SCYS clubhouse at Oyster Bay on Long Island Sound,
& Stephens with eight wins. New York, with eight countries vying for the prize. Salén
Holm was not above racing other people’s designs. was at the helm of MAY BE on day three of the seven-day
In 1927, he joined a Swedish delegation to reclaim the event when the jib halyard jammed in the mast. Despite
Scandinavian Gold Cup from the Seawanhaka Corin- rough seas rolling the narrow 6-Meter from side to side,
thian Yacht Club (SCYC), which had won it in Norway Holm climbed the mast to release the halyard. And
the year before. As a member of the KSSS team, Holm thus, in a strange echo of history, he found himself with
sailed on the 6-Meter MAY BE, designed by Estlander a grandstand view of a major yacht race, just a few miles
and owned by the ship owner and professional singer- from where, 40 years before almost to the day, his father
songwriter Sven Salén. As well as being an accomplished Knut had observed the AMERICA’s Cup defender race
option would have been to have the boat moved on a own keel was a once-in-a-life opportunity that we could
low-loader, but they decided instead to have her trans- not resist, and I don’t regret.”
ported to Basel, on the border between Switzerland With just an outboard fitted on a bracket, they
and Germany, and to motor her from there to the sea motored down the Rhine and through various canals
through the inland waterways. before emerging on the north coast of Germany at
“It would have been so boring just to have her Lübeck. From there, they had to sail 800 miles across
shipped to Helsinki,” Koskela said. “Why not choose the Baltic Sea, stopping for two weeks at Oxelösund
the most difficult and adventurous way? It was also the in Sweden due to a broken halyard, before arriving in
cheapest. We were then in our 30s and thirsty for chal- Helsinki six weeks after leaving Switzerland.
lenges in any field of life. Bringing SILÈNE home on her After sailing the boat for a year, Koskela and friends
embarked on a restoration program that lasted from 1990
to 1992, fitting a new Douglas-fir deck, a new transom, and
SILÈNE III after the restoration completed in 1992. Her several new frames. The hull was gutted and revar-
current owner’s fascination with the boat’s history turned nished, and the yacht received a new suit of sails. Con-
into a 20-year book-writing project. trary to expectations, the main effect of having spent
most of her life in fresh water seems to have been that,
unlike many of her salt-water sisters, her galvanized
steel floors and frames were found to be in excellent
condition. When SILÈNE III was finally relaunched in 1992,
with her full name now reinstated, her new owners were
rewarded with a prize for the best restoration at an
annual wooden boat regatta in Helsinki.
She continued to be competitive on the racecourse
too, coming second in the Finnish Nationals in 1992
and winning two important races in 1994. But her best
result was during her 50th anniversary year in 2000,
when Koskela and a new co-owner took her on a month-
long tour of the Baltic, competing in three 6-Meter
regattas along the way. She finished the season in third
place in Finland’s national 6-Meter ranking—her best
position since returning to Scandinavia.
It was while researching her history that Koskela
became interested in the story of her creator. That
spark of interest started a 20-year mission to document
the life of Sweden’s foremost yacht designer. The result
is a definitive biography that was scheduled to be pub-
lished this summer to coincide with the 125th anniver-
sary of Holm’s birth. There’s little doubt that for
Klaus Somerkoski
Koskela, as for so many other owners of historic wooden

boats, SILÈNE III has proven to be a veritable little box
of treasures.
—NC

BISSBI II was Tore Holm’s breakthrough
boat in the 6-Meter class, winning the One
Ton Cup in 1929 and 1930 and gold at the
1932 Olympics in Los Angeles with her
designer at the helm.
from the top of MAYFLOWER’s mast.

Except that this time, the Holm steed
would win the regatta.
After another three days of racing,
designs by Estlander and Laurent Giles
fell by the wayside, and the cup ended
up as a straight contest between three
Scandinavian countries: Norway (with the
Johan Anker–designed NOREG), Finland,
and Sweden, with MAY BE winning the
final race by a convincing margin. It
would be nine more years before the
United States managed to tease the Scan-
dinavian Gold Cup back out of Scandi-
navia. Meanwhile, Salén would become
one of Holm’s most loyal customers,
ordering more than 10 yachts from him
and becoming a major shareholder in
the Holm boatyard.
The burgeoning success of Tore’s
6-Meters meant an order for an 8-Meter
Swedish National Maritime Museum

wasn’t long in coming, and sure enough
in 1927 Tore designed SYLVIA for the
king’s dentist, John Sandblom. Although
she didn’t race that year, the yacht
sailed straight into the history books
the next year when she won the coveted
Commodore Nicholas Sinebrychoff
Challenge Trophy (nowadays the second-
oldest active sporting event in the
world, after the AMERICA’s Cup) in Fin-
land, beating a design by Tore’s long-
time rival Estlander and earning her crew the title of the U.S. boat, GALLANT, designed by Johan Anker, and
“the Finn-slayers.” Canada’s CAPRICE, designed by Nick Potter. After some
With Tore at the helm, SYLVIA went on to win bronze last-minute adjustments, including loading the bilges
at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, narrowly missing with 200kg of lead (about 440 lbs) and having the main-
out on a gold medal when her mainsheet broke while sail recut to cope with the heavier-than-expected West
she was leading on the final leg. Coast weather, BISSBI II proved as unbeatable in the
Meanwhile, aged 35, Holm married into a wealthy United States as she had been in Europe, winning all
Swedish family. Inga Brita Kristina, known simply as six of her races.
“Brita,” was a chemist who worked in a laboratory in Despite the American boat’s defeat, the local press
Stockholm. She was nine years younger than Tore, a was ecstatic, with one reporter writing: “The sensa-
keen smoker, and drove a motorcycle even when pregnant. tional BISSBI is, in the manner of speaking of racing
The couple married on December 31, 1931, and had men of the sea, built ‘like a watch’.… She was designed
two children, Jan and Birgitta, born in 1932 and 1938 entirely and built by Holm in a shipyard of his own in a
respectively. Although Brita doesn’t seem to have been little town, Gamleby, nestling against towering cliffs of
interested in yacht racing personally, she invested South Sweden. … The traditions and heritages of a
heavily in her husband’s business and, by 1953, was the long line of seafaring Holms went into her watch-like
third-largest shareholder, owning twice as many shares construction and the ghosts of the old dead Holms
as Holm himself. hover about her mastheads. And she seems to under-
A few months after the couple married, and with stand this as she cleaves the Pacific, be it heavy or light
Brita already pregnant with their first child, Tore was breeze, day after day.”
called away to race in the 1932 Olympic Games in Los On August 25, while Tore was halfway across the
Angeles. This time, it was the turn of Åkerlund’s all- Atlantic heading home from the Olympic Games, back
conquering BISSBI II to race in the 6-Meter class against home in Gamleby Brita gave birth to their son, Jan.

The Holm boatyard was a major employer
in the town of Gamleby, and Tore was
an exacting employer—though he was
Birgitta Westlund-Holm/Swedish National Maritime Museum
generally acknowledged to be reliable

and fair.
take over. Having successfully passed

on his life’s work and etched his name
into the annals of yachting history,
Knut died a year later.
As Koskela puts it: “Up until 1936
Tore’s life had probably been more
like that of an artist and a sportsman,
certainly challenging, but with few
responsibilities. Now he had to man-
age a company carrying his own
name and to take care, among other
things, of his employees.”
Tore Holm is always referred to as
a quiet, modest man, who never liked
to blow his own trumpet and would
Holm’s success in the 6-Meter class continued with rather let his work speak for itself. His employees saw
KSSS 1933 (another lottery boat for the KSSS), which another side of his character, having to work to a high
won the Scandinavian Gold Cup in 1933 with Salén at standard for a modest wage and live up to his high stan-
the helm. Two years later, Salén ordered his first boat dard of perfectionism. Eva Berglund-Thörnblom, cura-
from Tore, the 6-Meter MAY BE III, which the legendary tor at the Swedish Maritime Museum, whose father
British designer Uffa Fox featured in his 1937 book worked at the Holm boatyard in the 1940s and ’50s,
Racing Cruising and Design, saying: “MAY BE’s lines tell interviewed several of the yard’s former employees.
us that Tore Holm has given the 6-metre rule a great “Holm is described by my interviewees as a head-
deal of thought, for in spite of the heavy displacement strong man, hard to understand and a bit quiet and sul-
forced upon him by the rule, he has produced a very len—but reliable and fair,” she says. Despite this, her
sweet-lined vessel, the buttocks, water-lines and diagonals father remembers his time at the yard fondly. “He used
all telling of this.” to talk about this period in his life like if it was some
sort of dreamland. And for him I really think it was.”
T
ore was back at the Berlin Olympic Games in Although in many ways unsuited to running a
1936, this time with the 8-Meter ILDERIM, boatyard—or a business of any kind—Tore never had
designed for the Swedish banker Marcus Wallen- trouble finding customers. Soon after taking over the
berg Jr. Racing at the sailing venue in Kiel, ILDERIM yard at Gamleby, he secured a commission for a large
was on track to win gold, having won three out of seven cruiser-racer from a KSSS consortium headed by his
races, when she was retrospectively disqualified from old friend Sven Salén.
the sixth race. The evidence presented for her disquali-
T
fication was nothing less than film footage shot from a he 53' HAVSÖRNEN (aka CITONA) was designed
zeppelin by the famed Nazi propagandist Leni Riefens- in 1937 to maximize the Bermuda Rule created
tahl as part of her award-winning (and now notorious) in 1928 by the Cruising Club of America for
film Olympia. Despite being demoted to fifth place, Tore offshore racing then gaining favor. The rule measured
was philosophical about the results: “I have often won length, beam, sail area, and draft with an allowance
and often lost,” he told an interviewer after the regatta. for the type of rig, and was aimed at discouraging
“I am used to both.” extreme designs with long overhangs. This meant that
ILDERIM went on to have a successful racing career, HAVSÖRNEN was much wider than the equivalent
including winning the Coppa d’Italia in Genoa in 1938. 8-Meter or Square-Meter. To modern eyes, her lines are
It was the first time Sweden had won the trophy, which supremely elegant, but at the time she was widely
was the main 8-Meter event in Europe from 1908 to mocked in Swedish yachting circles and was nicknamed
1950, and it started a winning streak. Sweden won the The Egg. But, as Salén commented, “He who laughs
cup four more times, each with a Holm design: once with last, laughs best.” HAVSÖRNEN trounced all the other
ILDERIM II and three other victories with WANDA II. boats in her class at the 1937 Round Gotland Race, the
Meanwhile, after nearly 30 years of running the first offshore race ever organized by the KSSS, and went
boatyard, Knut finally handed over the business to his on to have a long and varied life.
son in the autumn of 1936, and from 1937 onward the HAVSÖRNEN was followed by the 70' yawl HAVSÖRNEN
yard became officially known as AB Tore Holms II, also built for Salén and at that time the biggest yacht
Yachtvarv. Tore and his young family moved from ever built in Gamleby. She won the 1938 Round Gotland
Stockholm, where they had been living, to Gamleby to Race outright.

One of Tore’s last designs was the
cruiser-racer CAPRIFOL, launched in
1961. Her eventful life included a sail
up the Amazon River, and she is now
based in San Diego, California.
The war years proved a profit-

able time for the Holms Yachtvarv,
despite Sweden’s neutral status, as
the yard was gainfully employed
building minesweepers and so-
Courtesy Gordon Davies

called “fishing boats” for Germany.
The company payroll doubled, and
by war’s end, it had enough money
to invest in a small block of apart-
ments, which it named Majblom-
man, or Mayflower, in memory of
Knut.
The first Olympics after the war
were hosted by London, which had suffered so much at and unable to pay off its debts. The last boat was built
the hands of the Luftwaffe. The sailing races, however, in the yard during the winter of 1954–55, and AB Tore
were held at Torquay on the so-called “English Riviera” Holms Yachtvarv officially closed in 1961.
in Devon. Once again, Sweden was represented in the Tore and Brita moved back to Stockholm in 1957,
6-Meter class by Tore on his latest design, ALIBABA II. and Tore continued designing boats—including the
After repairing damage suffered by the boat during cruising yacht CAPRIFOL , built in 1961 and now based
transit and cutting the rudder down to satisfy the local in San Diego after various adventures, including sailing
class measurer, Tore and his crew were faced by a wild up the Amazon. He even designed one last 6-Meter for
mix of weather over the seven days of racing in what Sven Salén: MAY BE IX, with a modern reverse transom,
they nicknamed “the wind circus,” starting off with which represented Sweden at the One-Ton Cup in
variable winds, followed by rain, followed by rain and France in 1961. After a hair-raising passage from Mar-
no wind, followed by rain and too much wind—in short, seille to Cannes under the full force of the Mistral
a typical British summer. winds, she was beaten by ELGHI III —otherwise known
ALIBABA II was in second place and could have won as MAY BE VIII, Tore’s previous design for Salén. It was
gold when a protest from the Argentinian team led to Tore’s last regatta.
disqualification in the sixth race and reduced their After a long retirement in Gamleby, Tore died in
score—bringing back uneasy memories of the 1936 1977, two years after his beloved Brita. His legacy lives
Olympics. They still had a chance of winning silver on, however, not only in the 700-odd boats built to his
when, just before the start of the final race, a shroud designs during his lifetime, many of which have sur-
fitting broke, and they had to limp around the whole vived and been lovingly restored by their owners, but in
course without a jib. In his biography, Koskela writes new boats, too. The most astonishing of these was the
that, years later, Sven Krans, one of the two riggers J-class yacht SVEA , designed by Holm in collaboration
responsible for soldering the boat’s stays, “would still with Gustav Plym in 1937 but never built. The plans lay
wake up at nights in a nightmare, the broken shroud undiscovered for 80 years, and Holm’s latest creation
dangling in front of his eyes.” joined the fleet in 2017. At 147' long, she is the biggest
Tore had to content himself with a bronze medal in J-class ever built.
his final Olympics, bringing his total Olympic tally to Meanwhile, Holm’s old yard in Gamleby has been
two golds and two bronzes—a record unequaled by any resurrected and reopened as a museum and a training
other Swedish sailor or any other yacht designer of any center for wooden boat building. First lesson: Make
nationality. sure you can get your boat out of the space after it is
There were other postwar successes in the 6-Meter built. Second lesson: Get a business manager to run
class, most notably MAY BE VI, one of the most success- your financial affairs. The third, and most important,
ful Nordic 6-Meters of all time, four-time winner of the lesson: “What is a house, compared to a boat?”
One-Ton Cup and five-time winner of the Scandinavian
Gold Cup. She was followed by MAY BE VIII, which won Nic Compton is a frequent WoodenBoat contributor. He has written
the One-Ton Cup once for Sweden and three times for about boats and the sea for more than 30 years and has published 19
France under her new name of ELGHI III. Increasingly, books including his most recent publication A Knot A Day. Based
however, the demand was for cruising yachts, which was in Devon, England, he sails a 14' wooden skiff and a 33' cat-ketch.
not a type that Holm was enthusiastic about.
The end came slowly: 1949 was one of the yard’s I Have Won, I Have Lost: The Ultimate Biography of Tore Holm is
most profitable years, but by 1952 it was losing money scheduled to be published in October 2021 (www.toreholmbiography.com).

M A G A Z I N E
M A G A Z I N E
Taking you aboard and

showing you the way all
year from the comfort of
your home (or shop!).
hull was opened up
In 2013, LA VOLPE’s
Journey to
by boatbuilder
for structural work led
of the project
Wayne Ettel. That phase
of her frames
involved replacing most
her original ferrous
and planking. All of
with new
fastenings were replaced
ones of bronze.
Perfection
a pas-
The Fates had been weaving
rs in O’Brien
sion for such endeavo
remem ber.
for as long as he can
in Escana ba
As a boy growin g up
Michiga n’s Upper Peninsula, he
on Stoll’s
had admired owner Charlie
W. Starlin g
sleek and powerf ul schooner
Restoring a 1926
Burgess –designed racing No. 274)
WB
ROSE OF SHARON (see
harbor every
WAYNE ETTEL
that was moored in the
racing schooner
graceful
summer. Her sweet sheer, t, and,
overhangs, sporty bowspri spell-
g varnish work held him
al especially, her gleamin was actually invited for a sail
O’Brien. It’s a rhetoric
“M
he
y fatal flaw?” asks Tim in his eye and a bound. Sometimes hum.
question. He has a twinkle aboard. It made his blood lly
self-awareness as he Sunfish sailor who eventua a
bemused and striking In those days, he was a
by Randall Peffer answers himself. “I’ve never
been able to settle for ‘good graduated to racing his father’s Morgan Army in
24 after
artillery spotter for the such as
enough.’” Capt. stint as a forward wooden sailing yachts
70s, sturdy-looking like Vietnam. And while
He’s a man in his early At the momen t, him, they also seemed
later life. N thrilled
Irving Johnson in his with a rubber mallet in his ROSE OF SHARO mable, and complicated.
op for strange, unfatho
O’Brien’s in a woodsh achieving a machine-fit ia shortly after college
hand. He’s talking about corners of a drawer he’s Moving to Southern Californcareer as an executive
g up to begin his
dovetails and squarin just in the late 1970s firm of KPMG International and to
r, LA VOLPE . But he might ing
building for his schoone his other discrete boat proj- with the account his wife, Chris, O’Brien continued
of with
as well be alluding to any chafing covers on masthead start a family of sailing (and racing in particular)
love
ects, such as sewing leather ating with a seasoned ship- to pursue his boats, including a
product ion fibergla ss
halyard blocks or collabor pattern, and cast a swivel- in a series of one of the grand
design, Sometimes he spotted
wright and foundry to a broader Choate 44. ia yachting—
traveler. Then again, in dames from the Golden278 Age of Californsuch as Hum-
ing bronze mainsheet
context, he could be
describing what has become his
been especially those
that belonge d to actors,
Powell’s ketch A NEW SHAR
nearly two-decade effort
to take what could have
phrey Bogart’s yawl SANTAN A and Dick
clouds of PIE • CENT
vessel restorat ion into the realm of TE —beatin g to windward under
fascinat ion ER-CONSO
a straight forward
refined elegance of the
first magnitude.
he continues. “When
RESOLU
ts, he felt his boyhood
I sails. At such momen and found himself drawn to the LE SK IFF • VINE
“I’ll tell you one thing,”
expected to be spendin
g with ROSE OF SHARON
on the pages of WoodenB
oat. YARD HAVEN
retired at age 55, I never 17 years in a boatyard.” classified ads
next
nearly every day of the
of being off in the South
Probably he dreamed
Gardner McKay in the
Seas on a schooner, like
TV series Adventures in
classic James Michener a two-master in Cali-
Paradise...or campaigning
events. But, of course,
fornia’s classic yacht about seafaring.
wooden boats are never
just
THE MAGAZ
INE FOR WOO
this photograph of the
53’
DEN BOAT
Facing page—When
was taken at the 2012 OWNERS,
schooner-yacht LA VOLPE
off San Diego, she had
already BUILDERS,
Yesteryear Regatta
e work, but hull reframin
g and AND DESIGN
undergo ne extensiv
to come. Right—Owner
Tim
ERS
STEVE JOST
replanking were still

MARK ALBERTAZZ I
Yacht
during the Los Angeles
O’Brien, at the helm
several years ago, worked
Club Opening Day Race during
boatyard professionals
hands-on alongside on.
the 17-year restorati 25
July/August 2020 •
LEGEND
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JOHN MARPLES
Building a Tolman
Wide-Body Skiff: Part 3
A rugged, handsome, and easy-to-build boat
Text and photographs by John Marples
I
n this installment of our series describing the con-
struction of Renn Tolman’s Wide-Body Alaskan
Skiff, we plank the topsides and begin building the Above—The Tolman Wide-Body skiff is 21’ LOA and can be
interior. (The following photos are numbered to pick outfitted in a number of different ways. The New York–based
up where Part 2 left off.) client for this boat chose a center-console configuration.
Photo 45. To hold the chine shelves to a fair shape, I

temporarily screwed a 2×4 on each side, as shown, to 45
support their straight after sections. This also guided
the forward pieces into fair curves to the bow. I left the
2×4s in place until the topside planking was finished.
With the chine positions supported, I proceeded
to the side framing, which is made from 2×4s ripped
in half to be 11⁄2" × 13⁄4". I cut the pieces a little long,
rounded their inboard edges, and sanded them. The
end bevels were measured in place and cut to fit,
following Tolman’s specifications on page 112 of his
book Tolman Alaskan Skiffs for spacing. My aftermost
frame was centered 2' 6" forward of the transom, with
two others spaced on 5' centers. These spans may seem
lightly supported for their length, but the heavy spray
rails added later provided reinforcement. topside planking. I thought it would be best to have a
I added one more frame forward of 1×4 stock, cen- frame to strengthen that construction. I installed the
tered 5' aft of the bow. In his book, Tolman showed how frame pieces on both sides at the same time, fitting
to fit and fillet the bulkhead for the forward flotation them to a straight batten clamped square across the
chamber and stowage locker directly to the bottom and boat to assure their alignment, as visible in the photo.
Tolman Skiff Part 3 282-Final.indd 34 7/20/21 11:57 AM

Photo 46. Before fitting the topsides, would rest on the chine shelf half-
I finalized the chine-shelf and deck- 46 way across its edge. Tolman called
shelf bevels and faired their curves for using little blocks screwed to
forward to assure that the topside the undersides of the chine shelves,
panels would fit smoothly. but my method creates a smoother
My approach to the topside con- curve to the planking. If it didn’t
struction sequence differed from touch, I pushed it down onto the
Tolman’s. He suggests installing the chine shelf and held it in place with
topsides after scarfing three panels a couple of staples or wire ties. At
together to fit the entire length of the bow, the planking needed to
each side. For someone working transition from resting on the
alone, that is a daunting task. I chine to the stem, so that extra 1⁄4"
decided to install each topside sheet had to be cut away starting about
individually. Handling the topsides 10" aft of the stem. I also cut away
one panel at a time made the work any planking that projected beyond
simpler, and I could use clamps with the stem, to be rounded off later.
lines to the overhead, as shown, as I fit the stern topside panel next,
an “extra hand,” as I had done with leaving the middle section, shown
the transom earlier. here, for last. This meant that I
I started dry-fitting the planking could fit and install butt blocks on
at the bow. First, I used a few screws both end panels at the same time,
to set a panel in place for a rough cut. For every panel, I before installing the middle panel. The butt blocks’
traced the perimeters of every mating piece from ends were beveled so they would fit between the chine
underneath—frames, deck shelves, chine shelves, stem, and deck shelves. The forward block fell on a curved
well boards, transom. After making a panel’s rough cut, part of the hull, so it helped the fit by sanding that one’s
I fitted it back in the same screw holes to fine-tune a outboard face to a slight curve. When I dry-fitted the
second cut and recheck the pencil lines. panels to them, I set screws in a line about 3⁄4" back from
Then I cut the chine-shelf edge to be exactly 1⁄4" out- the panel edge, spaced about 4" or 5" apart.
side the mark so that when the panel was reinstalled it
Photo 47. This was also a good time to fit the

47 outboard motor splash well’s bottom and for-
ward panels (page 203 in the book). These
butt to the topside planking, and it was very
simple to mark their end cuts without the
topside planking in place. For instance, I
made the bottom longer than the transom,
fitted it into the slot below the heavy transom
doubler, and used a straightedge set between
the transom and aftermost frame, as shown,
to mark the end cuts. This also allowed me to
fiberglass-sheathe these pieces while they
were readily accessible and set them aside for
installation much later.
Photo 48. When all the panels and butt blocks

were made and their fits finalized, I took them 48
off to sheathe their interior faces before final
installation. The boat’s bottom was handy for
holding most of them flat, and I found other
space wherever I could. I masked the marked-
off perimeters. Then I cut 6-oz fiberglass cloth
to fit all the portions to be sheathed and started
spreading epoxy. It usually takes three coats of
unthickened epoxy to fill the weave and get a
smooth finish. After the final coat, I cut along
the edge of the masking tape and pulled it off,
then washed them to remove any amine blush
and sanded the surfaces with 80-grit until they
had a “frosted” appearance.

Photo 49. After the sheathing was finished, I spread 49
epoxy, first unthickened and then thickened with col-
loidal silica, on the faying surfaces of both the panels
and the structure, and installed them in the same order
as before, using the same screw holes to align them and
setting temporary screws on about 5" centers to assure
a good glue bond. In the photo, the starboard middle
panel is nearly ready to install. Where necessary, I used
staples along the chine joint to bring the chine shelf
and topside planking fair.
Before the glue cured on any panel, I climbed under
the hull to clean off any squeeze-out with a chisel stick.
It was ugly, uncomfortable work, but better done right
away, before the glue cured into a huge mess. I used
some of the squeeze-out along the deck shelf to form a
fillet in that joint. After the glue cured, I removed all
the screws.
50
Photo 50. The exterior of the plywood butt joints needed to be rein-
forced with fiberglass tape so that they wouldn’t show on the finished
hull.
I started a joint by sanding it fair, using a light batten as a guide. I
then cut a shallow groove to accommodate the thickness of the cloth
so that the finished joint wouldn’t have an unfair lump across the
seam. I marked lines about 2" from the butt on each side and used a
router to cut 1⁄8" deep between those lines, using guides to control the
cut to the lines.
After sanding the bottom of the groove smooth, I prepared two lay-
ers of 10-oz tape about 31⁄2" wide that matched the length of the groove.
I placed the cloth following the usual preparation, wetting-out the lay-
ers one after the other, and then let it cure. Then I made up an epoxy
with fairing fillers (this is an appropriate use of microballoons, which
I blended with colloidal silica before mixing in the epoxy resin) and
filled the gutter completely, which took a couple of applications. Then
I sanded it fair.
Photo 52. The client wanted to

51 52 have a heavy bow eye consisting
of a U-bolt fastened through
the stem. I mounted a reinforce-
ment made of 1⁄4"-thick, high-
strength G10 plate set into a
router-cut flat. The plate’s sides
were then radiused along with
the rest of the stem. This photo
also shows the fairing of the
chine shelves into the stem.
Following the book’s instruc-
tions (page 120), I also drew
Photo 51. Before I sheathed the hull, all pencil lines on the topsides and
the corner joints had to be filled with transom, visible here and in the
fairing compound and sanded to smooth next photo, to show the margins
radii, about 1⁄2" at the chine, as shown of the hull sheathing cloth.
here, and about 1" at the transom. I also
made a fillet for a smooth and radiused
transition from the bottom panels to the
chine shelf. All were sanded smooth.

Photo 53. I started sheathing
at the transom. On vertical
53 54
surfaces such as this, as well
as the topsides, I find that
wetting the top edge first
holds the cloth in place,
allowing more epoxy to be
rolled on. The cloth must be
just wet enough to be satu-
rated but not so much that
the epoxy sags and runs. I
watch for silvery-looking
cloth, which shows that it
needs more epoxy to fill the
weave. The first coat should
just fill the weave, letting the
cloth’s texture show. Note that
the cloth extends around the
transom sides and onto the
topsides to be overlapped
later by the topside sheath- Photo 54. Next came the topside sheath-
ing. After the epoxy set, I ing. The cloth was cut to extend about
sanded the corners on each 1" above the marked line, which is some-
side to prepare for these what visible in this photo, and just below
overlaps. the sheer. These side cloths overlapped
at the stem, as shown here after being
wetted-out. They also overlapped the
transom corners shown in photo 53,
extending a couple of inches onto the
transom’s after face.
Photo 55. After the topside sheathing fully cured, I washed

55 and sanded the sides, tapering the thickness of the fiberglass
to almost nothing as it approached the chines. I masked the
topsides and transom with tape and plastic sheeting, starting
about 1" below the marked pencil line. When this was done,
the transom and sides were ready to receive the overlaps from
the tapes covering the chines, transom corners, and the exte-
rior keel seam.
I made up enough fiberglass tape to sheathe all these joints
in one operation. I also prepared enough peel ply, in widths at
least 2" wider that the widest tape, to cover all of the joints.
I started placing and wetting out tape for the transom-to-
bottom corners, but stopped 1" short of the transom’s out-
board corners. Next, I did the keel seam tape, which butted to
the transom corner tapes to avoid too much buildup. At the
forward end, the tape continued up the stem to the deck. The
chine tapes were also butted to the keel tape. Later, the whole
bottom was sheathed, overlapping all of the tapes.
As with the interior keel joint, I covered these wetted-out
tapes with peel ply, which greatly reduced the amount of sand-
ing needed later to smooth the thick tape edges and prepare
these joints to be overlapped by the bottom sheathing. In
addition, pressing down on the peel ply revealed any imper-
fections in the tape joints, which were clearly visible through
the nylon cloth and could be dealt with by dry-brushing. It
also helped hold the tape onto the challenging contours of
these joints.
After the cure, I stripped off the peel ply and sanded the
taped areas with 80-grit to a frosted appearance.

56 57
Photo 56. The bottom’s large surface area had Photo 57. At the forward end, the cloth would
to be saturated in stages. I first rolled out the not conform to the curves. Tolman suggested
prepared cloth, smoothing it with a hand a common solution of cutting “darts” in the
brush, and started working from the middle cloth. These are cuts made perpendicular to
toward one end at a time. That way, any wrin- the edge that allow the cloth to overlap itself
kles only had to be worked out for half the for short distances. In my experience, using
hull’s length. I cut the cloth wide enough to separate pieces instead of cutting darts to deal
overlap the keel and chine tapes and long with the inevitable overlaps works better during
enough to extend onto the transom. the wetting-out.
Photo 58. At the transom

corner, I made no cuts in 58 59
the cloth but instead folded
it over onto the transom,
keeping it well saturated
throughout. I cut the cloth
clear of the corners, which
I intended to sheathe with
round patches next.
Photo 59. After a couple of more

coats of unthickened epoxy to fill the
weave, I allowed the bottom to cure.
Then I washed and sanded it but
hand-sanded the circular reinforce-
ments at the transom’s vulnerable
outboard corners. The corners were
sheathed with six layers of 6-oz cloth
cut into round patches of various
sizes so the edge thickness would be
tapered.

Photo 60. Once all the fiberglass cloth was installed and the
60 initial epoxy cured, I sanded off any rough areas and added
more epoxy coats until the weave of the cloth was covered. I
sanded after each cure, taking care not to sand into the
cloth. The sander at right in the photo is a shop-built square
pad mounted on a 2,000-rpm disc polisher. (Massachusetts
boatbuilder Damian McLaughlin wrote about this method
in WB No. 210; see his article at www.woodenboat.com/
fairing-machine.) This tool can be dangerous to use; you
learn to keep it well away from your body and not take your
hands off until the rotation has completely stopped. Its
advantages are that you can see the material being removed
and how the sanding is progressing each time the corners
rotate away. With its large disc and stiff backing, it removes
material much faster than an orbital sander and results in a
smoother finish.
61
Photo 61. The final exterior work involved installing strip of 1⁄8"-thick stainless steel 12' long, starting at the
spray rails on the topsides and three protective strakes point where the chines met the stem and extending aft.
on the bottom, as shown. Instead of following Tolman’s The spray rails consisted of two layers of Alaska yellow
recommendation for using ultra-high-molecular-weight cedar scarfed to length, beveled, and laminated in place
plastic—which has increased considerably in price since at positions specified in the book (page 120). I masked
his book was published—I used ironwood decking stock off the hull at the rails’ glue-line edges to minimize
from a local lumberyard. The keel piece consisted of cleanup. During glue-up, temporary screws with fender
two lengths, the forward one being two half-thickness washers held them tight, especially at the curve of the
pieces laminated in place to accommodate the substantial bow, until the epoxy set. The rails were coated with
bend at the stem. I glued all of these using G-Flex epoxy epoxy but not sheathed with fiberglass cloth.
formulated by Gougeon Brothers for difficult-to-glue Finally, I painted the whole bottom with primer to
woods. Temporary screws secured them in place until show any imperfections that needed fixing before
the glue set. For the keel piece, I added a 1⁄2"-wide chafe turning the hull over.

Photo 62. Before turning the hull upright, I made cradle frames
62 while they were easy to measure and fit. I used 2×4s and 2×6s
bolted and glued together. One of them, shown here, was set up
far enough forward to be clear of the chafe strakes. The other was
just forward of the transom. Construction of both started with
2×6 crosspieces resting on the keel chafe strake and leveled
athwartships. For the forward one, shown here, I put plywood
pads against the hull in line with the stringers and chine shelves
and built legs of 2×4s on top of them, with thick glue and wedges
to fill the gaps. At the after one, to avoid the chafe strakes I set
pads at the chine shelves and to each side of the keel chafe strake,
then built legs up from those. Nothing fancy. Then I set them
aside while preparing to turn the hull right-side up.
Photo 63. The hull weighed about 500 lbs at this point, but my shop
has the advantage of a high ceiling with open joists to use as attach- 63
ment points for hoisting gear. I detached the hull from the build-
ing jig and then jacked up the bow and each transom corner,
setting them on wood blocks, one by one. When the hull was high
enough, I climbed underneath to detach the molds and dismantle
the support frame, moving these away to clear the floor.
To start the rollover, I put blocks of 2"-thick “blueboard” foam
insulation under the sheer on one side and started lifting the other,
at first making off the lifting line to a C-clamp fixed to the deck
shelf. I soon found that the hull needed support, so I installed two
2×4 cross spalls inside, notched to fit over the shelves and screwed
in place. I tied the lifting line around the amidships cross spall.
I did all the heavy lifting with block-and-tackles rigged to the
overhead joists. A revered tool in my shop is an old “patient lift,” a
small rolling crane originally used for lifting people out of wheel-
chairs. In this photo, it was holding up the hull while I repositioned
the tackle. To prevent a premature rollover, I rigged a second tackle
off the opposite end of the cross spall and running up the other
side of the hull to a joist.
When the hull was balanced on edge, we (I had help with this)
skidded it sideways bit by bit so that when it rolled over it would
land in the center of the work space. Then we let it down slowly
until it was upright on the floor, adding more foam blocks under
contact points as needed. Then I jacked up the hull and slid the
cradle frames into place, shimming the cradles to make sure the
hull was level athwartships. (Fore-and-aft leveling was not neces-
sary.) Then I added simple plywood rectangles to the end legs of
the cradles to prevent them from tipping over.
64 Photo 64. The first interior task was to fillet

the joints at the chines and the transom.
While filleting seams from the exterior, I had
climbed underneath the boat to try to take
advantage of this earlier squeeze-out to start
small fillets in these interior joints, but access
was difficult. It would have been better to just
clean it all off instead. After the hull was
right-side up, I had to sand the fillets to
remove bumps and provide a good bonding
surface. It’s much easier to work in this area
with the hull right-side up, working down-
handed. A lot of this can be done by simply
leaning over the gunwales.

65
Photo 65. By working short sections one at

a time, for example along the transom
between the stringers as seen here, I could
complete the fillet-and-taping process all
in one operation. After giving the first
coat of unthickened epoxy some time to
soak in, I applied my fillet mix of wood
flour and colloidal silica, as described in
Part 2, and shaped it with a 1"-radius
squeegee. Then I cleaned off the excess
and carefully painted the fillet with more
epoxy, followed by fiberglass tape and
working one layer at a time. I chose not to
use the peel ply here, because these areas
of the bilges would always be out of sight
below the cockpit sole. I let the tape cure
normally and sanded the edges later just
to remove any big bumps.
66 67
Photo 66. I placed additional fiberglass

patches, as shown, to lock the frame heels
in place at the chine. These circular pieces,
of various sizes, can be placed over the fil-
lets as part of the same operation. Photo 67. Because the butt blocks received temporary screws when
they were installed during the topside planking, they were no longer
nice and smooth but were instead riddled with holes. After puttying
and sanding those, I applied small fillets along each side and then
sheathed them with 6-oz cloth cut about 11⁄2" wider than the blocks.
I used peel ply here, as shown, knowing that these parts would be
visible from the interior. The peel ply saved a lot of sanding by
leaving a very smooth contour along the butt blocks’ edges.

Photo 68. The frames that I added 5' aft of the bow
formed part of the structure for the flotation chamber, 68
which also served as the foundation for a storage locker
whose top doubles as a seat. The frames, which were
bonded in place during the planking installation, have a
1
⁄2"-thick plywood doubler fitted between them and flush
with their after faces (the plywood piece visible here).
The top edge of this doubler, located at 53⁄4" above the
stringer tops, receives the top panel of the flotation
chamber, which has additional supporting structure, as
shown. Tolman’s book (page 136) shows how to mark
these heights. When gluing the doubler in place, I
clamped a scrap piece to the after faces of the frames,
then clamped the doubler to them, and then made epoxy
fillets on its forward face.
The lower bulkhead portion (the lower plywood piece between the stem and the doubler, as shown, set at a fore-
visible here) was fitted to notch over the stringers and and-aft height level to the load waterline. A plywood stir-
bonded to the doubler’s after face and filleted to the hull rup on the forward face of the doubler supported the
on both sides. stringer. As Tolman shows in the book (page 136), the
To receive the two plywood halves making up the flo- temporary diagonal support shown here is needed, one
tation chamber’s top, I installed a centerline stringer side at a time, to hold the deck’s pattern stock level.
Photo 69. The top of the flotation chamber is level, but 69

the chine shelves rise toward the bow, so the plywood
panels’ outer edges require careful shaping to make the
transition across the shelves. I used scrap plywood pat-
tern stock and marked it up using a “swizzle” or “ joggle”
stick, a shaped and pointed batten with notches, as
shown. This makes simple work of transferring the
marks to plywood stock. When I cut the pieces, I left a
little extra for trimming to assure a good final fit,
although because these joints were also epoxy-filleted it
didn’t have to be perfect. Once these pieces were fitted, I
marked a dark pencil line on the inside of the planking
on each side where the tops met the sides.
Photo 70. Before gluing down the chamber top panels, joints on the centerline stringer and bulkhead top got
I added doubling strips along the forward edge of the the regular glue treatment.
finished bulkhead to provide a broader gluing surface. I first installed the port-side panel, the one without
I also fitted a PVC wiring conduit, as shown, for bow the deck plate, setting it in the glue and fastening it
navigation lights. The conduit, softened with a heat gun down with temporary screws, as shown. I like using
to make the bends, started just below the deck shelf and round-head No. 6 screws with drill-point tips to avoid
ran down alongside the starboard side of the stem, aft drilling pilot holes. Zinc-plated ones seem to remove
under the compartment top, and through the forward easily after the glue cures, but a few of them needed to
bulkhead outboard of the main stringer to extend be heated to do so.
about a foot aft of the bulkhead, By installing this panel first, I
where another conduit joined it could reach past the centerline
later. It was epoxy-filleted at the 70 stringer to make the fillets
stem and at the bulkhead, and underneath. I had to add more
all of the chamber components’ glue from the squeeze bag in a
interior faces were epoxy- couple of places to get enough
coated before gluing down the volume for a good fillet. After
top pieces. Later, they were this port-side panel was in place
sanded in way of the glue joints. and filleted I followed the same
Glue-up started with a coat method to install the starboard
of unthickened epoxy. Then I side. That panel has a hole cut
used a squeeze bag to spread for a 6"-diameter access port,
thickened epoxy along the which allowed access to complete
pencil line on the hull. Other the fillets underneath.

71 Photo 71. I planned the top of the storage com-
partment above the flotation chamber to extend
to a comfortable seating height. The top edge of
the upper bulkhead, which butted to the lower
one already installed, reached a level 18" above
the main stringer tops. After it was glued to the
frames and filleted in place to the hull, I then
sheathed the top of the flotation chamber with
fiberglass cloth and epoxy, as shown, lapping the
cloth onto the upper bulkhead and hull. After
the epoxy began to cure, but before it was really
hard, I trimmed off the extra cloth with a utility
knife and later sanded the edges smooth.
Photo 72. To frame the forward locker, which

has a large hatch amidships, I installed a tem- 72
porary centerline stringer, as shown, and
used it as a reference to align two permanent
11⁄2" × 2" stringers. Each stringer lands on the
topsides with a compound bevel that takes a
few adjustments to get right.
After these were glued in place, I glued in
stirrups—short blocks of plywood notched to
support the ends of the stringers at the bulk-
head—and then glued strips along the top-
sides and the top forward edge of the upper
bulkhead to support the locker’s top. I also
installed a beam between the two stringers,
which were notched to receive it, making an
18"-square hatch opening. This size was cho-
sen so that Type V flotation cushions could
pass through after gutters were installed.
Photo 73. I pieced together the seat top with

73 offcuts of 3⁄8" plywood from the topsides.
The farthest-forward piece was not big
enough to land on the athwartships beam, so
I fitted another small piece and used butt
blocks underneath, as shown, to cover the
area. The top glue-up was similar to the
f lotation chamber, but the hatch opening
made it easier to see the fillets below, using a
mirror and a good light. I sanded the top
smooth but decided to sheathe it in fiberglass
later, at the same time as the cockpit sole—
the construction of which will begin the
fourth and final segment of this series in
WB No. 283.
In addition to being a boatbuilder, John Marples designs

multihull motorboats and sailboats for pleasure and
commercial use. He lives in Penobscot, Maine.
Two photos in Part 2 of this series were misattributed. The

shop photo at the top of page 58 and also photo 37 were
taken by John Marples; the individual in the photos is
Mac McDevitt.

JIM BOSTICK
Building a Butterfly Skylight
An elegant variation on classic deck furniture
Text and photographs by Michael S. Podmaniczky
T
he skylight whose construction I will describe off, rotated 90 degrees, and reset to catch the breeze
here originates with Murray Peterson, who regardless of its direction.
gave the essence of simplicity and practicality “All skylights leak.” This is what I have always been
to every yacht he designed, from its overall shape told, and I won’t promise that you’ll never get a drop
to det a ils such as those found in this skylight. through this one. But the designer worked very hard to
He developed the original one for the 39' double- ensure that you will stay dry. The wings swing open on
ended ketch LILLE DA NSK ER , which was launched piano hinges, which can be covered with canvas, and
at Hodgdon Brothers in East Boothbay, Maine, in below those hinges are brass drip edges that direct any
1947. water to gutters shaped into the ridge piece, or what I
As with the booby hatch that I wrote about in 2014 call the strongback. The undersides of the wings’ side
(see WB No. 238), this construction respects Peterson’s and bottom pieces are grooved to receive rubber gas-
original work but has been updated with a couple of kets that close onto raised splines let into the frame.
tweaks by his son, Bill, a yacht designer in South Bristol, You should be snug and dry below.
Maine. The principal difference is that Bill called for The feature of this design that most attracted me
using rectangular instead of round deadlights. Other was the continuation of the smooth, rounded edges of
than that, this is his father’s design. the wing ends across the end of the strongback, form-
A key element is that this skylight’s perimeter is ing an arch. It is neat, tidy, and, dare I say, sleek. It is a
square, and its rabbeted inside lower edges fit over a bit of a chore to make, but why not go the extra mile?
teak grub, or sill, that is fitted and fastened to the It’s for your favorite boat, and you have all winter to
deck. As a result, this skylight can be detached, lifted enjoy working on the project.
Above—A butterfly skylight is always an elegant addition to a yacht’s fittings. This one, built to a variation by yacht designer
Murray Peterson, uses a distinctive curved edge sculpted into the ends of its strongback, or ridge piece, to visually link the
sides together.
Skylight 282-Final.indd 44 7/19/21 1:56 PM

Drawing and Lofting
JF B
E DA
RD
I
t doesn’t hurt to start with pencil and paper to get a have some short offcuts of Honduras mahogany that
sense of what you are working toward. For those who were 3⁄8" wider than the overall height I wanted. But I’m
like to work with CAD renderings, as shown in draw- a wood miser, and I have been known to change dimen-
ing 1 above, have at it. The precise dimensions and sions to accommodate the timber I have available, so if
scantlings are ultimately up to the maker, who most they had come up 1⁄4" shy, I would have adjusted the
likely will not need every tittle and jot itemized but will skylight’s height to suit the piece.
instead bring a lot of inherent knowledge, a personal For the strongback, I had one last piece of 4"-thick
eye for proportions, and experience to the project. Honduras, but I’ll give you dispensation to laminate
After the plan is finalized, a full-sized lofting is essen- one if you can’t find a suitable piece of solid wood.
tial. Drawing the plan onto a smooth piece of white- There can be advantages to laminating: because the
painted plywood, with the lines knifed into the surface, portions of the strongback beneath its curved ends are
is what will make you happiest. This gives you something cut back and finish about 1⁄8" proud of the outboard
really definite to lay your pieces on when transferring or faces of the hatch’s end pieces, making the strongback
checking dimensions. Since the wings are sloped, it in two pieces can simplify the work of shaping it. How-
helps to do a separate, straight-on lofting of them. ever you choose to plan this, get it right in your draw-
This skylight is designed with an inside dimension of ing, because it will be tricky when it comes time to cut
24", which is plenty. The finished thicknesses are 11⁄8" everything and have it all line up.
for the wings and 11⁄4" for the frame pieces, so you need I am always comfortable with a mix of hand- and
to hunt for suitable wood. The height, and thus the machine-tool techniques that match my experience
slope of the wings, is up to you. I confess that I simply and skills to a particular job or that simply make sense.
cannot face gluing-up elements for a fine piece of deck I’ll show some of each. From time to time, I will add
furniture such as this, so for me the triangular end pieces asides about simple tricks that work for me. You do
had to be made of full-width stock. I was fortunate to what works for you.

The Wings
2 3
Because of these rabbets, the tenon shoulders and

mortise faces must be offset, so lay out the cuts on your
I
chose to build the wings first in case they ended up stock to be sure that all will fit together properly. This
a dight thicker or thinner than planned, which in includes the width of the tenons that you will transfer
turn allowed me to be precise in cutting the rabbet to the end-grain so the line doesn’t get lost when cut-
in the strongback into which they fit. I made the wings ting. These tenons are a form of “haunched” tenon, as
an eyelash long and initially left their edges square so shown in the rail in photo 3. In a typical haunched
that I could trim them down later and then round their tenon, a short, stepped portion of the tenon extends
edges and the strongback’s ends at the same time. into a corresponding shallow groove adjacent to the
The wings are built like glass-paneled doors, with mortise. In this skylight, extensions of the offset tenon
short vertical rails and long horizontal stiles, as shown shoulders, rather than the tenon itself, fit into the open
in photo 2. Get out the stock, jointed and thicknessed rabbets in the corresponding edges of the stiles. Note
to 11⁄8", but hold off on hand-planing the pieces until that photo 2 shows that the end rails have a rabbet for
after they are assembled. If you have extra mahogany, it the glass only on one edge; the central rail is rabbeted
is an excellent idea to get out extra stock to use for trial on both edges. The haunches match the width of the
cuts as you go along, although cheaper wood such as rabbet on the inside of the openings, but on the outside
tulip poplar could be used for the purpose. I once made edges they are made an extra 1⁄4" wide to leave plenty of
a dreadful mistake on a project and was damned lucky strength in the end-grain of the stiles.
that I had a couple of test pieces that I could just pick up Your drawing will make laying out and cutting the
from my bench and use as substitutes. tenon shoulders on the rails and corresponding mor-
The rails and stiles are rabbeted to receive 3⁄8"-thick tises on the stiles a simple exercise in geometry. Just
glass panels set in silicone. The rabbets are cut first, on keep everything on center and square, and you will be
the tablesaw. If you are confident in your technique to fine. Use a variety of colored pencils to highlight the
get all faces square and then properly smoothed with a interfaces of the joints on your lofting to simplify visu-
rabbet plane, go for it, but remember: any deep or over- alization and the transfer of the lines to the rails and
cuts by the saw blade will show on the outside at the then to the stiles.
ends of the joints, and any tipping of the rabbet plane First, cut the cheeks of the tenons vertically against
will leave a gap at the surface. If you are nervous about the tablesaw fence using your preferred method—
this, cut the rabbet just shy of both surfaces, and finish probably a saw sled or tenoning jig—to make sure the
with a straight bit on the router or shaper table. rail stays square to the blade. Follow by cutting the offset

Assemble the wings dry, as shown in photo 5, to con-
4 firm that all four openings for the glass are the same
dimension. Your mortises might be a trifle long, and
tenons could creep an eyelash one way or the other,
resulting in unequal openings. Under normal circum-
stances, this is not much of a concern, but the seam
between glass and wood will be small, and irregulari-
ties will be quite evident, so be mindful. The best way
to proceed is to take your wings to the glass shop and
have the panes cut now. During glue-up, but before
the glue sets, you can temporarily drop the glass into
place and tap everything around slightly so that all the
seams are equal. Set the glass aside until the varnish-
ing is done, after which you will be ready to install the
panes in their rubber bedding compound.
This is also a good time to create the drip edges,
shown in photo 6, which will direct water seeping
through the hinges into the gutters that you’ll cut in
the strongback. The drip edges are made of strips of
1
⁄8" × 1⁄2" brass flat stock 261⁄4"-long, which is let into, and
flush with, the inside edge of each wing’s top rail, stop-
ping short of the ends to accommodate the edge
rounding later. You will have to drill and countersink
for brass screws, spaced about 3" apart and as high on
the strips as you can fit the countersunk holes. Cut the
recess with a fenced router or on a router table and
square the ends with a chisel. But before installing the
shoulders. The rabbet is 3⁄8" deep, conveniently dividing brass, rout a 1⁄4" cove at the edge of the recess, as visible
the thickness of the rail into thirds, with the 3⁄8"-thick in photo 6. This should stop about 1⁄8" from each end
tenon centered and flush with the rabbet on one face. of the recess. I like to varnish the wood behind such
Cut the rails first and use their completed tenons as appliqués, and you might as well hit the cove at the
your transfer tool to lay out the mortises on the stiles. same time. Bed the brass and screw it in place. Later,
I have the luxury of a horizontal mortising machine the recess for the piano hinge will be routed not only
in the co-op shop where I now work, and I took full in the wooden edge but also into a bit of the metal
advantage of it. This type of project requires consider- drip edge.
able up-front attention to set-
ting depths and stops. But after
the setup is done, the mortise- 5 6
cutting in the stiles is a breeze.
Without a horizontal mortiser—
or a vertical one, for that mat-
ter—the next best thing is to set
up your drill press with a fence
and pencil lines instead of stops,
then use a row of Forstner bit
holes to take out the bulk of the
mortise material. You will then
switch to your wide paring chisel
to clean up the inside faces and
a 3⁄8" mortise chisel to square the
ends, as shown in photo 4. Be
sure to go 1⁄8" or so deeper than
the tenon length, and check
that depth everywhere so that
there is no chance that the end
of the tenon will bottom-out in
the joint.

Hatch Elements
strongback, these ends will be machined or cut away, so

7 you can be a bit more aggressive. Along the top and the
underside, however, use only a sharp pencil to connect
the end marks. (You’ll keep reminding yourself that
someone lying on a berth below will study your work
from that angle.)
Transfer the layout of the rest of the angles and faces
of the strongback’s cross-section from your lofting to
the hatch end pieces and to the ends of the strongback.
The lofting on the end pieces should be done in such a
way that the 45-degree angles of the strongback’s lower
corners intersect the short, vertical outboard faces to
leave the eventual intersection with the sloped top
edges of the ends at least 1⁄8", and preferably a touch
more, below the top edge of the uncut stock. This is all
in service of keeping interfaces sharp, clean, and safe.
For the strongback, as shown in photo 7, start with
the bevel corresponding to the top of the slope of the
end pieces. Mark on that line the exact location of the
points that represent the lower corners of rabbets that
receive the wings. Square up from that point to mark
H
eavily tapered pieces always have fragile tips, the back of the rabbet. Measure out along the squared
edges, and interfaces. It is an unalterable line a distance equaling the thickness of the wings to mark
maxim that no matter how perfectly cut and fit the rabbet’s upper corner. The top arch of the strong-
your joints are, any damage to the wood at the visible back has a radius of 3", measured from the centerline at
seams will make the entire joint look bad, and you sim- its lower edge. The lower part of the arch has the same
ply cannot have that. So, start thinking about how you radius, starting from the centerline 11⁄8" below the top
are going to protect delicate edges and tips until every- radius. Clamp a piece of wood flush with the strongback’s
thing is glued up and safe. The first rule is to wait to cut lower face, knife-in an extension of the centerline, and
a fragile edge until you have to. As you prepare to shape measure along it to give your compass a footing for
the sloped end pieces or dovetail the hatch’s corners, marking these arcs.
this means holding off on cutting any angles as long as One of the trickiest steps in this entire construction
you can. This is not only protective but also gives you is fitting the strongback to the end pieces, with five
square edges to measure and work from.
So, leaving everything square for the moment, knife-
in the side and end pieces’ inside (24" ) and outside 8
(261⁄2") dimensions. Square the lines around and cut
the pieces to length, giving yourself a little extra at
each end to be planed off after the dovetail joints are
assembled. Then cut the 5⁄8" × 5⁄8" rabbet into the inside
bottom corner of each piece; these are the rabbets that
will fit into a corresponding rabbet cut into the top
outer edges of the grub. Put the vertical face of the
hatch’s rabbets on the centerline and the top face
equally dimensioned from the bottom. Do this on the
tablesaw and clean up the saw marks with a rabbet
plane. This rabbet is not as visually consequential as
the ones in the wings, so there is probably no need to
add a pass with a straight router bit.
With the strongback stock an inch or so longer than
its final overall length, square it true and knife-in a ver-
tical centerline on each end. “Knife-in” is a relative
term. It gives you a tangible place to locate tools and
other layout equipment, but you don’t want a cut to
show on what is going to be a finished surface, so where
appropriate knife very lightly or simply mark the line
with a sharp pencil to be safe. In the case of the

surfaces that must mate perfectly. On the top edge of These points will be very fragile before the strongback
the hatch’s end pieces, mark a centerline with a sharp is glued in place, so you will start your cutting and fit-
pencil and extend it down the inside and outside faces. ting with confidence with the end pieces left square.
Stand up the end pieces on the bench, square and Using a chisel or bandsaw, remove the waste between
spaced exactly according to the lofting, and place the these two short vertical cuts along a straight horizontal
strongback on top, with the centerlines aligned. Mark line drawn a fraction above their termination points.
the locations of the lower corners of the strongback You are now ready for your first fitting of the strongback,
onto the top edges of the end pieces and knife them as shown in photo 9. This should be a snug, “whisper” fit,
across with a square, then use a sharp pencil to extend not a “drive.”
them square down to what will be the finished depth of After that fit is right, fit the strongback exactly cen-
the joint, inside and out. tered lengthwise on the end pieces so that its overhangs
To maximize precision, you’ll do this cutting and fit- at each end are equal. Square up everything and make
ting in stages. sure your 24" inside dimension of the hatch is true to
Transfer the layout of the angles and faces of the the layout. Mark with a pencil on the faces of the strong-
strongback’s cross-section from your lofting to the back where it meets the inside and outside faces of the
hatch end pieces. The lofting should be done in such a end pieces.
way that the 45-degree angles of the strongback’s lower The sequence of tablesaw cuts to rough out each side
corners intersect the short, vertical outboard faces at of the strongback is shown in photo 10. While the piece
least 1⁄8", and preferably more, below the top edge of the remains squared, remove waste outside of the arched
sloped end pieces. top’s 3" radius by cutting a bevel (labeled No. 1) parallel
Knife-in the short vertical cuts you are going to make to the bottom of the rabbet for the wings. Next, use the
at the marks showing the width of the strongback. same saw bevel to cut the bottom rabbet (labeled No. 2)
These will be the first cuts; make them with a fine dove- in the photo. It’s a good idea to cut this 1⁄8" proud of
tail saw or on the tablesaw, as shown in photo 8, but take the line so that it can later be planed flush for final-
care to terminate them exactly where the lofting indi- fitting the wings. Third, use the new bevel on the top
cates that they intersect the 45-degree angles. When the of the piece to cut square to form the back rabbet (No.
slopes are cut in the end pieces later, they will terminate 3). Last come the 45-degree angle cuts, No. 4, on the
in sharp points at the intersections with the strongback. bottom corners.
9 10
3
4
2
1

Hatch Elements
place the thin strongback offcut onto its corresponding
end, as shown in photo 11, oriented the same way as
11 when it was still attached to the strongback. Align it so
that it lies along the lofted bottom line and the short
vertical faces match those cut in the end piece. Carefully
knife its perimeter into the end piece on the outside.
Keeping the offcut in the same orientation, repeat this
on the inside of the end piece.
On the bandsaw, cut out the waste close to the line
and finish up with a paring chisel. You will do well to
slightly hollow the surface to ensure you have good
contact with the outside edges, as shown in photo 12,
particularly the top interface between the ends and the
strongback, which is why you’ll be protecting those
delicate points right up to the final assembly.
When the fit is right, clamp the strongback in place
and lay the wings in the rabbet, shimmed up with a thin
piece of cardboard (not visible in the photo) between
them and the slopes of the end pieces. This will give just
enough clearance when finished so that the wings will
not bind when closing. Knife a line along their top
edges into the back rabbet on the strongback. Plane the
flat on the top down to the line to make a square cor-
ner, as shown in photo 12. This will give you a flat sur-
face on which to register the router when cutting the
hinge recess, which is shaped in the edges of both the
strongback and the wings. While the wings are in place,
trace the hatch’s outer perimeter onto their undersides
with a pencil.
P
lane off the saw marks on those bot-
tom angles with a jack plane set fine
so as to avoid changing the angle or 12
taking off too much wood. But hold off
on cleaning up the rabbet and finishing
the top so you can do a bit of extra plan-
ing to make them flush with the sides
when installing the wings. Saw off a thin
cross-sectional piece—about 3⁄8" or so—
from each end of the strongback so that
after the cuts are made it matches the
length of the wings. Save these two off-
cuts, labeled for each end, and set the
strongback aside.
Next, cut the slopes on the end pieces
on a bandsaw, slightly away from the line
and then plane them by hand to the line.
This establishes the fragile tips, men-
tioned earlier, that need to be protected.
I tape some bits of waste wood over them
just in case I drop a tool or accidentally
tap them against the bench.
Though you transferred the profile of
the strongback to the end pieces from
your lofting, you will now correct any
inconsistencies into precise lines marking
where to cut the notches in the end pieces
to receive it. Working one end at a time,

The Hatch Dovetails
Once the dovetails are cut, their
13 profiles are traced with a knife
onto the ends of the side pieces,
which are still square. Again, the
outer edge of the rabbet is off the
surface, but since it is already cut
to length (or just a dight longer)
and its final resting place is
already established by the rabbet
on the side piece, you don’t have
much to deal with. Square the lay-
out to the line marking the inside
of the hatch and cut with a dove-
tail saw, removing the waste with
a chisel. I always darken what will
be waste to doubly guarantee that
I cut on the correct side of the
line.
When you dry-fit this assembly,
mark the slope of the ends
directly to the side pieces and cut
this bevel on the tablesaw. Make
the cut as clean and close as pos-
sible, but leave the final lick with
a plane until after assembly.
B
efore further shaping the strongback, make the
hatch side pieces and dovetail them to the end
pieces. As is usual for this type of joint, the dove- 14
tails are cut first, and they become the templates for
laying out the pins. This hatch’s side pieces are low, and
the bottom rabbet must be accommodated, so you
really only have room for one big tail, as shown in photo
13. Boat dovetails need to maximize strength, so they
are a little different from their more aesthetic cousins
in furniture joinery. Wide dovetails and thin pins may
look best and are plenty strong for furniture, but on a
boat we try to equalize strength by having approxi-
mately equal quantities of wood fiber, and thus strength,
in both pins and tails. It makes for a somewhat clunkier
look but assures maximum strength.
So, lay out your dovetails on the end pieces, as shown
in photo 14, staying clear of the rabbets and the beveled
top edge of the side pieces. Because the slopes of the
ends are steep, you can bring the bottom edge of the
dovetail layout up pretty high. The end of the rabbet
on the end pieces must be cut to end up tucking just
inside the rabbets of the side pieces. If you are confi-
dent, you can lay this out and cut it along with the tail,
but there is nothing wrong with leaving it a bit long and
trimming it after the tail and pin are cut and the rabbet
end can be brought up against the surface it has to
mate with.
If you are confident, all cuts can be made with a
dovetail or back saw, but the tablesaw provides greater
certainty to the cuts when setup is not too complicated.

Rounding the Wing and Strongback Edges
Next, continue shaping the
15 wings. With a handheld router,
router table, or shaper, round
the edges of the wing ends.
These pieces are 11⁄8" thick, so
unless you have a 9⁄16" roundo-
ver bit, or have one specially
made, you will use a ½" roun-
dover bit and follow-up with
hand-planing by eye to get a
nice, full radius.
The bottom stiles need spe-
cial treatment: For the best
look, the upper corner of that
edge should be more of an
oval, so when you are doing
that follow-up planing, draw it
farther back, to ¾" or even 1",
to create a nice gentle roll.
The designer also suggests
that the lower corner be made
F
irst, while the edges of the wings and strongback to a tighter radius, to keep water just that much farther
are still square, set the piano hinges. Rout the away from the hatch opening. Rout that corner with a
recesses for them while there are still flat surfaces 3
⁄8" roundover bit. You’d need a French curve to properly
to run the fenced router along or to locate the piece on draw that bottom edge’s profile, but you can shape it
a router table. Use solid brass or stainless-steel piano by eye.
hinges, with an open measurement of 11⁄2". The hinges Screw the wings in place one at a time to the strong-
stop at least 5⁄8" from the ends to account for the outside back. In the “closed” position, scribe the profile of their
rounding. Cut them to length and use them to mark on rounded edges onto each end of the back rabbet of the
both the strongback and the wing where the setback strongback, as shown in photo 15.
will stop. Cut the recess with a straight bit to a depth Next, take off the wings and return to shaping the
equal to the thickness of the hinge plate (as visible in strongback, starting by using a jack plane to round-over
photo 20), which will give you some clearance between its top surface to its final radius, finishing with a scraper
the wing and the rabbet. If you want to go old-school and sandpaper. Then use a router to cut back the end of
and wrap the hinge with lightweight canvas, cut a little the strongback below the curved lip to that it finishes
deeper. It is always a good idea to test these fits on sam- no more than 1⁄8" beyond the outside faces of the hatch
ple stock first, so that you are
confident of how everything
is going to lie before cutting 16 17
the real thing.
You will, of course, stop the
router shy of the end marks
and finish the recess square
with a chisel. On the wings,
the dimensions are such that
the bottom of the hinge is
just about even with the top
of the brass drip edge,
depending on how high you
set the hinge. I wanted to
keep it down tight, so I simply
routed a tiny rabbet in the
brass along with the recess
for the hinge, as visible in
photo 16. The carbide bit
didn’t even notice, and I felt
good about the minor water-
shedding overlap.

end pieces, shown in photo 17. This can also be done do the same on the top. A spokeshave works well for
with a good planer blade in a tablesaw, which leaves a this, working in from both ends of the curve so as to
bit more material in the concavity under the lip that avoid any breakout. Work to the line made by tracing
must be routed or carved out. Either way, it’s up to you. the edges of the wings and finish up with a fine rasp or
After that is completed, but before the ends are file to the point that you are happy with the rounding.
rounded over, rout the gutters, which are visible in Unless you have an extensive set of carving tools,
photo 20, with a 1⁄2"-diameter cove bit, making its edge including back-bent gouges, you are simply going to
1
⁄32" or so from the back of the rabbet. have to slowly work the lower radius up with chisels, as
For rounding the top corners of the strongback’s shown in photos 18 and 19, and round it with a paring
arched ends, you could use a router with a ½" round chisel flipped over onto the bevel. Take your time, put a
over bit, but you are going to have to cut to the lower strong light on the work, and look at it from every angle
radius at each end with edge tools, so you might as well until your eye tells you that you are close. It does not
hurt to make a hardboard template of the radius; use a
11⁄8" Forstner bit to drill it out and then cut in half and
18 trim the bottom edge to account for the 1⁄8" protrusion
of the strongback. Sand out the chisel facets, and there
you have it. Photo 20 shows the finished strongback.
20
19

Bringing It All Together
and sticks up a little more than
3
⁄16" and glue them in as shown in
21 photo 22. You can leave them
square, since it will be easier to
shape them in place.
Referencing the perimeter pen-
cil lines previously drawn on the
undersides of the wings, transfer
the exact positions of the spline
centerlines to guide the routing
of corresponding 3⁄8"-wide grooves
in the wings, as shown in photo
23. (This is a good time to also
rout chamfers on the inside
edges, stopping short of the cor-
ners, also visible in the photo.)
The grooves receive the gaskets
that the splines press against
when the wings are closed. Rout the
grooves to an appropriate depth,
F
or the final assembly, first glue the hatch’s end which is dependent on your choice of gasket material.
pieces and sides together, as shown in photo 21. They should be a touch long at the hinge ends. They
After the epoxy sets, trim off the dovetails and should also be continuous at their lower corners, which
pins to finish off the joints. Before gluing the strong- will require stopping your routing short of the corners
back in place, however, take advantage of the square and finishing up with a chisel.
edges and clear access to rout grooves on the center- I found great gasket material, a medium-density silicone
lines of the top edges of the end and side pieces. Make sponge rubber, on Amazon. It is compressible and not
these stop 1⁄4" shy of the strongback opening and the too hard, and the closed-cell silicone should have a long
intersection of centerlines at the lower corners. You can life. It comes in a sheet that requires cutting to dimen-
leave all the slots round at their ends and round off the sion and lengths with a razor blade, but it worked like a
splines when fitting them, or square the ends with a 1⁄8" charm. If you have a better solution, by all means use it.
or 3⁄16" chisel and leave the splines square—your choice.
Make splines out of stock that fits snugly in the slots
23
22

You will want to have it just contact the splines with
approximately 1⁄16" compression. Too much compression
can keep the wings from closing all the way. For me, this 24
meant a groove depth of ¼", and slicing the ½" rubber
in half with a simple jig after cutting 3⁄8" wide strips. Set
the gasket strips aside for final installation.
Next is varnishing (photo 24), and after that is done,
the gasket can be installed with a little contact cement
and the plate glass panes can be set in the wings. The
glass is bedded in a heavy-duty black silicone that will
highlight the interface with the mahogany. The panes
will come with a slight polished chamfer that should
stand just proud of the surface. The 3⁄8"-deep rabbet will
allow you to slightly shim it in the silicone to the exact
position. You can do this by eye with tiny bits of veneer
buried in the silicone or set four No. 2 brass wood
screws in the corners and adjust them until the glass sits
perfectly. Silicone does the rest. Pro-tip: tape every-
thing off before applying silicone. Tape to the top of the
chamfer, and when you are (quickly) wiping down the
excess squeeze-out, let the silicone ride up the surface
of the chamfer. This is much easier to clean up and the
look is the same as if you had laboriously worked to stop
the silicone at the bottom of the chamfer.
The skylight is now ready for installation, using your
choice of off-the-shelf or custom-made hardware.
25
JIM BOSTICK
The butterfly skylight can be opened on both sides and is Mike Podmaniczky served as furniture conservator for the Winterthur Museum
designed to be detached, lifted off the teak grub, rotated in Wilmington, Delaware, for many years before teaching conservation and
90 degrees, and reset to take best advantage of the historic woodworking practices at West Dean College in England. Earlier, he was
prevailing breeze. The author also designed and fabricated foreman and vice-president of William Cannell Boatbuilding Co. in Camden,
his own hardware. Maine. Now an independent conservator and craftsman, he lives on the North
Shore of Boston.

Tim Wright
AVENGER
Lessons of voyaging in a gaff schooner
by Tom Gallant
I
t was 1955, and my father and I were driving along more when she came into view. That day marked me for
the LaHave River in Nova Scotia to the summer cot- life. It contained all the information a heart needs to
tage we rented every August. I was about nine. It attach itself to a dream that only grew, became more
was a fine day. Suddenly, Dad pulled the car over. serious, better informed, and, finally, a way of life.
“Look at that, Tommy.” But the process was not linear. I dove headfirst into a
Sailing down the river was a gaff-rigged schooner. career as an actor, playwright, songwriter, and anything
She had a bone in her teeth. My father knew I loved the traffic would bear. After six years in Toronto, I
schooners. He also knew I’d never seen one under full found myself starring in three national television
press of sail. I was transfixed. To his eternal credit, he series of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In
stood there with me until she sailed out of sight. Then the eyes of the world, I was bound for glory. But there
we got back in the car and carried on, stopping twice were problems, and in a moment of rare wisdom I
Above—For 40 years, Tom Gallant has owned and sailed the 47’ schooner AVENGER. Through the decades, and over
thousands of ocean miles, he has learned valuable lessons from the boat.
AVENGER282-Final.indd 56 7/20/21 4:26 PM

loaded my ’72 Volkswagen van with my cat, guitar, and was doing. We dragged the skiff up the beach. Then I
clothes, and drove east, back home to Nova Scotia. stood looking at AVENGER .
I wanted to go to sea. I wanted to go to sea in a gaff- “You should buy that boat, Tom, before you’ve poked
rigged Nova Scotian schooner. I bought a little sloop a hole in all the planks.”
and learned to dead-reckon while scaring myself half to “They’re asking a lot, David. I’ve got a down pay-
death. I continued to work in show business, but my ment, but I’d need a mortgage, and banks don’t like
lunatic behavior had been noticed by the powers that musicians and writers. I’m afraid it’s impossible.”
be at the network, and the pickings grew slim. Never “Nothing’s impossible if you want it bad enough.”
mind. I was on a mission. I suppose I’d heard that expression many times. But
One fine Saturday, I sailed my little sloop to Second now I really heard it. Before me stood the boat of my
Peninsula, near Lunenburg, and anchored next to one dreams. Beside me stood her designer and builder. We
of the loveliest schooners I’d ever seen. She was CATHY were becoming friends, and for some reason, he wanted
ANNE II, designed and built by David Stevens. And on me to have the boat. Was a better situation ever going to
the beach, in a cradle, was another one, AVENGER . She present itself? With David’s advice and counsel, I bought
looked a little neglected, but she was a raving beauty to the schooner, and everything in my life changed.
me. I climbed over her and poked her with my knife. I
wanted her with all my heart. “If you’ve managed to buy the boat, you’re
Two weeks later, on a Friday evening, the phone
rang. It was David. automatically the captain, no matter how green
“Tom, I’ve got a group of high mucky-mucks from and clueless you are. It’s one of the few places
Ottawa coming for a sail on CATHY ANNE tomorrow,
and I could use crew. You available?” where such anarchy and foolishness prevail.”
Available? “When shall I be there?”
I was parked under the bow of AVENGER an hour The thing about sailing is, if you’ve managed to buy
before the appointed time, gazing at her. David came the boat, you’re automatically the captain, no matter
rattling over the hill aboard his disreputable old trac- how green and clueless you are. It’s one of the few places
tor, parked beside my van, and met me with his wonder- where such anarchy and foolishness prevail. Nowadays
ful smile. He was possessed of a powerful charm and everything is circumscribed by legions of regulations
was a happy man. We dragged his rowboat down the and rules. I am a member of a community of sailors
beach, and he rowed us out to CATHY ANNE II. He who had to teach themselves how to take a sight, caulk
walked me around the deck, showed me the ropes, then a seam, splice a shroud, and most of us did it all on a
went ashore to meet his six guests. Once they were shoestring. What a fine world that was. You had to be
aboard and their gear stowed, we raised the main and willing to learn the art to make the passage.
foresail, and David went to the helm. I was to drop the So, once I’d bought my schooner, I moved aboard
mooring and raise the jib. At his word this was accom- and set about learning the ropes. My habit whenever I
plished, and CATHY ANNE came to life. The sails were went sailing that first summer was to have an old guy
all self-tending, so there were only running backstays to aboard who knew more than I did. I was very lucky that
manage. Going to windward in light airs, David was my first full week with the boat was the Nova Scotia
relaxed about them, but I scampered back and tended Schooner Association’s annual Schooner Race Week.
them with a will. What a day. The lads knew how green I was, so there was always an
CATHY ANNE is a very fast boat. As the breeze made experienced hand next to me in the cockpit. David kept
up and we eased the sheets, she was showing her stuff. a close eye on me and always had a lesson, and this mas-
Then David sealed my fate forever. ter class continued until he died in 1989. Every race
“Believe I’ll take a little nap, Tom. You take her. Sail week, AVENGER got a little faster, and no one liked that
out around Pearl Island. The water’s good.” With that more than David. When I finally beat him, boat for
he went below. At the foot of the companionway, he boat, nipping him by a foot at the finish line, he was the
turned and smiled at me. happiest man in Nova Scotia, and that’s the best thing I
I had sailed a little open schooner in college, but this can say about the man.
was another world. CATHY ANNE was a pure, sweet mas- After living aboard summer and winter in Nova Sco-
terpiece. She was responsive and honest, powerful and tia for the first couple of years, I resolved to sail south
gentle at the same time. We sailed around Pearl Island, and get out of the cold. Melissa and I got married
tacking once, and I never cared more about making a aboard the boat that fall, and we called the voyage our
perfect tack. We were on a close reach back up the bay “honeymoon” cruise. It was a doozy. We sailed through
when David returned. a huge northeaster in the Gulf Stream. There were tow-
“What do you think of her, Tom?” ering seas and 60 knots of wind, and all of it calling into
“She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever touched.” question everything I’d learned so far.
David sailed her to the mooring like it was easy. The I’ve now spent over 40 years maintaining and sailing
boat came to a stop next to the mooring post, I picked this sweet Nova Scotia schooner over more than 100,000
up the line, and we put the boat away. David rowed the miles of deep water. I’ve had some hard-won lessons
guests ashore while I tidied up the sails, then came and that I’ll distill here in a list. It’s not a definitive list; I’m
rowed me ashore. He had a sparkle in his blue eyes. I sure I’ve forgotten plenty, and there’s always more to
was completely in his thrall. He knew exactly what he learn. That’s why sailing is so interesting.

1. If a boat isn’t getting better, it’s getting worse.
There’s no holding the line. You need to spend time
below as she’s sailing. Listen to her. Get to know her
creaks and groans, so that when she develops a new one,
you’ve got some idea where to start looking. While on
deck, take a healthy bit of time to survey the rig as she’s
sailing. Look for possible chafe. Look for things getting
loose that once were tight. Memorize her when all is
well, so that any change is obvious. At sea, I do a survey
of the rig every day.
JAMIE MORRISON
2. Sail your boat. A neglected boat
will deteriorate. I think they get
mad. David once said, as many oth-
ers have, that “A boat is the nearest
thing to a living being that a man
can make with his hands.” I believe
him. It will help you if you believe
this too. If you know her well,
understand her ways, you will be
able to help her thrive.
TIM WRIGHT
3. If you mean to sail far, you need

abundant reefpoints, and you need
to know how to use them. A gaff
main needs twin topping lifts—
called quarter lifts—with enough
tackle to make them easy to manage.
Then you can reef on either tack,
even well off the wind. Harden the
windward lift, scandalize the peak,
ease the throat halyard, and pull
the sail down to the desired reef-
point, lash the tack, haul in the
clew reef pennant, and all is well.
Tie in the nettles if you’re going to
stay with this setup for a while. Off
the wind, you can do this by further
dropping the peak and hauling in
the sheet until the nettles can be
reached. The time to reef is when
it first comes to mind. As soon as
you think “Maybe I should reef,”
TIM WRIGHT
do it—when it’s easy.

4. Heaving-to is a great tactic. To do it properly, you you. On AVENGER , usually heaving-to requires only the
must stop the boat and manage her attitude to the storm trysail aft, nothing else. The helm is one spoke to
oncoming seas. Stop the boat! leeward to keep her from
If you’re creeping along, tacking. In extremis, a sea
you’re not really hove-to, and
you’re sailing, however slowly,
“If you’re creeping along, you’re not anchor set so that it hooks
up one sea to windward
into danger. When a boat is really hove-to, and you’re sailing, will help to keep her bow
stopped, and slipping side- however slowly, into danger.” where I want it, which is
ways, it creates a slick of about 50 degrees off the
disturbed water that knocks wind. (For full informa-
down the oncoming seas. There’s breaking stuff behind tion on this, read Storm Tactics Handbook, by Lin and
you, breaking stuff before you, and easy seas coming at Larry Pardey.)
5. Running off in a gale is just lovely. Fly just one head- to be busy. Be thankful that this only happens when
sail for this; on AVENGER it’s the jumbo (Nova Scotian for you’re in a full-on storm. The most dangerous time for
the inner club jib). Tancook schooners were made your gear is when the wind abates, and the sea is still
for this, and they’re next to rough. Then the gear can slat
impossible to broach. You’re and bang. That’s when things
rolling with the punches, and “You’re rolling with the punches, break. At sea, you should have
everything is a tad easier. If
you’ve got sea room, it’s the
and everything is a tad easier.” preventers on the gaffs and
booms, and now is when to set
way to go. It’s not the wind them up. Don’t be too cau-
that will hurt you, it’s the seas; take them on the quar- tious about getting sail back up after a gale. Boats are at
ter, not dead aft. When they’re breaking, you’re going their best when they’re moving.
TIM WRIGHT
6. The greatest virtue a boat can have is perfect bal- from the forward berth, and bolted them as far for-
ance. This is a function of rig, hull shape, and ballast. ward on the keel as possible, parallel to the waterline.
Given a good hull, any boat can be brought to this Then I cut 5' off the ballast keel aft and put a black
hoped-for state. AVENGER had a slab of lead that ran locust deadwood in its place. The stuff I cut off, I
the full length of the keel when I got her, and she had chopped into bricks and arranged as interior trim
over 1,000 lbs of trim ballast under the forward berth ballast between the masts. Now, I can steer her with the
to bring her bow down. This was an unwholesome mainsheet, and she’s stiffer and better to weather. I
arrangement. Once I’d figured this out, I had two didn’t need a naval architect to do this. I needed to
500-lb teardrop-shaped castings made from the lead listen to the boat.

7. A common mistake is to love your boat so much that aboard. But I have Spectra running backstays captured
you won’t change anything. Some rare boats are by modern clutches, and what a difference that makes!
worthy of such fealty, but most And at my great age, when
are not. Most can be made scampering out on the bowsprit
better. A friend of mine once
said this: “Tradition. That’s just
“Tradition. That’s just peer to haul the jib down is no lon-
ger in the cards, I have finally
peer pressure from dead people.” pressure from dead people.” installed a roller-furling jib.
I love that. I sail a profoundly That’s the reason for the high-
traditional boat and know well tech backstays. I have to say,
the virtues of the type. I made the rig. My ditty bag is putting the jib away from the cockpit is nice. If I were
one of my prized possessions. Pine tar is in constant use younger, I wouldn’t do it, but it’s great “geezer gear.”
David Stevens
and the 47s
D avid Stevens (1907–89) was at the height of his
powers when he carved the half model for his 47'
schooners. It was the only design he ever repeated
except for a six-boat fleet of racing sloops he made for
the Lunenburg Yacht Club. He was in midcareer and
had decided to “never build another boat I don’t want
to.” Schooners were his first love, so he made the model
and the first 47 on spec. This was SKYLARK , now SARAH
ABBOT.
David’s habit was to build the boat, launch her, and
take her to the Nova Scotia Schooner Association’s
annual Schooner Race Week. He told me once he tried
to be “a master in the shop, a student at the helm.” He
loved SKYLARK , found her “honest and purposeful,
with a good turn of speed.” So, he built three more.
“They were all my shop would hold,” he once told me.
NOAH PEFFER
David was born on Tancook Island and was grandson
of Amos Stevens, who is generally credited with making
the first transom-sterned schooner on the island, thus
beginning the trend away from the Tancook whalers— The schooner SARAH ABBOT is one of four 47-footers designed
double-ended centerboarders with so-called “Aberdeen and built by David Stevens. She received a new interior last
stems,” a bow shape that originated in Scotland. In pro- winter—a job that’s profiled beginning on page 66.
file, the 47s are similar to a big Tancook schooner called
PATAVANA .
ATLANTAS, AVENGER , and ATLANTICA (the latter boat for Philips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts,
built on sight at Expo 67 in Montreal) followed. The from 1985 to 2000. ATLANTAS, owned by Lars Hard-
first three have a doghouse aft of the main and flush ing, has been the flagship for the University of South-
deck forward. ATLANTICA’s house carries forward to ern California’s nautical program since the 1970s.
the foremast. All were gaff-rigged to begin with. AVENGER has been my home, off and on, since 1979
These vessels have a rakish bow, moderate sheer, and and has sailed far. ATLANTICA is now owned by Tye
enough freeboard to be dry at sea. They have no vices, Burt, a man with the resources to do her proud. He
and are fast passagemakers offering a comfortable keeps her Bristol fashion and races her hard.
ride and an astounding ability to put away seas that These schooners have all the virtues of the man who
look like nothing but trouble. They were all copper- designed and built them: integrity, purposefulness,
riveted, and made of the best woods David could find: ease with the environment they were meant to sail. They
mahogany planks, oak frames, ash deckbeams. The inspire confidence, forgive the occasional lapse in judg-
original spars were of black spruce. The original decks ment, and respond to good handling with joyous per-
were pine tongue-and-groove covered with canvas set in formance. It’s easy to see why David loved the design
white-lead paint. enough to make four of them, and easy to understand
All four are still alive and thriving. SARAH ABBOT, why they’re all still sailing, a fact that would bring joy to
owned by Randy Peffer, served as the marine research the man. —TG

8. Maintenance is the price of pleasure, in a
marriage and with a boat. But you have a lot of
choices. Brightwork is more labor-intensive
than paint. A boat can look just fine with
everything painted. If you don’t want the
trouble of varnish, you know what to do. I
have a lot of brightwork. I like it. Sometimes
the work seems more than I’d like, but a cou-
ple of days of application, and the result is
worth it. Topsides on traditional boats should
not be too shiny. Two thin coats are pro-
foundly better than one thick one. Get the
masking tape off as soon as you’re done.
JAMIE MORRISON
Structurally, always look for movement in

the hull. Do doors that once opened no longer
fit? Are there gaps around beam ends? Are
there tears in the topsides paint along the
seams? I’ve added six hanging knees and
several floor timbers over the years.
9. Don’t try to save money on bottom paint. Get the
best stuff, and put a lot on. Period. For cruising boats,
ablative paint is best.
10. Machinery is the greatest expense and heartache

on a boat. Learn all you can about your diesel engine,
have all the tools necessary to repair it, carry lots of
spares, keep an eye on all of the fluid levels, keep the
hose clamps tight, try to keep things clean, and save some
money for when it all goes pear-shaped. It will. Trust
me. I’m on my third Perkins. Keep systems simple.
Remember, you’ll be the one maintaining them.
JAMIE MORRISON
11. Expect a fairly major refit every 10 years. If you’re with teak, and slightly sweetening the sheer with new
going to sea and driving the boat, you need to be on bulwarks. The second, about 10 years later, involved
this schedule, give or take five. My first refit involved reframing the boat from the mainmast to the transom.
pulling and rebuilding the engine, redesigning the The most recent was five years ago. The old girl was
cockpit and main cabin, replacing the canvas decks leaking, and I knew it was time to do something serious.
I considered all the options, talked to all the
experts I knew, weighed the expenses, and
chose to sheathe the boat in fiberglass. I
hauled out in the Caribbean at St. Kitts,
where a yard was happy to let me do the work.
I built a shed over her, wooded her, removed
every bit of hardware, reefed out the seams
and filled them with epoxy and fillers, satu-
rated the boat with thinned epoxy, and then
flew in Scott Dagley from Nova Scotia to hang
the ’glass. He knows the job. John Steele from
Covey Island Boatworks in Lunenburg came
down to help. With additional help from two
JAMIE MORRISON
great local guys, we did the job in two weeks.

A job such as this must be done when the
boat still has its structural integrity. It is not a
solution for weakness and rot.

12. Maintaining a gaff rig is nice work. I taught myself
rigging when I got the boat, and that resulted in a good
deal of paying work. Make yourself a ditty bag and fill it
with a fid, spike, serving mallet, knife, needles, palms,
good strong scissors, a seam rubber, a sharpening
stone, needle-nose pliers, side cutters, mousing wire,
and sail twine. With these tools, you can build a rig.
Learn to splice. Learn the proper knots and bends, and
where to use them. Hervey Garrett Smith’s The Arts of
the Sailor is a wonderful primer. Brion Toss’s The Rigger’s
Apprentice contains everything else you need to know. In
JAMIE MORRISON
the early days, I was privileged to work alongside Morris
Allen, a legendary Lunenburg rigger known to all as
Rigger Mortis, and he showed me some techniques that
I use to this day. Guys like Morris are few and far
between today, but they’re around. If you find one,
offer to give him a hand and watch his every move. the service once a year with a mixture of pine tar, linseed
For standing rigging, nothing beats galvanized wire, oil (or Penetrol, which I prefer), and turpentine, it will
parceled and served. It’s stronger than stainless-steel, last a very long time. I also use this mixture to dress my
and will tell you when it’s getting ready to give up the blocks, deadeyes, bulwarks, and pinrails. I just slap on
ghost. Properly maintained, which means dressing another coat when things start looking parched.
of 3⁄8" galvanized chain, which I use with my primary

anchor. I have a manual and an electric windlass. The
electric one is recently installed geezer gear, and I love
it. When setting your anchor, lower it until it touches
the bottom, then slowly back the boat down while pay-
ing out the chain. You don’t want to pile the chain in a
heap on top of the anchor. When you’ve got five times
as much chain as the depth of the water, snub up and
give the engine a burst. If the bow goes down, you’ve
got a bite. Ease out another fathom or two and wait for
things to settle. Set up your “snubber,” a length of nylon
JAMIE MORRISON
line attached to the chain as a shock absorber. Then

find a couple of marks ashore to watch, and keep an eye
on them while you put on the sail covers and tidy up the
deck. If she stays where you put her, you’re probably all
right. If possible, dive to inspect the anchor. When pick-
13. A cruising schooner needs good ground tackle, ing your spot, consider all the other boats. Remember
well organized and maintained. I carry three big that you will swing in a circle, the circumference of
anchors, a traditional fisherman, a Manson, and a which is twice the amount of chain you’ve got out. So
Delta. I have two 300', 1¼" nylon rodes, each with 60' of will everyone else. Notice who’s on chain, and who’s on
chain. They’re stowed on rollers in the forepeak, so that rope. They will behave differently when winds and
they’re instantly available when needed. I also have 300' tides change.
14. Learn traditional navigation, and have the tools should have a pretty good idea where you are. You
aboard to use it: charts, parallel rule, dividers, good can fine-tune your work by being aware of the tides
reliable compass, taffrail log, sextant, nautical almanac, and currents and the leeway your boat makes. All of this
tide tables, and sailing direc- is common sense. There’s
tions. This is not an odious real pleasure in sitting at your
task. It’s part of the art, and chart table with pencil and
the better you are at it, the “It’s part of the art, and the better parallel rule, working out your
safer you will be. Modern you are at it, the safer you will be.” position. Nautical charts are
electronic navigation is easy beautiful, and while you’re
and accurate. But it’s elec- working at them, you tend to
tronic. Devices can fail. The study them carefully. You
old stuff won’t. At a minimum, you should know dead find you know where the danger lies and where snug
reckoning. If you know where you started, the course anchorages hide. Electronic navigation induces an
you’ve been sailing, how fast you’ve been going, you unfortunate overabundance of confidence.

WestSystem-279-02.indd 63 7/18/21 4:22 PM
15. Passagemaking is not at all like coastal sail-
ing. You’re going to be out there for a long time.
Speed and course are important, but so is com-
fort. Sometimes the course you sail and the rig
you carry are entirely for the crew. Let them get
some rest, cook some good meals, have some
fun. They’ll be more effective when things are
harsh if you do this.
JAMIE MORRISON
16. Crew management is a

fine art. Rule No. 1, never
raise your voice above what
is necessary to be heard.
Don’t get angry; it disables
those you need to continue.
If one of the crew is side-
ways to everyone else, and
becoming a problem, never
confront this in the pres-
ence of the rest of the crew.
Wait until you can get the
offending soul alone, and
ask some questions. You’re
trying to find out why the
bad behavior is happening.
If you ask enough questions,
the reason will come out.
Once you’ve identified the
problem, address it directly
TIM WRIGHT
and simply: “When you do
this, this is what happens.”
Always keep the discussion
focused on the welfare of the passage. Ask for help forbearance. That said, I’ve had mostly wonderful crews.
to put the problem to rest. Usually, this works. If it If you do, too, shower them with praise. A happy crew is
doesn’t, talk to the rest of the crew individually, make a blessing beyond saying.
them know you understand the problem, and ask for
W
as my childhood dream romantic folly? Are average modern 40' sloop. It’s true they won’t sail as
gaffers a salty anachronism devoid of practi- close to the wind as a modern rig. At sea, you don’t
cality? It turns out, a gaff schooner is an almost want to sail that directly into the waves. AVENGER tacks
perfect voyaging machine. The rig is split into manage- through 95 degrees, and at that angle she moves right
able parts. You can always set things up to take intelli- along. She’s a fast passagemaker and a very comfortable
gent advantage of the conditions. Sails last longer boat at sea. Like the old fellows say, “There’s no replace-
because they’re supported on three sides, and stretch ment for displacement.” And the last virtue is the one
can be managed with the throat and peak halyards that first captured my eye: They are so beautiful.
and head and foot lacings and outhauls. The rig can
be repaired with bits of wood, wire, and string. When Tom Gallant is a writer, singer-songwriter, actor, and director. He
you need a new shroud, you can make it with your has a wide range of interests and enthusiasms, including voyaging
hands. In fact, my rig cost a small fraction of an in his schooner, AVENGER .

MEMBER OF THE ROBBE & BERKING FAMILY YA C H T S
N I EBL A H E AV E N C A N WA I T
2005 FAIRLINE YACHTS 59’ 2001 NISSEN CUTTER RIGGED SLOOP 72’
LOA: 17.98 m | Beam: 3.80 m | Draft: 2.70 m | Price: on request LOA: 22.00 m | Beam: 4.55 m | Draft: 3.90 m | Price: 1.100.000 €
SER E N A DE A NA LÍ A
1938 SHELDON POTTER SLOOP 75 FT ALFR ED MY LNE YAW L FROM 1925
LOA: 18.90 m | Beam: 4.20 m | Draft: 2.55 m | Price: 750.000 € LOA: 22.88 m | Beam: 4.39 m | Draft: 2.60 m | Price: 580.000 €
+ 4 9 (0) 4 61 31 8 0 3 0 6 5 | B AU M+KO E N I G @ C L A S S I C-YAC H T S . D E | W W W.C L A S S I C-YAC H T S .C O M
RobbeBerking-282-01_MOD.indd 65 7/18/21 4:24 PM

TYLER FIELDS
Learning from Noah
A gift of life-lessons in the time of Covid-19
by Randall Peffer
T
he Covid-19 winter of 2020–21 was nearly upon yielded, a bit reluctantly, to an invitation from my wife
us. For the first time since we had sheathed the and me to “come home” to our village of Marion on the
hull of our 47' David Stevens–designed schooner south coast of Massachusetts.
SARAH ABBOT with cedar veneers 17 years earlier, my I say “reluctantly” because as much as Noah and I
son Noah and I found ourselves with extended time love each other, he knows that spending extended time
together because of the pandemic. He’s 43, a licensed with his old man will lead to more than a little head-
captain, seasoned carpenter, and a nautical-science butting. He’s a cautious, professionally trained mariner,
professor. He had been on sabbatical cruising the Sea carpenter, and teacher with accolades that include a
of Cortez with his wife, Alex, and a German Shepherd class victory in the Pacific Cup race to Hawaii and
in their expedition boat when Covid-19 began to spread membership in the Cruising Club of America. I, on
around the globe. the other hand, gained my mariner’s chops dredging
With Mexico closing its ports, Noah and Alex hauled oysters aboard a Chesapeake Bay skipjack. Much of my
their sloop in La Paz, rented a car, and sprinted for their time afloat roots in the bravura and quick-and-dirty
apartment in Los Angeles to ride out the virus. But after maintenance that comes with a hardscrabble life in
a spring and summer of lockdown, and with Covid-19 workboats. Father and son, oil and water.
cases spinning upward in Southern California, they The comfort of a quiet village on Buzzards Bay and
Above—The schooner SARAH ABBOT’s interior nears completion after seven months of father-and-son labor. Noah Peffer, the
author’s son, made the galley table from white oak boards he found buried in his father’s shop. The cabin sole is African sipo.
SARAH ABBOT 282-ADFInal.indd 66 7/19/21 6:42 PM

During November 2020, Noah led
the Peffer family on a demolition
marathon that left the schooner’s hull
empty. They spent a month refastening
ceiling planking as well as cleaning,
gap-filling, prepping, and painting
before starting with new construction.
Okay, this is a bit embarrassing.

We hauled at least 15 pickup-truck
loads to the recycling facility before
we could walk unimpeded from the
front to the back of the shop. Then
Noah said, “It’s time to pull out the
credit card, Dad.”
By the end of the next week, we
owned over $5,000 worth of new
tools. Noah built workbenches, a
ALEX WOLFF
dust-extraction system, and a table-

saw outfeed setup. He put in shelves
to store everything, including my
three identical wrench sets (how
the lure of the family schooner (which has been with us did I get those?) and the drawknife I have yet to use. The
for 36 years) called to Noah while the pandemic raged. place was so damn organized, I couldn’t find anything.
So he, Alex, and the shepherd jumped in their pickup Then he broke the news that we needed a paint shop,
and headed east in late summer. He grumbled a bit too. Next thing I knew he had commandeered the two-
about being a “grown-ass man living over his father’s car garage. Lord, have mercy. Is this what comes of
garage,” but for two months we dodged virus anxiety naming your offspring after a biblical shipwright?
and our differences in style by cruising the schooner and
hiking with the dog through the forest. But with falling Early November—Cleaning House
leaves coming fast, Noah’s creative impulses rose to On the first of November, SARAH ABBOT was alongside
the surface. the dock at Barden’s Boat Yard awaiting haulout.
“Everything has to come off,” Noah announced.
The Project I thought about the decades of accumulated gear
It started during a sail to Martha’s Vineyard when I sug- aboard the schooner that had allowed me to keep her
gested maybe he could not leave his cell phone charg- running on a tight summer schedule for 14 years as a
ing so long on the schooner because it would deplete research boat for Phillips Academy Andover and to
the batteries. make self-sufficient passages from New England to the
“You know,” Noah said, his voice sounding slightly southeastern Bahamas and back. The schooner had
exasperated, “I could stick around this winter and help hundreds of pounds of engine spares and an equal
you rewire SARAH ABBOT.” weight in tools. She carried extra sails, rope, hoses,
My wife, Jackie, hoped we might make some other pumps, electrical parts, crates of oil, paints, solvents,
improvements while we were at it. She wasn’t fond of adhesives, ditty bags, and a fully found galley-pantry.
the booth-like dinette and the Pullman berths amid- There was also what I call the “lumberyard.” It’s a
ships. My younger son, Jacob, lobbied for new water space in the forecastle where I store oak, fir, and
tanks. mahogany boards “ just in case.” Noah made fun of that
“Maybe we should just gut the boat and start over,” collection, but he forgets that I once used boards from
Noah said. He claimed we would be done by April and the lumberyard to splint a mainmast that cracked in a
ready to sail. blow off Great Exuma to sail safely back to New England.
Fat chance. “You can keep the wood,” he said. “But that’s it.”
But I liked the idea. And I loved keeping Noah, Alex, The watchman at the recycling place began to roll
and the shepherd around for the winter. Still, I remem- his eyes when we showed up with yet another load, and
bered some of the shouting matches we had sheathing muttered about “wooden boat nuts.”
the hull and knew we were headed down a bumpy road.
Mid-November—Demolition
October: Building a Proper Shop With the schooner hauled at the boatyard, Noah got
Noah said “ job one” was “to give ourselves a real shop.” energized. He jumped me at breakfast one morning
Somehow the building behind my house I call “the shop” with two big plastic bags.
had morphed into what he called “a 25-year collection “What’s all that?” I asked.
of offcuts, broken boat gear, rusty engines, rotten sails, “Your new best friends.” He emptied an enormous
janky tools, and squirrels’ nests.” cache of blades for my reciprocating saw and our new

multi-tool onto the kitchen table. “It’s showtime, Dad.” and cold-molded hull skin we had given the vessel over
“Can’t we just use pry bars and hammers?” the years had really done their jobs. SARAH ABBOT was
“You’re gonna need eye protection and leather incredibly sound for a 55-year-old boat that had logged
gloves, too.” His voice sounded bossy. He had seen me more than 50,000 hard miles. But some rot had found
knock down a porch with a sledge and my bare hands its way into the mainmast partners and an adjacent
(and take a fair section of wall with it) during what he deckbeam.
calls my “savage period.” “This looks like a Randy job,” Noah said.
Ten trips to the dump later, we had an empty vessel I suggested we cut out the rot and give the project the
from the forecastle bulkhead aft…and I was thanking old “epoxy-and-paint, make-it-what-it-ain’t” treatment.
the gods for reciprocal saws and 18-volt multi-tools. The “You know, Dad,” Noah said, giving me the hairy
Nova Scotians who built SARAH ABBOT sure used a lot eyeball. “It’s not like you don’t know how to do this
of strong nails. properly.”
He had a point. I have done a lot of structural scarfs
Late November—Mocking Up/Design and ship-lap repairs during more than six decades in
“Go away for a week,” said Noah as he tossed the last bit wooden boats. He handed me his freshly sharpened
of old cabinetry out of the cockpit. “I’m going to build block plane and chisels by way of saying “show me what
a maquette.” you got.”
“A what?” He was using one of those fancy words he Okay, maybe I cheated while he was working back at
learned while getting a master’s degree in sculpture at the shop and used a sander instead of a hand plane a
Cal Arts, the California Institute of the Arts in Santa bit. But I liked the way those sharp chisels moved across
Clarita. the oak, so I took my time on the job. It felt good when
“A mock-up.” Noah inspected my work and said, “Nice job, Dad.”
“Full-scale?”
This seemed like an extra step in the process. We Late December—Prepping and
already had sketches and a design, which Noah, Alex, Painting the Empty Hull
Jackie, and I had sussed out over spaghetti dinners. In “One more coat,” Noah said. The picky bugger was
the galley, we were expanding the counter space and scrutinizing my paint job on the ceiling for holidays
adding a stainless-steel top. We were nearly doubling and sags.
pantry storage as well as installing a hidden Engel “No one is ever going to see this,” I shot back. Noah,
refrigerator, a bigger sink, and a bigger icebox. The Jacob (home from college), and I had been sanding,
new dinette would be U-shaped with ergonomic angles priming, sanding again, filling gaps, and painting the
to the seats. In the ’midships area, the old pilot berth to empty interior of this boat for a solid month. My back ached
starboard would become a double berth with bifold and I was sick of cutting drips of paint out of my hair.
doors or a curtain for privacy. An L-shaped settee for “We’re painting this boat so it doesn’t have to be
lounging around a Dickinson fireplace would replace done for another 55 years.”
the Pullman berths to port. “I’m not going to be around that long.”
“Yes, Dad, full-scale.” He said it was the best way to “But I hope to be,” Noah said. Ah, the naked truth.
know if what we imagined would actually look and feel “So, you and your brother are committing to SARAH
right. ABBOT for the long haul?”
I growled, huffed off the schooner, and spent the “We’ve talked. We’re both in.”
week daysailing our 23-footer. When I returned, Noah I’d been waiting decades to hear those words.
had fashioned a mocked-up interior from 3⁄8"
plywood and drywall screws. Jackie and Alex
came aboard, and over two days we adjusted
countless design details while Noah reconfig-
ured the mock-up. It took him only a day to
knock it all down. When he was finished, he
had templates for the bulkheads, furniture,
and cabinets.
I had to suck it up. It turns out nothing beats
a prototype when it comes to picturing the
future.
Early December—Repairs
We took a careful inventory of the gutted
schooner’s structural integrity. The sistered
frames, additional floors, new deck, fresh rig,
ALEX WOLFF
Noah inspects his father’s work on a scarfed-in

portion of a main deckbeam. This was one of the
few structural repairs required.

“Right,” I said. “Let’s give her another coat.” were not happy campers. I threw up my hands and
A thorough paint job is an act of respect for the future. stormed home to stream Captain Ron. The next morn-
I learned to take my time. And wear a painter’s cap. ing, I discovered Noah bracing the odd tank in place.
He had found a way to install it backward.
Early January—Fabricating in the Shop “It’s not going to come adrift.” He had the same
With the interior of the empty hull freshly painted and smile on his face he had back in 1991 after building his
sparkling, we moved back into the shop to translate the first skateboard ramp.
patterns from the mock-up to sheets of 5⁄8" marine-grade “Straightforward” jobs, I realized, have ways of get-
meranti plywood. After I rough-cut the bulkheads, ting complicated. But I learned there’s more value to a
Noah dressed them with a router. Then he passed them youthful skateboarding obsession than may, at first,
back to me in the paint shop to give them two coats of meet the eye.
epoxy sealer and two coats of primer with sanding
between coats. It took weeks. Early February—Installing Bulkheads
The old me would have been grinding his teeth and and Furniture
complaining that there had to be a faster, easier way. With the tanks in, it was time to start installing SARAH
But a strange thing happened. With Noah focused on ABBOT’s interior.
the carpentry, and me on the coating, we stopped butt- Before the job started, Noah had warned me that we
ing heads, and I kind of lost track while listening to would inevitably have to deal with a “major f**k-up.” I
Creedence Clearwater Revival and other vintage rock- was thinking the water-tank debacle had been our
and-roll songs in my paint shop. One day when the Waterloo, when we discovered that, somehow, we had
epoxy wasn’t kicking off as fast as I hoped (it was 20 made a shiplap joint on the wrong side of a two-part,
degrees outside and barely 50 degrees in the paint shop primary bulkhead. The bulkhead represented days of
with the heater churning full-blast), Noah took a break our collective effort, and what really galled was that it
from making cornerposts of sipo, a sweet-looking Afri- had a perfect pressed fit against the ceiling, bilge clamp,
can hardwood, and showed up with a box of Cheez-its. and sheer clamp.
They tasted like ambrosia. Noah has a bit of my temper, and I was ready to run
The shop, I learned, can be an oasis of sanity and for cover when the explosion came. But it never did.
control. But when things go south, a buddy with a box He took a deep breath and shook his head. “I think I
of Cheez-its can save the day. need to go for a hike with the dog,” he said.
Something rose in my chest, and I blurted, “When
Late January—Replacing the Water System you get back, we’ll order out for Thai.”
Swapping out the old water tanks should have been one The next day we remade the bulkhead and repurposed
of the project’s easy jobs. But after lowering the new the mistake. No harm, no foul. We forgave ourselves,
tanks into the boat, we discovered the manufacturer and each other.
had sent us one wrong tank. Picturing hundreds of
dollars and weeks of delays to ship back the mistake, we Late February—The Big Blowup
During February, the weather turned brutal in that way
unique to coastal New England. First you get a blizzard
with 6" or more of snow, followed by rain, and, finally, a
hard freeze. Until now the job site had been totally
functional, even pleasant, with the boat cloaked in
shrink-wrap and a propane heater down below. We had
a tablesaw, benches on sawhorses, and cases of power
tools ready to use on a tarp spread out under SARAH
ABBOT’s stern. But now with the snow, rain, and ice
cycle hitting every four days, we had to move all of our
tools back to our shop a mile away.
We were making progress installing the bulkheads
and structural parts of the furniture and cabinets. But
it was slow going. I was glad to have let Noah, with his
far superior carpentry skills, take over the entire wood-
working side of the job. Now, he found himself trapped
by the weather in an unending cycle of traveling back
and forth to the shop to use power tools as he faced off
with hundreds of precision fits.
I was roughing-in the new water system when Noah
told me to stop and do something else.
ALEX WOLFF
The old man goes deep. Not a finish carpenter, Randall took
on all of the “fun” jobs, such as gap-filling and sanding the
interior of the new icebox.

Noah catches his breath after a long, dark,
February day. The skeleton of the interior is
sipo, and the paneling is 5⁄8” meranti marine
plywood.
seats in the dinette or building the dou-

ble pilot berth. We hadn’t even started on
the new electrical system. There was no
way were we going to be done by April.
I was feeling the urge to move this job
along. So, while Noah was off trekking, I
spent three delightful days alone in the
boat—while yet another blizzard raged
outside—sorting out and installing the
core components of the new electrical
system while blasting Creedence. I felt
like a free man in charge of his own des-
ALEX WOLFF
tiny with no one to answer to. But I

couldn’t move the electrical job any far-
ther forward until a bunch of the new
furniture got two coats of primer.
“We aren’t ready for that yet.” His voice was impa- It was a Tuesday morning, when Noah and his dog
tient. Then he went on to complain about how much he re-emerged from the forest and spotted me lugging a
hated New England winters. He announced that he was can of primer and a brush from my pickup to the boat.
taking a couple of days off to trek through the forest “What are you doing?” He didn’t sound happy or mel-
with his shepherd. Meanwhile, the end of February was lowed from all that hiking.
upon us, and we still had not finished installing the I told him my plan to prime the new furniture.
SHENANDOAH PRESERVING AN AMERICAN TREASURE ~ 1925-2025
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Father and son share a moment over coffee
after Randall buttoned up the last of the
wiring installation in the new electrical box
at his back and completed the laminated
sipo trim on the bulkhead opening.
“No,” he said. “No.” Damn. The boss

was back in town. “Just stop. I’m not
done installing stuff, and we will have
to prime it again when I am.”
I felt the hair on the back of my neck
rising, and I’m pretty sure I dropped an
F-bomb. “I’m really not having fun,” I
said and started for my pickup.
I wanted to be alone and feel the righ-
teous indignation of a downtrodden
ALEX WOLFF
laborer. But he followed me to the
truck. And there we sat, fuming in each
other’s presence until he passed me a
box of Cheez-its and asked, “How do we
make this a better experience?” responsibilities, and the things we would collaborate
An hour later we had aired our grievances and on. In the following days I brought hot lattes from the
anxieties (not the least of which were about the surge drive-through at Dunkin Donuts.
in Covid-19 cases that had found their way to our little And we learned these lessons: Nobody likes to feel
coastal backwater). Then we came up with a plan that disrespected or anxious. Talk it out. Swallow your pride.
clarified our order of operations, our individual Apologize. Make a new plan. Share some lattes.
ARTISAN BOATWORKS
CUSTOM YACHT BUILDERS

Noah relished working on the “fiddly stuff” in the final
month of the project, during which he tended to the
sipo trim. Early in the project, he spent two weeks
prepping and painting the overhead in the saloon as a
way of setting high standards for the
rest of the job.
Early May—The End in Sight

The snow disappeared at the beginning of March.
Jackie and I got the first of our vaccinations. Noah
finished the furniture and cabinet installation in
April and made the cabinet doors. I completed the
electrical and plumbing infrastructure. We
applied multiple coats of primer to everything,
and we enjoyed some spring sailing in our
23-footer. Then Noah, Alex, Jackie, and I applied
three coats of satin finish to all the new furniture.
By Noah’s calculation, we had another month of
“fiddly stuff” to do, which included making, fitting,
and varnishing all the trim. We also needed to
install the countertop, stove, sink, and ice box; lay
down a new cabin sole; and get fancy new cushions
from Sperry Sails. But I was in no hurry, and I don’t
think Noah was either. He had begun to teach me
ALEX WOLFF
some of the tricks of a finish carpenter and let me

try my hand at patterning, making, and installing
the trim. For the moment it was enough to know
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The Peffers splurged on a custom-made stainless-steel
galley counter. Noah routed vents in all of the locker doors
to allow airflow.
the relaunch would be coming shortly. Summer was

on the horizon. The pandemic seemed to have
plateaued in the United States, and Jackie and I got
our second jabs.
By the time the schooner was ready for sea trials,
Noah and Alex were fully vaccinated, too. With new
electrical and plumbing systems, as well as the recon-
TYLER FIELDS
ceived furniture and cabinetry, the family schooner
cruise this summer promised a new level of comfort, if
not exactly luxury. We’ve taken to calling SARAH
ABBOT’s interior renaissance (inspired by the Cornish
shipwright Luke Powell’s pilot cutters) “workboat chic.” Soon, SARAH ABBOT would carry us in safety and
workboat chic offshore. There’s a patch of ocean I want to
A
s the project neared completion, Noah said to me, show Noah on the edge of the cobalt-blue water of the
“What else could we have done during this Covid Gulf Stream. It’s a place where the humpbacks come to
winter that would have been half as much fun?” sport and the gulls have never heard of “super spreaders,”
Sometimes I think he has selective amnesia. “B.1.1.7.,” or “surging infections.” They laugh with the
But he was right. We’d had fun, despite the head- thrill of each new sunrise.
butting and the aching muscles. In what could have
been a bleak winter indeed, we had marked our family’s A regular contributor to WoodenBoat, Randy Peffer has held a
navigation through a pandemic with African hardwood, 100-ton master’s license for nearly four decades. He’s the author of
careful construction, gallons of paint, foamy lattes, and 20 books, including Dangerous Shallows (with Eric Takakjian)
boxes of Cheez-its. from Lyons Press, published in February 2020.
Fairing compounds
Laminating compounds
Tri-Tex co inc.
1-800-363-2660
www.tritex.com

TYLER FIELDS
LARK
Restoring the Old Bird
by Nat Benjamin
M
y first encounter with the sleek and slippery “LARK doesn’t seem to be pumping as much as us, Pat.”
LARK was at the start of a Moffat Cup Race in His eyes still glued to her transom, he said, “Well,
Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts, in September she is a newer boat.”
1977. I was aboard “Commodore” Pat West’s 1910 gaff Most are, I thought.
sloop VENTURE, pinching by the committee boat as Pat perused the scratch sheet again, and muttered,
the gun fired. Footing faster than us and pointing “More time, we need more time. I’ll have to talk to the
higher, LARK sailed through our lee, her big gaff main- race committee.” Then he lit his pipe and laughed.
sail trimmed flat, staysail and yankee jib sucking her “She’s much newer. 1932!”
upwind. A large man sat at the helm drinking a beer.
I
Pat stared at the big sloop, glanced at the scratch sheet, n 2018, word got out that LARK was for sale. Athena
and said, “She should give us more time.” Rail down, Aicher, one of our boatyard shipwrights and a resi-
the lissome hull showed us her transom, with LARK dent of LARK’s homeport, Woods Hole, put me in
lettered in gold leaf. touch with the owner, Skipper Hull. He was not the
“Herreshoff?” I asked. skipper, but had co-owned the boat with Eric Little (the
“Alden design,” said Pat. “Lawley built, like VENTURE.” big guy drinking beer), for 45 years. When Eric died in
Our wives were below, arranging a picnic lunch and 2017, Skipper became the sole owner. But it was a struggle
tending the bilge pump, frequently. for him to maintain the aging vessel on his own.
Above—LARK, a 1932 Alden sloop recently restored by Gannon & Benjamin Marine Railway of Vineyard Haven,
Massachusetts, ghosts along under main and genoa in light air on Vineyard Sound.
LARK282-ADFinal.indd 74 7/22/21 4:11 PM

With the framing completed, Brad Abbott installs a bilge
stringer. Brad has been a partner in Gannon & Benjamin
for a dozen years, and had his hands on every aspect of the
job; he also masterminded the mechanical, electrical, and
plumbing systems.
Before I contacted Skipper, I had an inclination about

who might want to restore LARK : John Forbes Kerry,
the former senator and secretary of state, and current
U.S. climate envoy. He and I had been friends for many
years and our boatyard, Gannon & Benjamin Marine
Railway, had been caring for his Herreshoff Watch
Hill 15. In 2018 he was watching the unraveling of
many of his accomplishments as secretary of state, and
I thought that a phone call about an old family classic
boat could only cheer him up. Our discussion was brief
but hopeful.
“I saw her anchored in the Hole last summer,” he
said. “She looked low in the stern. A bit hogged, I think.
I sailed on her with my uncle Will when I was a boy.
Lovely boat, then.”
“I raced against her a couple of times. She won the
Opera House Cup in the late ’80s.”
GANNON & BENJAMIN
“Guess it can’t hurt to have a look. Let me know what

you think. What it might cost.”
A week before Christmas, 2018, I took the ferry to
Woods Hole, walked half a mile down the road, and
met Skipper in the LARK shed. It was more like a LARK
museum.
Built by George Lawley & Son for the Forbes family Purpose-built, the shed was well lighted and
of Naushon Island in 1932, LARK was the flagship of unheated, and had a gravel floor and plenty of room to
Hadley Harbor on the island’s eastern point. Back work. LARK’s spars rested on racks, gear was neatly
then, she was professionally maintained as a proper stowed, and the yacht was properly supported at her
yacht and sailed by family members every summer. long overhanging ends. The hog in her sheer was
During tropical storm Carrie in 1972, she broke loose noticeable but not extreme. The paint and varnish were
from her mooring and was driven ashore on Bull Island well-maintained, and her hull appeared reasonably
in the middle of the harbor.
Eric and Skipper grew up as Woods Hole
summer kids, keen on sailing and crazy about
LARK , though they had never been aboard.
Since boyhood, they had watched her sweep
through the Hole and streak around the Eliza-
beth Islands. Eric often told Skipper, “Some-
day we’ll own that boat.” We all can dream,
Skipper mused. They were in their early 20s
when LARK went on the rocks.
“Now’s our chance,” said Eric. We got in our

Whaler and raced over to Hadley’s to see if we could
rescue her.
— Skipper Hull
Ross Gannon installs a wana bottom plank. He

was project manager on LARK’s restoration, and
as such he kept the work and machinery running,
GANNON & BENJAMIN
ordered supplies, fielded questions, and directed

interns and helpers. Author Nat Benjamin says
that “After shoulder surgery in February, his
productivity slowed to that of two men
instead of the usual three.”
LARK282-EdFinal.indd 75 7/19/21 7:00 PM

Zoli Clarke clamps
the hood end of a
full-length wana
plank. He is a
Vineyard prodigy
who started working
at G&B at the age of
13. He “completes
tasks before most
carpenters would
have figured out
how to begin,”
says Nat, “and the
quality of his work is
exceptional.”
GANNON & BENJAMIN

fair, which is impressive for an 86-year-old lightly built stretched under the cockpit at different levels. Another
vessel that had been driven hard. berth filled most of the forecastle. At some point in the
Skipper didn’t stray far from my side as I began to 1990s, the interior of the hull had been sheathed with
survey the hull, tapping with a hammer while holding ¾" × 3" Philippine mahogany ceiling. I couldn’t imagine
my left hand next to the impact to feel for movement. there would be much left of her inaccessible frames.
To my surprise, the centerline timbers gave a solid ring, Gutting the interior would be step one in her renovation.
for the most part, but the planking not so much. At the
butts and hood ends, it sounded like hitting a pumpkin, We arrived at Hadleys to find LARK lying on her starboard
and it was clear that the fastenings were losing their side, half full of water. We tied the Whaler to the Bobolink
hold. I moved on to the ballast keel. It was smooth and dock, marched up the path to Stone House, and banged on the
fair but for a half dozen zinc anodes fastened to its door. Mr. Forbes was not amused by two scruffy characters
sides. “Why would anyone put anodes on lead?” I asked. interrupting his tranquil morning, but reluctantly let us in.
Skipper said they had always been there. I whacked the After some discussion, he agreed to sell us the boat for
lead with the hammer and it rang like a piece of iron— $8,000—perhaps just to get rid of us. Eric told him we could
not the usual thud one would expect of lead. The ham- give him $1,000 now, the balance in a year or two. Mr. Forbes
mer blow left no mark. It had to be an alloy with high said he would hold the rig and sails till he received full payment.
antimony content. We returned the next day with a gang of helpers, patched
When I gave the rudder a tap, it responded like a the bottom, dragged her into deep water at high tide and towed
piece of plastic. I hit it again. Skipper winced, then her to Woods Hole.
informed me that it was carbon fiber, a recent upgrade. — Skipper Hull
We climbed the ladder and Skipper proudly showed
me around the deck. She appeared almost new. Care- On the ferry ride home, I jotted down my observations
fully painted nonskid surfaces contrasted with the rich and some rough estimates. At the shop, my business
varnished mahogany coamings, and the magnificent partners, Ross Gannon and Brad Abbott, looked over
round-fronted deckhouse. Toerails and rail caps, com- the photos from my survey and discussed how we might
panionway slide, skylight, and scuttle were also meticu- proceed should John agree to the project.
lously varnished. I put the hammer back in my bag and The deck could be saved, although with its large-
Skipper relaxed in the cockpit. radius corners and fiberglass appearance, it did no jus-
Down below, she was rough. The main saloon had tice to such a fine vessel. We would have to cut the deck
been rearranged with a large galley to port, consisting of back from the rail to replace the sheerstrakes and drive
a clumsy oversized icebox, CNG stove, small sink, and in new steam-bent white-oak frames. Most of the plank-
crude shelves. To starboard, forward of the main saloon ing was suspect and the top six strakes had been chan-
settee, the enclosed head was an odiferous plumber’s neled to let in the chainplates, further weakening the
nightmare of hoses and Y-valves connecting a vintage hull. The stem and fore keel were intact, but at nearly
Wilcox Crittenden toilet to a sketchy holding tank. Aft, 90 years old, how strong could they be? Perhaps we
alongside the 1985 Westerbeke diesel, quarter berths could save the keel timber, sternpost, and transom. But

The new deck frame begins
to close in the replanked hull.
Zoli Clarke and Andy Lyons
accomplished the planking
over the course of a month.
Andy, who has worked for G&B
since 1989, is nicknamed The
Machine. “He’s a machine,”
says Nat, “with a great sense
of humor and deep intellectual
curiosity.”
I headed home, surprised at

how out of touch he seemed
GANNON & BENJAMIN
to be.
In March, John and David
struck a deal with Skipper.
LARK would return to the
family that commissioned
her nearly nine decades ear-
the horn timber was sagging, riddled with fastenings lier. We decided to launch her in spring 2019, bring her
and compromised by a 2½" aperture to accommodate to Martha’s Vineyard for a summer of sailing, and then
the carbon-fiber rudder shaft. We assumed we could haul her in the fall for the rebuild. The new owners
reuse the rudder, engine, deckhouse, coamings, learned a lot about bilge pumps that summer.
hatches, and most of the rig. Our crew was eager to
O
restore the boat. Her lines were lovely, we knew she ne August day, with a fair southwest breeze
sailed like a witch, and we could use the work. gusting to 15 knots, John and I sailed LARK to
On a clear, cold afternoon in early February 2019, Edgartown to meet with his friends Tom Whid-
John and I met in Woods Hole. He was accompanied by den and Jack Slattery of North Sails to discuss new sails
his friend David Thorne, who was considering partner- for LARK . As we close reached home in the afternoon,
ing with John on the LARK project. John wore his signa- the rail down and water hissing by the quarter, John
ture leather Navy flight jacket, a flannel shirt, and faded relaxed to leeward, one hand on the wheel, a smile on
jeans. I noticed the top of his head seemed a bit snowier his face. I tended the sheets and glanced below occa-
than the year before. David, his Yale classmate, former sionally to see if the cabin sole was underwater. Once
Ambassador to Italy, and senior advisor in the State LARK was secured to the mooring, we put her to bed
Department, had a “What are you getting me into?” and John went below to check the bilge. Picking up a
look in his eyes. John introduced us and we drove to the floorboard, he said, “Look Nat, she’s pretty dry.” I
LARK museum where Skipper Hull and his captain, pointed out that the pumps had not stopped running
Greg McDonald, welcomed us aboard. all day.
After another examination, we discussed the various Keeping LARK in commission that summer was a
ways we could rebuild LARK , and when. In spite of the colossal headache with the constant leaking, drained
alarming survey and the daunting nature of the proj- batteries, unreliable engine, fouled fuel tank, cobbled-
ect, John and David seemed smitten by the vessel—her together rig, and occasional calls for a tow. But under
grace, pedigree, and family connection. I sensed that sail, LARK was a pleasure. She had a balanced helm,
LARK had them captured under her wings. She had and easy motion, and was nimble and fast. To every-
me, too. Skipper was eager to see her move on, but held one’s relief, she was hauled and moved into our shop in
firm to his price. We parted amicably and headed to the late September 2019. After removing the interior, ceil-
ferry for Martha’s Vineyard. As we chatted in John’s ing, tanks, and engine, we could better assess her struc-
comfy BMW, our boat talk was interrupted by a call ture. It was not a pretty sight. The frames, floor timbers,
from Mike Barnicle of MSNBC . John switched off the engine beds, bilge stringers, hanging knees, and most
speakerphone and excused himself, while David and I of the planking had to be replaced. The fore keel was
segued to a discussion of the candidates for the upcom- tired, the stem questionable, the sternpost and horn
ing presidential election, still 21 months away. When timber shot. Only the white-oak keel timber appeared
John finished his call, the mood in the front seat fell to be in surprisingly good condition.
with a thud. LARK and all her allure had been displaced We lifted off the deckhouse, coamings, lazarette and
by the gravity of national politics. When we parted com- fore hatch, removed the bowsprit, windlass, chain-
pany at the shop, I asked John which candidate he was plates, and deck hardware with the intention of rein-
going to support. stalling it all later. Close examination of the deck
Without hesitation, he said, “Joe Biden,” noting that revealed more problems. The camber had collapsed in
he was the only one who could win. way of the mast and the plywood-and-fiberglass overlay

This bow view shows the deck
framing and pieces of blocking
ready for installation.
was not watertight; it also added

much additional weight and was
just plain ugly. We needed
another conference with David
and John.
Trying to pin accurate esti-
mates to specific aspects of the
project was like trying to capture
a bird in flight. We decided it
would be best for the boat, and
more cost-effective, to replace
GANNON & BENJAMIN

the deck and replank the entire
hull. Perhaps we could save some
of the deckbeams. The owners were
understanding and determined
to do the right thing.
W
ork progressed at a moderate pace at first, angelique work best for this, but the shapes are hard to
everyone trying to get a handle on just how far come by, and our stockpile was low.
we had to go. The master shipwright and rigger Steve Cross of Iron City, Georgia, is a master sawyer.
Myles Thurlow surveyed the mast, spars, and standing He knows his trees and is capable of sawing massive
and running rigging. After some hand-wringing con- sweeps of live oak into slabs of workable thickness on
versations with John and David, Myles recommended his homespun sawmill. But when I called him, I learned
the best path forward was to start over. He gave them a that he was out of logs. Steve expected to have some
price for an entire new rig built to the original Alden material in a month or so. When John stopped by the
specifications—mast, boom, gaff, club, hand-spliced next day to check on progress, we told him our dilemma.
stainless-steel wire rope with custom hardware and “Let me call him,” he said. That night, I got a call from
blocks. It was the right decision. Myles packed up the John. Turns out he and Steve had some good friends in
old spars, trucked them to his shop in West Tisbury, common. “I think he’s going to help us out.” Sometimes
and, with his talented metalsmith Carter Payne, cre- diplomacy works.
ated a lighter, stronger, and beautifully engineered rig. Reframing an old boat is a slow process. Care must
Olin Gannon, Ross’s son, working along with our Dan- be taken, first, to wedge and shim the lumps and valleys
ish intern Kristian Emdal, burned the lead from the in the hull into fair lines strapped with fore-and-aft rib-
pockets where the ballast keelbolts were galleried, bands to hold her shape as close to the original design
removed the nuts, and extracted the bolts with a slide as possible. Then we remove every other frame and
hammer. After blocking and cradling the hull, Brad steam-bend clear, fresh-cut white oak in its place. The
moved the lead off to the side on rollers. This gave alternate frames follow. It was several weeks before
access to the heads of the floor-timber bolts, which LARK had new bones. We surmised that the 1932 Law-
were replaced along with the timbers. Taking a recipro- ley crew, without an old boat in the way, completed the
cating saw and wrecking bar to large sections of the aft job in a few days.
deck and cockpit exposed more compromised mem- With the hull framed up, we were ready to plank.
bers, unseen for decades. Shipwright Andy Lyons The idea of fastening new planking to the old slightly
installed a new angelique sternpost and horn timber punky and distorted transom made no sense. Ross built
while Zoli Clarke fitted a new fore keel and lower sec- a form to the designed radius over which he laminated
tion of stem. Once the new backbone and floor timbers veneers of wana, one of our favorite woods from Suri-
were in place, we were ready to begin framing. The name. It has a close grain similar to mahogany, though
owners were hoping for an early June launching. It was is of lighter weight and more durable. Once the glue
late November and LARK was becoming more skeletal had cured, Andy cut the shape to a pattern and installed
by the day. new fashion pieces and a knee. Given its curve and rake
Over decades of fixing old boats, we have often and the changing bevels of its edges, the transom is one
noticed frames broken on the reverse curve where they of the more challenging fabrications for a shipwright.
run from the flat of the deadrise and turn sharply to Andy and Zoli milled and scarfed long lengths of wana
the keel. It’s been our practice to saw these timbers for the planking. In 30 days, they had her clothed with
from naturally grown crooks instead of steaming a 1"-thick skin of full-length clear tropical hardwood to
them from straight stock. Live oak, black locust, and see her through the next century. While the planking

progressed, new sheer clamps, shelves, chainplate In early May, a Zoom meeting with our local board of
blocking, maststep, and engine beds were being health and town officials led to a discussion about
installed. Patterns for water and fuel tanks, and a hold- “essential work.” The meeting concluded with a green
ing tank, were shipped to Triple “M” Plastic Products in light for boatyards and golf courses to resume their
Kennebunk, Maine, to be fabricated in plastic—tanks spring activities. Golf? Athena returned from quaran-
being one of the few uses we approve for that material. tine in Woods Hole, the rest of the crew emerged, and
By late February, LARK was looking less like an archae- we were soon in full swing behind masks. To our sur-
ological discovery. Andy was fairing the hull, Zoli had prise, only one of our customers asked that their boat
started on deck furniture, Brad, Athena, and Kristian not be commissioned for the approaching summer.
were fitting deckbeams and hackmatack hanging The days were getting longer but the hourglass for
knees, Alois Pazourek bunged, sanded and varnished LARK’s launching date was running out of sand. We
the interior as fast as Ross and I could build it. Chips decided August 1 was a realistic splash day.
were flying and a June launching seemed possible. What to do with the carbon-fiber rudder? We had no
Then, in early March, our momentum was tempered by intention of drilling an oversized hole through our new
rumors of a dangerous coronavirus spreading around horn timber to accommodate the 21⁄2" composite stock.
the globe. On March 15, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie The Alden specifications called for a 1¾" bronze shaft
Baker called for a lockdown on all nonessential services, fitted to a traditional wooden rudder. But carbon cor-
including boatyards. rodes bronze when immersed in salt water and we were
stymied as to how to attach a stainless-steel shaft to a
In 1977, LARK was relaunched in Woods Hole with much foam-cored carbon blade. After some conversations
fanfare, after a five- year rebuild in Eric’s shop. Then we with engineers, we decided to scrap the carbon and
motored her over to Naushon and paid Mr. Forbes the $7,000 build a proper rudder as drawn by Alden in 1932. Andy
balance owed. From his porch, he looked down at the harbor milled and bolted together clear pieces of purpleheart
and smiled, as LARK swung to her mooring, elegant as ever. for the blade and Ross made patterns for the bronze
We loaded her mast, small spars, rigging, and sails on deck castings to be poured at the Edson foundry in New
and steamed home. Bedford. Brad machined the straps and heel fitting. He
Eric sailed LARK for the next 40 years. Capt. Greg, I, and then welded 1⁄4"-thick bronze flat stock to the shaft,
many others helped, but Eric was the force to make it all happen. these pieces to be let in flush with the blade and riveted
—Skipper Hull in place.
Close inspection of the old mahogany deckhouse
I
n April we reassessed the situation. Federal recom- revealed delamination and rot along its bottom edge,
mendations of social distancing, hand-washing, and so another victim of original fabric was chainsawed for
mask-wearing did not seem at odds with two or the dumpster, save for the portlights, which required
three boatbuilders working in an airy 70' building. Alois new gaskets and glass—another task for Athena. We
returned to work while Ross and I made cameo appear- sourced some 18'-long, 15"-wide Honduras mahogany
ances and Brad put time into rebuilding his schooner, from Americas Wood Co. in Washington, Maine, which
CALABASH. John, locked down on-island with all polit- they resawed into 5⁄16" veneers that Andy laminated for
ical events canceled, made regular visits to the shop to a new house. The companionway slide was also
chat with the crew and enjoy observing LARK’s rejuve- discarded, because it was too short to allow anyone
nation. Life became surreal as we tried to discern the over 6' to descend the ladder. The damaged scuttle
truth about the pandemic. We balanced our lives was condemned, as was the lazarette hatch—which was
between work, family time, and long hikes on the beach. too small. Zoli dovetailed clear Honduras mahogany
to replicate these stunning deck
features.
With all the spring activities pull-
ing us in different directions, June
2020 slipped away and more tasks on
the work list replaced those crossed
off. Then John stopped by to suggest
we move the launching date to July
23, a week earlier than planned.
LARK’s bulkheads are built of

old-growth cypress. The old bulkheads
and interior were dismantled by Will
Sideman, Will McCullough, and Gabe
Sennott, who filled several dumpsters
with LARK’s remains. When one is
TYLER FIELDS
seated below in the new interior,

says Nat, “it’s like being inside a
giant guitar.”

The old round-fronted deckhouse was removed
and replaced. “As the owner’s rep,” says Nat,
“I did my best to explain why we could only
salvage the keel and a couple of doorknobs.”
He was intent on racing in the Edgartown

Regatta on August 1. Myles thought he could
have the rig ready and we agreed to have
enough of the boat built to function for the
summer. The skylight, table, some electrical,
plumbing, and interior work could be fin-
ished after the sailing season. Toerails,
mahogany railcaps, and deck structures were
fastened into place and varnished to a rich
TYLER FIELDS
luster by Donald Clark, Elliot Morris, and
Michael Grant. Will and Alois faired and
painted the topsides and bottom, Brad hung
the rudder, installed a feathering Max-Prop,
and commissioned the engine, controls, and chartplot- On July 15, Annabel called to say she was still wait-
ter while Zoli finished the cockpit and mounted ing for a decision on fabric and color for the settees.
winches, Edson steering gear, and the wheel. Sign During my most recent conversation with John, he had
painter Melissa Nellis-Patterson lettered the transom in suggested blue or green velour, tufted, with piping on
gold leaf with Vineyard Haven as homeport. Ross, the edges. David had other ideas—something simpler
Athena, and I completed enough interior for Annabel and easier to clean. Down to the wire, I called John.
Armstrong of Sperry Sails to measure up for cushions— “We need a decision on the cushions.”
a “must do” by launching day. “We’ll have to discuss it when I get back.”
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Smock www.bestcoastcanvas.com Visit our foundry and store in Prospect Harbor, Maine

“When is that?” Champagne was uncorked and a modest gathering
“Not sure. I’m on a secret mission overseas.” of masked guests climbed aboard or wandered the dock
I mulled that over for a few seconds. “Okay, but Anna- admiring the yacht. Then we gathered in the shop for
bel needs to know soon.” Our connection broke off. Covid-appropriate snacks and more refreshments. John
Minutes later, I received a call from David. “How’s corralled Brad, Ross, and me at the podium—a skiff
Annabel coming with the cushions?” full of iced beverages—and called the group to atten-
“On hold for now. John’s away someplace. Couldn’t tion. In his clear senatorial voice, he thanked the crew
tell me.” for a fine job completed on time. He spoke to the integ-
“Johnny’s in the UAE —quarantined in his hotel rity of traditional wooden boatbuilding, an honest work
room. They won’t let him out for another week. Let’s do ethic, and the timeless qualities of craftsmanship in an
away with the tufts, don’t you think?” age in which hand-made objects seem to be vanishing
“Okay, but what about the color?” from the landscape. It was a perfect toast. Nothing
“Some kind of green. Ask Annabel. See you at the more needed to be said.
launch….” Seven days later, at 1000 hours on August 1, 2020, in
light air and under hazy skies, John maneuvered LARK
T
he stars aligned, the moon waxed, and Martha’s across the Edgartown Regatta starting line. David,
Vineyard Shipyard sent a boat hauler, Nick Myles, Ted Okie, Jack Slattery, Mike Clayton, and Ginny
Danger, to negotiate a quagmire of old boats, Hess pulled the strings. The course was clockwise, cir-
blocking, jackstands, and stacks of lumber, to move the cumnavigating Martha’s Vineyard—about 75 miles. I
20,000-lb, 45' LARK out of the shed and down Beach sent Myles a text at noon: “Got any wind?”
Road, paint drying en route. Myles and Carter were He shot back, “Coming on now, we’re doing okay, I
waiting by the gin pole to step the new mast. Cradled think.” LARK finished first in class and first overall.
in the Travelift, the new LARK returned to her old It was a fine summer for sailing, and LARK could
element. John took the helm and David, Brad and often be seen cutting across Vineyard and Nantucket
Zoli, along with a multigenerational cast of John’s Sounds and Buzzards Bay. With Greta Gannon, Ross’s
family, backed away from the dock and steamed across daughter, signed on as first mate, the yacht looked
the harbor to a welcome at the Gannon & Benjamin sharp and was ready to get underway at a moment’s
waterfront. notice. John would often sail through Woods Hole, into
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LARK282-ADFinal.indd 81 7/20/21 1:44 PM

TYLER FIELDS
The restored LARK swings to her mooring on Vineyard Haven Harbor, June 2021.
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Nat Benjamin designed LARK’s new interior with
an aft galley and hanging locker to starboard,
and the head and a quarter berth to port. This
configuration allows for a generous main saloon
with wide, symmetrical settee-berths and a
dropleaf table between them. After some high-
level debate and diplomacy, a warm brick red
was settled on for the settee cushions.
the list of projects to be completed over the

winter—main saloon table, skylight, reading
lamps, sink in WC, bookshelves, fiddles, and
TYLER FIELDS
more. John’s phone rings. He listens a

moment, thanks the caller, and puts the
phone down. He smiles and says, “They
called it for Joe. We have a new President.”
I row ashore and watch LARK sail off the
her old homeport of Hadley Harbor, then reach back to mooring and bend to the breeze. She reaches toward
the Vineyard in a smoky southwester. I was aboard for a West Chop, her song in flight still sweet and clear.
couple of delightful romps, sweetened with the confi-
dence of a strong hull and rig, dormant bilge pump, Nat Benjamin has designed more than 90 vessels since he and Ross
and always interesting company. Gannon started the Gannon & Benjamin Marine Railway in
Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts, in 1980. The yard has built 73 boats,
November 7, 2020. Aboard LARK, Vineyard Haven Harbor. ranging from the 65' schooner JUNO to an 8' yacht tender, and they
Greta is on deck, removing sail covers for the last sail have restored many classics. Nat and his wife, Pam, have two daughters
of the season. David, John and I are below, reviewing and five grandchildren, all residents of Martha’s Vineyard.
32nd Annual New book launch!

Georgetown Wooden Boat Show
October 16-17, 2021
100+ classic wooden boats, boatbuilding,
corrugated boat race, children’s model boatbuilding,
youth sailing regatta, knot tying, arts and crafts
On the waterfront at Front and Broad Streets,

Georgetown, South Carolina
128 pages, 88 photos, $35

Signed copies available at the
Wooden Boat Show and from the
South Carolina Maritime Museum
www.scmaritimemuseum.org
www.woodenboatshow.com [email protected]
[email protected] 843.520.0111

Myanmar Teak
R
50
ecently, John Sifton of Human 45.0
45
Rights Watch contacted Wooden-
Boat with concerns about poten- 40
GROWTH FACTOR
tial increases in illegal teak harvesting 35
in Myanmar following the February
30
2021 military coup that abrogated the
legitimately elected government of the 25
21.8
National League for Democracy, led 20
by Aung San Suu Kyi. Sifton cited vari- 16.4
15 14.1
ous atrocities of the Myanmar military 12.6 12.0
and predicted possible sanctions that 10
could be imposed by the European 4.9 4.9 4.5
5 3.1 2.8 2.2
Union and the United States. But, he 1.9 1.8 1.7
0
warned, “These sanctions are not going
r
Gu na
Pa a
Ni ma
a
os
Sa ia
Ta or
ia
M in
sta r
M a
Ind ia
ia
ia
do
a
to be effective unless they’re vigorously
al
gu
c
r
an
ys
es
Ind
n
d
nm
La
Ri
a
ge
em
Be
na
ua
lva
Gh
ra
ala
on
nz
Ni
ya
Ec
ca
enforced, and for that to work, buyers
at
Co
El
and boatbuilders will need to know more Central & South America Africa Asia
about supply chains and work harder to
verify the claims of their suppliers.”
As I read through Sifton’s emails, it In 2015, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported that
felt as if I had replaced Bill Murray in plantation teak production had significantly shifted away from Asian nations to
the movie Groundhog Day, except now those of Africa, Central America, and South America.
the repetitious alarm clock signaled the
endless time-loop saga of tropical tim-
ber destruction. My first columns on for- At the time I was writing the above- Remedies
est degradation were in 1987 (WB No. mentioned WoodenBoat columns, Bur- In the past, when forest exploita-
78), 1989 (WB No. 87), and 1990 (WB ma’s neighbor Thailand, which had tion through illegal logging reached
No. 94). A few things have changed since not regulated teak extraction, was suf- episodic peaks in various countries
then, but, mostly, the same intractable fering from severe deforestation. The around the world, global cries of cen-
problems crop up, again and again. Thai and Myanmar governments struck sure erupted and bans or boycotts were
a deal to allow the Thais to purchase strongly promoted.
History logging rights in the eastern border As I wrote in 1990 (WB No. 94): “We
Although natural teak forests are found in lands, which just happened to be terri- have committed a considerable portion
several Southeast Asian countries—Laos, tory controlled by the Karen people, a of the U.S. budget toward boycotting
Thailand, and parts of India—Myanmar Myanmar ethnic minority at odds with the flow of drugs from other countries
(formerly Burma) has always been viewed the central government. Soon, that into the United States. Instead of stop-
as the source of the highest-quality wood. region was being rapidly deforested in ping the drug trade, the consequence
After the British conquered Burma a manner that resembled the previous has been the flourishing of a black
in 1826, they opened up the teak forests forest destruction in Thailand. market in drugs—a trade even further
to exploitive logging that exhausted the Although free elections were rein- removed from rational control.”
supply by 1841. In a reversal of strategies, stated in 1990, the military refused to The situation in Myanmar is that of
the British then introduced a teak man- yield control and only began to cede an unelected military government that
agement system known as taungya—a some power about 10 years ago. Finally, lacks support from the majority of its
kind of agroforestry that was imposed on in 2014, the Myanmar government residents and is threatened by outside
the Burmese people for many decades. placed a ban on the export of raw tim- sanctions. This is the model situation for
After Burma achieved independence ber. Despite this ban, illegal loggers, expanding an already corrupt and ille-
from Britain in 1948, the Burmese many of them Chinese or Thais, have gal timber extraction system, with black
government nationalized the forest been sneaking across the border to market sales to unscrupulous buyers.
resources and created its State Tim- remove teak logs from remote areas. In I don’t think corrupt middlemen
ber Board. Teak gradually became the April 2020, Myanmar seized 850 tons will be offering deals to the small com-
major source of government funds, and of illegally harvested timber, most of it munity of wooden boat builders but
destructive logging practices increased teak destined for China. But many see rather to the myriad high-end indus-
alongside the costs of military suppres- this public seizure as a cover for the sys- tries manufacturing veneer and ply-
sion of uprisings. The previous taungya tem of bribery and subcontracting that wood, architectural molding, strip or
system was transformed into the Myan- allows illegal exports of mislabeled teak block flooring, furniture components,
mar Selection System, an exploitive by the state-owned Myanmar Timber door and window frames, carved deco-
management plan that led to increased Enterprise, especially in borderlands rative articles, and, especially, trim and
rates of forest degradation. occupied by ethnic minorities. interior woodwork in fiberglass boats—
WoodTech-282-ADFinal.indd 84 7/19/21 6:47 PM

by Richard Jagels
many of which are built in Southeast much of the durability characteristics Dr. Richard Jagels is an emeritus professor
Asia. As one report from the United of Asian-grown forest teak. of forest biology at the University of Maine,
Nations Food and Agriculture Organiza- I wish I could be more optimistic Orono. Please send correspondence to Dr.
tion (UNFAO) noted, “A touch of good- about the prospects for wooden boat- Jagels by mail to the care of WoodenBoat,
quality teak wood in a boat enhances builders to obtain high-quality teak, but or via e-mail to Senior Editor Tom Jackson,
its appeal and consumer’s prestige.” I until Myanmar regains a legally elected [email protected].
predict that as the situation worsens government and wrests control of the
1
in Myanmar, the black market will forest resources from the military, our Kollert, W. and Cherubini, L. 2012. Teak
expand, prices for teak will increase, chances of getting forest-grown teak Resources and Market Assessment 2010. FAO
and the luxury “consumer prestige” remain grim. Planted Forests and Trees Working Paper
market will thrive while those who need FP/47/E, Rome.
forest-grown teak for its decay resis-
tance and dimensional stability will be
shut out.
Billings
Where Do We Go?
As a 2015 UNFAO report1 stated: “The
future belongs to teak plantations. The
supply of quality teak logs originating
from old-growth natural teak forests will
Diesel & Marine Service, Inc.
decline. It is more than likely that the
world’s supply of teak wood will depend
A state-of-the-art, full-service boatyard
on the production of tropical teak plan- with a long heritage of Maine craftsmanship and expertise.
tations. Where good management prac-
tices are applied, plantation teak has
improved.”
The question remains: has planta-
tion teak’s quality improved sufficiently
to meet the critical requirements for
wooden boats? For plantations in the
American tropics, I have my doubts. If I
had the choice, I would likely pick plan-
tation teak from India, which bans the
export of logs but not of sawn timber.
India has some of the oldest teak plan-
tations and has soil and weather condi-
tions similar to those of neighboring
Myanmar.
But the long-term future for planta-
tion teak will likely be in Africa, Central
America, and South America—regions
that are expanding their plantations
more rapidly than Malaysia, Indonesia,
or India (see chart). Three marine railways hauling up to 275 tons
Supply Chain Tracking 35- and 85-ton Travelifts • Two trailers and two cranes
Sifton’s suggestion that boatbuilders
need to know supply chains and track Diesel engine shop • Machine and welding shops
down sources is about as realistic as Climate-controlled paint sheds • Extensive storage facilities
anyone ever tracking down what hap-
pened to Jimmy Hoffa. Buying certi- Marina and Ship’s Store
fied wood, especially products with
the Forest Stewardship Council label, On beautiful Deer Island Thorofare,
is the most reliable way of avoiding ille-
gally harvested timber. But for teak, in the heart of Maine’s spectacular cruising grounds
this will almost certainly mean plan-
tation-grown wood, most of it com-
ing from Central America. This wood 72 Moose Island Causeway, Stonington, ME 04681
comes from trees that are harvested
young and contain a high proportion (207)367-2328 www.billingsmarine.com
of sapwood—and the heartwood lacks
WoodTech-282-ADFinal.indd 85 7/19/21 6:47 PM

Launchings Edited by Delaney Brown Please include the following information: (1) the boat’s length
and beam; (2) the name of its design class or type; (3) the names
T hese pages, along with the Boat Launchings section of

www.woodenboat.com, are dedicated to sharing recently
launched wooden boats built or restored by our readers. If
of the designer, builder, owner, and photographer; (4) your
mailing address along with an email address or phone number;
(5) the port or place of intended use; (6) date of launching; and
you’ve launched a boat within the past year, please email us at (7) a few sentences describing the construction or restoration.
[email protected], or write us at Launchings, Send no more than five photographs (jpg images at 300 dpi) and
WoodenBoat, P.O. Box 78, Brooklin, ME 04616. enclose a SASE if you want anything returned.
SARA COWAN (FAR LEFT); DAVID INGHRAM (TOP CENTER); RORY COWAN (TOP AND BOTTOM RIGHT)
About five years ago, Rory Cowan
of Kildonan, Scotland, bought and
milled one of the last European
larch trees still standing at Scotland’s
Brodick Castle, and over the past
year he finally found its best use.
Using glued strip planking, he built
John Gardner’s 17' Whitehall mainly
from larch but included accents of
purpleheart, sycamore, mahogany,
and rosewood salvaged from a
discarded wardrobe. Cowan launched
MOONSHINE at Lamlash on the Isle
of Arran, Scotland, in June 2021.
JENNA BOHLING
PETER DE RAPPER
David Feder’s first build, LARRY

LIGHTNING, is, literally, electric. Using
2,000 volts of electricity—an amount
equivalent to a bolt of lightning—Feder
burned tree-like designs into this ROVER, an 8' fully electric runabout, is the brainchild of
12' Excursion kayak from Newfound Peter de Rapper of Harkstede, The Netherlands. Drawing
Woodworks. Feder launched the boat inspiration from designs such as Bebop by William D.
in June 2021. She will spend her days Jackson and the Skua racer by Charles McGregor, de
on Lake Galena at Peace Valley Park Rapper designed ROVER to be a compact, but comfortable,
in New Britain, Pennsylvania. (To see V-bottomed hull suitable for Borgmeren Lake, near his
more of Feder’s Lichtenberg wood- home. After the build, de Rapper created a photo guide to
burning work, visit My Twisted Nature construction. For a copy of the plans and construction guide,
on Facebook.) contact de Rapper at [email protected].
Launchings-282-EDFinal.indd 86 7/21/21 8:03 PM

LAUNCHINGS
MATT MALMSHEIMER (BOTH)
LUKE SWARTHOUT
Matt Malmsheimer and his son Isaac of Portland, Oregon,
built THERE AND BACK AGAIN…, a McKenzie River
drift boat, using okoume marine plywood for the hull New Yorker Lorne Swarthout spent the Covid-19 summer in
and a combination of Douglas-fir and white oak for the a friend’s garage in Southwest Harbor, Maine. He converted
frames and transom. The hull is sheathed in two layers of the space into a boatbuilding workshop and, with the help of
fiberglass cloth set in epoxy with a Kevlar bottom added granddaughter Zoe, built this Great Auk 14 from a Chesapeake
for resilience. The pair launched the 16' Don Hill design Light Craft kit. Zoe named the boat WILL after her newborn
in June 2021 in eastern Oregon for her first trek on the brother, and grandpa launched it in September 2020 on Echo
Wallowa and Grande Ronde rivers. Lake on Mount Desert Island, Maine.
RUSS SABIA
Built by Russ
Sabia of Belmont,
Massachusetts,
this solo canoe
is 11' 6" with a
2'4" beam and
was built to Tom
Hill’s Charlotte
design. The canoe’s
planks are of 4mm
okoume, and
the breasthooks,
stems, inwales, and
outwales are of
western red cedar.
Sabia donated the
boat to the 7 Lakes
ROB WALLACE
Alliance in Belgrade
Lakes, Maine, to
help raise money to
support land and
water conservation
in the area.
LINDA CAVANAGH
Rob Wallace of Long Island, New York, built this

Connecticut River shad boat, an homage to the working A health scare gave John Cavanagh of Rye, New Hampshire,
vessels seen on the Connecticut River fisheries in the the push he needed to fulfill a lifelong dream. The Covid-19
1880s. He launched her on Long Island Sound in lockdown gave him the time. He spent 150 hours in his basement
September 2020. Wallace used plans from Mystic Seaport to build this 11' 8" cedar-strip canoe from plans for the Otter
Museum and followed traditional methods to build the 16' design by Newfound Woodworks, also of New Hampshire.
LOA boat, using white oak frames and backbone pieces Strong launched the boat in June 2021 on Stonehouse Pond in
and northern white cedar planking. Barrington, New Hampshire.

LAUNCHINGS
MIKE O’BRIEN
CARL HAMMER
This Paul Gartside–designed 11' tender was launched in March
2021 at the Saanich Inlet in British Columbia, Canada, by Mike
O’Brien, a 2002 graduate of the Silva Bay Shipyard School on
Gabriola Island, British Columbia. She was built of marine
plywood and Douglas-fir and outfitted as a rowboat for crabbing.
She also has a small outboard motor for setting prawn traps
farther afield. After attending WoodenBoat School’s Fundamentals of
Boatbuilding class in 2016, Carl Hammer went looking
for a boat of his own to build. Hammer’s search ended
with Building the Herreshoff Dinghy, by Barry Thomas.
TOM BARNES
Hammer built the 11' 6" ENERGETIC using steam-bent
white oak for the frames and keel, cedar for planking,
and mahogany for the sheerstrakes and transom. With
a suit of sails still to come, Hammer launched the boat
under oars in June 2021 in Mountain View, California.
DAVID SIEBERT
NOELLE is a 17' Chesapeake Bay deadrise crabbing skiff designed
and built on Tilghman Island, Maryland, by owner Tom Barnes
of Alexandria, Virginia, with help from Mark Wiest of Deadrise
Maritime Shipwright Services. She is built of fiberglassed marine
plywood over Douglas-fir and oak framing. Originally launched
in 2019, she had two shakedown seasons on the Choptank River
before finally launching ceremoniously on the western shore of
the Chesapeake Bay in May 2021.
DANIELE GIUGLIARELLI
Daniele Giugliarelli (who has Thomas Riti and his wife, Lori, set their phasers to
had boats in Launchings pages “stun” with this Star Trek–inspired project. They built
twice before) built this 14' prone ENTERPRISE NX-01, a 12' × 6' pontoon boat, based on
paddleboard based on the P14 instructions for a “Bicycle Boat Built For Two” they found
design by Randy Bogardus. KAIMA in a 1948 article in Popular Science. They use it to explore
III is a hollow board cold-molded the waters of their new home in Port Royal, Virginia. By
with western red cedar and ditching the paddles in favor of a 55-lb thrust trolling
mahogany over 4mm okoume motor, the Ritis have been cruising the Rappahannock
plywood frames. KAIMA III was River at warp speed since their launch in August 2020.
launched at Bracciano Lake in (Read more about the ENTERPRISE: www.bit.ly/
Lazio, Italy, in May 2021, joining EnterpriseNX-01)
Giugliarelli’s KAIMA (WB No.
251) and KAIMA II (WB No. 280).

... AND RELAUNCHINGS
MICHAELA MURRAY
KYLE ABINGDON
Max Sinclair of New South Wales, Australia, designed,
built, and launched his 13' motor launch back in
2011. LYDIA is a dreamboat for Sinclair, with ample When SPIRIT OF BORIS, an 18' sailboat turned canal cruiser
freeboard to keep his grandchildren safe, high thwarts designed by Alan Pape of Looe in Cornwall, England, came
for aging knees, and a 2-hp Johnson outboard motor into Kyle Abingdon’s shop in Cornwall, she looked as if she
providing easy, breezy, cruising. But after 10 years, even hadn’t seen the water in decades. She had rot on her transom
dreamboats need some work. Sinclair replaced the and starboard sheerstrake and over a third of the hull needed
high-gloss polyurethane finish with a matte oil-based refastening. Abingdon replaced the rotted planks and replaced
finish, repainted the boat, and overhauled the engine. the old Stuart Turner gasoline engine with a reconditioned
Relaunched in December 2020, LYDIA is ready for Yanmar 1GM10 diesel before launching the boat in June 2021 at
another 10 years on the water. the Gweek Classic Boatyard in Cornwall.
CARLO ADINOLFI
GEORGE SPERRY
You may recognize the lovingly built Hilary Russell–designed

canoe(left) from Launchings in WB No. 281. Well, Carlo Adinolfi
has brought life to another skin-on-frame canoe—this time a
modified SnowShoe 12. Adinolfi repaired the canoe’s cracked
ribs and inside gunwale, reglued deteriorating joints and patched
up a few holes in the skin, before relaunching the 10' 6" boat in
June 2021 near his home in Hudson, New York.
This classic 1938 Penn Yan Cartopper sat in the rafters

of a garage in Dayton, Ohio, for decades until George Hints for taking good photos of your boat
Sperry of Cape Vincent, New York, decided to give it
a new life. After four coats of paint, attention to the
varnish, and two newly caned seats, she looks just as fresh 1. Set your camera for high-resolution images. We prefer jpg
as the day she was built. Sperry launched the boat on the format, at 300 dpi minimum.
St. Lawrence River in May 2021. 2. Stow fenders and extraneous gear out of the camera’s view.
Ensure the deck is clean and uncluttered.
3. Take your photographs in mid-angle sunlight for best results.
Mid-morning or mid-afternoon usually work well.
4. Keep the horizon level and the background simple and scenic
so your boat stands out from its surroundings.
5. Take some pictures of the boat underway and some at rest.

Often a vertical format works well for sailboats. Shoot a lot of
images, then send us your five favorites.
We enjoy learning of your work—it affirms the vitality of the

wooden boat community. We receive so many submissions that
there is not room in the magazine for all of them to be published.
Launchings not printed in the magazine can be seen at www.
woodenboat.com/boat-launchings.

REVIEW
PRODUCTS • BOOKS • VIDEOS • STUFF
Fair Wind
Fasteners
Reviewed by
Matthew P. Murphy
MATTHEW P. MURPHY (ALL)

A
bout 20 years ago, I replaced
the aging plywood sole of a
runabout with a new one of
cedar planks. The job went along
swimmingly until it came time to
fasten the new sole boards to the
runabout’s teak sole-bearers. I’d Fair Wind Fasteners of Newport, Rhode Island, offers a range of high-quality
followed the usual protocols for standard silicon-bronze fastenings, as well as specialty items such as the fin-neck
drilling for wood screws: a clearance bolt second from right.
hole in the sole board to accommo-
date the screw’s unthreaded shank;
a smaller pilot hole in the teak, properly sized for the broke where the threaded portion met the shank. At
threaded portion; and countersinks in the cedar so first I thought I’d under-drilled my pilot holes in the
the heads would lie flush. I was shocked, then, when at hard teak, but soon learned that the problem was wide-
least half of the screws I tried to drive in that operation spread. Reports of breakage were coming in from all
over, inspiring an article on the topic of inferior wood
screws in WB No. 166.
Around the same time I was dealing with breaking
screws on my runabout project, Rob Lehmann, who
was then living in San Francisco, had a similar experi-
ence while replanking his 1957, 38' mahogany-on-oak
sloop built by the Stevens Brothers yard. While a series
of broken screws in a cockpit sole is inconvenient,
such breakage in hull fastenings is simply unacceptable.
The company’s screw offerings include a variety of heads

and drive types.
Review282-ADFInal.indd 90 7/19/21 7:05 PM

WOODENBOAT REVIEW
Three nuts from Fair Wind:

1 2 3 (1) acorn nut, (2) square nut,
and (3) bronze Nylock nut.
Lehmann had been frustrated with three or four company’s copper nails are of the smooth, round,
Internet-sourced screw orders that yielded poor-quality common variety, and have corresponding roves for
fastenings. It turns out that, around this time, there lapstrake-plank fastening.
was an epidemic of non-domestic screws flooding the I did some qualitative testing on one of Fair Wind’s
market. They were marketed as high-strength silicon- No. 10 × 1¾" wood screws. First, I drilled a deliberately
bronze but were made from an inferior alloy, and their undersized pilot hole—just 5⁄64", with no clearance
threads were rolled rather than cut. hole—in a piece of 2" black locust. Then I drove the
Lehmann thinks the alloy of these inferior screws screw deep into this hole, until the head was buried and
was statutory bronze—a low-strength mix containing sunk below the surface. Then I backed it out. The bit
less than 10 percent tin, and technically a brass. The in my brace fit snugly in the well-machined slot, and
distinction between rolled and cut threads is as simple there was no cam-out in either direction. The screw
as it sounds: Rolled threads are worked into the screw emerged clean and new-looking. I then did the same
by pressing the screw stock, or “wire,” through a spe- test with the same screw in a piece of even tougher ash.
cialized die. No material is removed in the process; The screw’s shank was about four times the diameter of
rather, the existing material is flattened to become my puny pilot hole, and as I stuffed it into that ridicu-
threads, resulting in a threaded portion that is actu- lously small hole, I knew it would break. But it didn’t do
ally wider than the shank. This process requires a raw so until the head was nearly to the surface. I extracted
wire of smaller diameter than that needed for a cut the broken-off top portion with a pair of locking pliers,
thread. Cut threads begin with heftier wire, and mate- and was surprised and heartened to see that the break
rial is removed to yield a threaded portion of the same occurred ¼" below the interface of the threaded and
diameter as the shank. The process is time-consuming unthreaded portions—and not at the interface, which
and expensive compared with rolling a thread, but the is typical of cheap screws. My test was a ridiculously bru-
result is a larger-diameter, and stronger, solid portion tal treatment of a wood screw, and not something that
of the screw. would happen in real life. It gave me great confidence
Lehman learned all of this, and more, when during in the strength of these screws under normal working
his quest for good screws he stumbled upon a load of protocols.
vintage Reed & Prince silicon-bronze screws with which There are some interesting and rare items in the
to complete his project. He sailed that boat halfway Fair Wind catalog. One of them is a bronze Nylock nut.
across the Pacific, collided with a whale near New Cale-
donia, kept the boat afloat for three days, and eventu-
ally took to his life raft for rescue by a French naval
helicopter. He later found a new way to apply his educa-
tion in bronze fastenings. Having learned that most of
the screw-manufacturing world had taken the expedi-
ent options of rolled threads and questionable alloys,
he found a manufacturer in Providence, Rhode Island,
to duplicate his vintage Reed & Prince fastenings. And
thus was born a new company, Fair Wind Fasteners of
Newport, Rhode Island, which specializes in high-quality
bronze and copper fastenings for boats.
Except for a series of copper nails, all of the fasten-
ings sold by Fair Wind Fasteners are of true silicon-
bronze. They include wood screws, bolts, washers, nuts,
unthreaded rod, and ring-shank bronze nails. The
This 6½”-long, 5⁄8”-diameter wood screw was a recent custom

fabrication by Fair Wind Fasteners.

WOODENBOAT REVIEW
This self-locking fastening is common in stainless Included in a kit of samples Lehmann sent me was
steel—which can appear jarring on a boat outfitted a monster 61⁄2"-long woodscrew, with a 5⁄8" shank and a
in bronze. Another is a series of square nuts, which square drive. I couldn’t find it in the Fair Wind catalog,
began as a custom order for Herreshoff aficionados so I called Lehmann to see what it was all about. It turns
and has become a stock item. There is also a series of out to have been a custom manufacturing job for a big
hex-headed lag screws and carriage bolts, and a range schooner project. Lehmann told me that his catalog is
of round-head wood screws. I’ve found bronze round- often incomplete, because he is constantly taking such
head screws difficult to source at times, and they are custom orders and, when appropriate, adding them to
critical to the proper attachment of bronze sail track. his catalog. If you don’t see what you’re looking for in
Fair Wind sells Reed & Prince drivers, which look the catalog, take heart: Fair Wind will explore a way to
like a Phillips driver but are not; interchanging the make it.
two drivers will cause frustration and fastening dam-
age. The company also has a proprietary wood-screw Matthew P. Murphy is editor of WoodenBoat.
lubricant composed of beeswax, lanolin, and coconut
oil. Lehmann reports that it also functions as an For more information, visit www.fairwindfasteners.com. The
anti-seizing agent, but without the harmful effects website’s “Knowledge Base” includes detailed discussions of
of the petroleum found in the ubiquitous concoction alloys, screw geometry, and manufacturing.
Never-Seez.
The Age of Wood:

Our Most Useful
Material and the
Construction of
Civilization
Reviewed by Stan Grayson
The Age of Wood: Our Most Useful Material and the

Construction of Civilization, by Roland Ennos. Simon &
Schuster, www.simonandschuster.com. Illus., bibliogra-
phy, index, hardcover. 336 pp., $28.
Q
uite a few years ago, I fulfilled a long-standing
ambition when I visited Bayeux, France, and a
museum there that houses one of the world’s
great artifacts. In finely rendered embroi-
dery, the 230'-long Bayeux Tapestry tells the story of
the 1066 Norman invasion of Anglo-Saxon England by
William the Conqueror and his victory at the Battle of

WOODENBOAT REVIEW
Hastings. Preparations for the cross-channel opera- and poured. Metal plows improved crop production. In
tion are among the tapestry’s depictions. Woodcutters 1851, a Swedish engineer named Immanuel Nobel—
chop trees, a carpenter trims a plank, shipwrights father of Alfred of Nobel Prize fame—invented the
work on hulls. A photograph of that tapestry section is rotary lathe. A log mounted in this huge machine tool
reproduced in The Age of Wood. would have “a long knife applied all along its length,
It is surprising how the basic and essential impor- cutting through and unraveling a thin sheet of veneer.”
tance of wood has often been Making plywood, first envi-
glossed over or taken for sioned in 1797, was now pos-
granted. In contrast to all the sible. In the United States, the
archaeology related to the amount of newsprint produced
Stone Age, Bronze Age, and It is surprising how the basic from wood pulp increased six-
Iron Age, Roland Ennos, the fold between 1880 and 1890.
author of this book, has devel- and essential importance of More and more people began
oped a wood-centric way of reading newspapers. These
looking at history. We learn, wood has often been glossed are only a few examples of how
for example, that in The Ori- “our relationship with trees
gin of Humankind, the eminent over or taken for granted has had a profound effect on
paleoanthropologist Richard world history.”
Leakey never mentions wood. The book’s well-structured
“Indeed,” Ennos writes, “in chapters ultimately present
common with most books on a cohesive, pragmatic, and
human evolution, the word wood is not even deemed thought-provoking whole. Part 2 is called “Building Civ-
important enough to be included in the index.” ilization.” Part 3 is “Wood in the Industrial Era.” The
Beginning with a Danish antiquarian’s work in importance of wood as a material for shipbuilding is
1831, it was assumed that stone tools “demonstrated noted throughout. We learn about the remains in the
the mental superiority of early humans.” In The Age of German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven of the frame
Wood, Ennos, a professor of biological sciences at the of a skin-covered boat from the ninth millennium B.C.
University of Hull in England, corrects that conclusion. There are details of the 2500-B.C. Egyptian Khufu
During the past 50 years, discoveries made by prima- ship and the Viking longships—“perhaps the greatest
tologists and anthropologists prove that the tools made triumph of the green woodworking tradition.” There’s
by apes and then by early hominids “would have been reference to a 2000-B.C. (Bronze Age) boat whose
made of wood, not stone.” tongue-and-groove planks were stitched together with
The wooden objects discussed include a 450,000-year- twisted yew twigs, so-called “withies.” Not to be forgotten
old spear discovered in Essex, England; the towering is the plywood Mirror dinghy, of which some 70,000
pine masts of an 18th-century ship of the line; and the were built.
wooden framework of the Wright Flyer. But human- The book’s prologue, intriguingly titled “The Road
kind’s relationship with trees, and not the objects made to Nowhere,” also involves ships and is the perfect
from them, is the book’s core theme. There is a discus- scene-setter. One day, the author and his brother were
sion in Part 1 of “Wood and Human Evolution.” Why hiking in the French Pyrenees and “stumbled across an
do humans have padded fingertips and palms? Because engineering feat that had helped change the course of
distant ancestors needed them to grip a slippery branch. human history and shape the modern world.” This was
Part 1 establishes the basis for all that follows in the Chemin de la Mature—the Mast Road.
three other parts. Its chapters are: “Our Arboreal Readers of this magazine, particularly the historically
Inheritance,” “Coming Down from the Trees,” “Losing minded who live in New England, may know of the
Our Hair,” and “Tooling Up.” How do tree branches King’s Broad Arrow policy. Instituted in 1691, it forbade
fail when bent? There’s an illustration. There’s also a colonists from cutting white pine trees more than 24"
drawing showing the structure of the trunk of a coni- in diameter, trees reserved for masting the King’s war-
fer, but a few more illustrations and term definitions ships. A hatchet was used to mark those trees with an
throughout would have been welcome. As for the coni- upward-pointing arrow. Ennos notes that the edict was
fer drawing: “Wood,” the author notes, “is quite a com- largely ignored and eventually led to a riot in Weare,
plex material…wood has evolved in trees to be strong New Hampshire, in 1772, a precursor of the Boston Tea
in both compression and tension.” The value of those Party the following year. When the American Revolu-
properties compared to stone and iron is revealed as tion commenced, both the colonists and their French
the story progresses through time. allies, thanks to their Mast Road, had plenty of tall,
One satisfying aspect of this book is the methodi- accessible pine trees.
cal way in which the author presents wood’s impact The Age of Wood debunks several commonly held
on human development. As fuel for fire, wood made assumptions related to the climate change that is
it safe for our ancestors to descend from trees. Wood “putting all our futures in peril.” Among them are
rendered into charcoal made it possible to heat kilns to what the author calls “the deforestation myths” and
over 1,800 degrees. Bricks could be fired, metal worked the related topic of soil erosion. These subjects are

WOODENBOAT REVIEW
discussed primarily but not entirely in the book’s final BOOKS RECEIVED
section, “Part 4: Facing the Consequences.” This book
focuses not on the role of fossil-fuel vehicles in climate Sailing South ʼtil the Butter Melts, by LeCain W. Smith.
change but on the effects of the replacement of wood Published by Windrose Productions, 997 Cape Rosier
by coal as an industrial energy source. “By 1800 Britain Rd., Harborside, ME, 04642; www.WindroseAway.com.
had almost totally replaced wood as a source of fuel.” 144 pp., softcover, $16.99. ISBN: 978–0–9615508–4–4.
Also discussed is the critical need “to mend our broken A six-year circumnavigation, told from the perspective of the
relationship with trees.” Norway and, especially, Finland ship’s cat.
are cited as having model forestry programs.
Ennos discusses pollution-reduction measures that HILLYARD: The Man, His Boats, and Their Sailors, by
one won’t hear about in everyday media. For example, Nicholas Gray. Published by Lodestar Books, 71 Boveney
about five percent of global carbon emissions are related Rd., London, SE23 3NL , U.K., www.lodestarbooks.com.
to the production of concrete and three percent to steel. 245 pp., hardcover, £20. ISBN: 978–1–907206–54–2.
Chapter 13 discusses how “modern ways of transform- David Hillyard was an early-20th-century English boatbuild-
ing timber are allowing it to replace [concrete and steel] ing legend who built simple boats for average people; this beauti-
with a much lower carbon footprint.” Glued-laminated fully produced volume tells the story of the man and his yachts.
wood (Glulam) is one such material. There are many
other suggestions, all related to trees and better forestry Crash Boat: Rescue and Peril in the South Pacific During
practices. World War II, by George P. Jepson. Published by Lyons
Among the book’s conclusions that will be readily Press, an imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publish-
understood by WoodenBoat readers is this one: “People ing Group, Inc., 4501 Forbes Blvd., Suite 200, Lanham,
also feel calmer and happier when they are working MD 20706. 224 pp., hardcover, $27.95. ISBN: 1–4930–
with wood.” 5923–2 (hardcover), 1–4930–5924–9 (e-book). Fascinating
and well-told firsthand account of P-339, the most decorated
Stan Grayson is a regular contributor to WoodenBoat. air-sea rescue boat of the World War II Pacific Theater.
Sails • Canvas www.sperrysails.com

Vineyard Haven, MA Marion, MA S. Dartmouth, MA
508-693-3312 508-748-2581 774-202-2871
S.S. GRACE — 47' San Juan Sharpie

schooner, based on Reuel Parker design.
Built 2005. Beautiful lines with exquisite detail.
Great camping cruiser. Flat bottom and centerboard
are conducive to landing on sandy beaches in
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the Pacific Northwest. Draws 4' with centerboard
down, 2' when up. Eureka, CA. $35,000. Please see
https://jrynne.wixsite.com/ss-grace for more detail.

RATING 41 YEAR
ELEB S!
C
Thank you!
I have had the extremely good fortune of being a
part of WoodenBoat School ever since I first arrived
as a student back in 1983. As I near my approaching
retirement and reflect on my many amazing years
here, I want to express my gratitude. Thanks to
the dedicated involvement of thousands of staff,
instructors, students, alumni, and members of the
Brooklin, Maine, and wooden boat communities, the
school has become a beacon of creativity and learning.
Over these 38 years, I have been blessed to have
worked alongside a wonderful and talented crew of
past and present colleagues here at WoodenBoat
Publications, Inc. I thank them all for their support
and warm friendship, especially Jon Wilson who
welcomed me with open arms and encouraged me to
join this remarkable family.
The future of WoodenBoat School is in the very
capable hands of new Director, Eric Stockinger, who is excited to be taking over the
helm. I invite you to come join Eric and our staff in the years ahead for an experience
you’ll benefit from for the rest of your life.
Bidding an affectionate farewell,
Rich Hilsinger
Director
P.S. Our 2022 course catalog will be presented on our website in early December.
The first day of reservations will be Monday, January 3, 2022
P.O. Box 78 V Brooklin, Maine 04616 Email: [email protected]

P: 207–359–4651 V F: 207–359–8920 www.thewoodenboatschool.com
WBSchool_Rich-282-02.indd 95 7/20/21 1:46 PM

DESIGNS: REVIEW
TREASURE
A 46' world cruiser
Design by Laurent Giles
Commentary
by Tad Roberts
Particulars
LOA 46' 3"
LWL 33' 9"
Beam 12' 0"
Draft 7' 0"
Displacement 36,000 lbs
Ballast 13,500 lbs
Sail area 1,087 sq ft
WWW.LAURENTGILESARCHIVE.COM (ALL DRAWINGS)
T REASURE was the second

Laurent Giles design John
Guzzwell commissioned and
built, the first having been the 21'
TREKKA , in which he circumnavi-
vessel was needed to house his small
family, and needless to say the boat
was also required to carry that family
safely anywhere in the world.
Built in England and launched in
New Zealand to Alaska and return,
and then eastward back across the
Pacific to the Pacific Northwest.
Writing of these voyages, John men-
tioned a “best day’s” (24 hours) run
gated singlehanded in 1955–59. In October 1965, TREASURE carried of 183 miles, far better than one
the early 1960s John married and the Guzzwell family first west to New would expect from the boat he
became a father, thus a much larger Zealand, then on a round trip from termed a motorsailer.
Larurent Giles designed the 46’ motorsailer TREASURE for John Guzzwell in the early 1960s. A few years earlier, Guzzwell had
completed a solo circumnavigation in the diminutive Giles-designed TREKKA . TREASURE was conceived for ocean voyaging
for Guzzwell’s young family.
DesignReview282-ADFinal.indd 96 7/19/21 7:35 PM

Characterized by moderate over-
hangs and high freeboard, an all-
inboard cutter rig, a well-protected
center cockpit, and a powerful die-
sel engine with adequate tankage,
TREASURE could be seen as one
parent of the modern “performance
cruiser” that emerged a decade or
so later.
TREASURE’s pedigree is part of
what makes the design fascinating;
in 1950 Giles designed the 43' •
10' 6" aluminum BEYOND for Tom
and Ann Worth. BEYOND circum-
navigated in 1952–54, and that design
inspired a slightly larger version
called the Donella class, with some
15 boats built. BEYOND pioneered
TREASURE’s short ends, center cock-
pit with engineroom under, and cut-
ter rig, but lacked a couple of key
ingredients to the Donella’s, and ulti-
mately TREASURE’s, success. BEYOND
had a small cockpit with enclosed
pilothouse forward, and no under-
deck access to the aft cabin. The
Donella cured this with a larger
open cockpit and hard dodger, and
the under-cockpit passage to the aft
cabin. TREASURE’s slightly greater
beam and freeboard made a real
family home of this interior, with
the huge bonus of a central engine-
room and workshop with its own
cockpit access. The open-backed
hard dodger makes this cockpit
comfortable in any climate.
The final significant change from
JOHN MALLITTE
the BEYOND and Donella designs to
TREASURE was to shorten the keel
and move the rudder aft, where it
was supported by a separate partial
skeg. This achieved a number of The yacht’s capacious flush foredeck has room for two dinghies to be stowed
advantages: it reduced wetted sur- beneath the staysail.
face, increased directional control
and lift with a more effective higher-
aspect appendage, and got the pro- is 15.8 based on the full foretrian- dodger shown in the drawing comes
peller out of an aperture and into gle; this ratio is typical for cruisers alive in real life with its radical roof
free water where it could operate of the period but more than anyone crown and multiple windows. The
more effectively with reduced drag. would expect in a motorsailer. finished effect is both handsome
TREASURE’s sheer is substantial The stark simplicity of these pre- and timeless.
without being excessive; the high sentation drawings exaggerates The displacement-to-length ratio
freeboard was required to achieve a TREASURE’s plain exterior look. at the designed waterline is 423,
flush foredeck where two (one atop Part of this is due to Giles’s sense of which is relatively heavy. It’s interest-
the other) hard dinghies could be style, which was formed in the 1930s, ing to think of changing nothing
stowed upside down under the stay- and part came from John’s empha- but the shape of TREASURE’s ends
sail. The mast is positioned at station sis on minimizing brightwork and so the waterline becomes 40' long.
4.5, not quite amidships but well aft. the maintenance that comes with it. The displacement/length ratio would
The sail-area-to-displacement ratio The plain and boring flat-fronted then be 255, lowering it to that of

DESIGNS
modern performance-cruisers. In possible. The main advantage of The body plan shows a massive fillet
the 1960s TREASURE’s overhangs those full garboards is strength in between the garboards and ballast
were considered short, while today supporting the keel and ballast. keel. This adds considerable strength to
we think of them as an extravagant Another advantage is that it allows the keel and ballast support, and allows
waste. Certainly, were we revising the freshwater tanks to be installed space for freshwater tanks under the
TREASURE to build new, stretching under the cabin sole, something the cabin sole.
the waterline and pulling volume modern flatter-bottomed hulls can’t
out into the ends would be high on do. Likewise, the engine can be
the list of possible improvements. mounted low in the hull, where its
Of course, there is always a cost, and weight acts as ballast.
in this case it would be increased Guzzwell was an admirer of the
wetted surface, which could be laminated construction techniques
allayed by making the keel smaller, practiced in New Zealand, and
but it’s all a slippery slope. TREASURE is an all-laminated struc-
The body plan shows us a massive ture. The early ’60s predated read-
fillet in the garboard area between ily available epoxy, so John used 75
canoe body and keel. Note how the gallons of resorcinol glue in struc-
inboard buttock line drops down tural joints and polyester resin to
onto the keel in the lines profile. sheathe the entire boat in fiberglass.
Lines drawn by Fife and some other The hull skin is 11⁄8" thick, consist-
designers also exhibit this feature, ing of three layers of planking; the
but we don’t see it in modern full- two inner diagonals of 5⁄16" rock elm; are supported by widely spaced thick
keel designs as the largest span (top and an outer, fore-and-aft layer of bulkheads, which form the various
to bottom) of keel foil is consid- 1
⁄2" African mahogany. Planking is interior spaces. Longitudinal fram-
ered to be paramount to windward glued, nailed, and screwed to closely ing had long been used by Giles to
performance. But TREASURE is an (10" ) spaced 2" • 2 3⁄4" Douglas-fir produce light and strong structures;
all-around cruiser, so compromise is longitudinal stringers. The stringers it’s mostly disused now because of the
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DESIGNS
The sectional keel shape shown in

the body plan on page 98 is in further
evidence in the profile view above: the
inboard buttock line drops well down
on the keel. TREASURE’s ends were
tendency to create rot pockets due to TREASURE’s deck construction is considered short in her day.
poor drainage. If one were building worth some study. Keeping the inte-
TREASURE today, I would suggest rior cool in the tropics without air-
adding another inside fore-and-aft conditioning is difficult, and an between his laminated deck beams,
layer of planking and forgoing the insulated deck can help a lot here. and skinned the underside (interior)
longitudinal stringers. Guzzwell installed 2" foam insulation with 1⁄4" plywood and the upper side

DESIGNS
The center-cockpit arrangement allows the common living spaces to be amidships. Staterooms are the forward and after ends.
with two layers of 3⁄8" plywood single roomy head at the bottom of headroom over the workbench, mak-
sheathed with fiberglass. It’s a bit the companionway ladder, across ing it a boon to good maintenance
disconcerting to see a smooth over- from the smallish galley with nav of the entire yacht.
head with no beams, but thin fake station in the under-cockpit passage One of the requirements for a
caps could be added for aesthetics. running aft. The almost vertical com- design to be covered in these reviews
This is a center-cockpit arrange- panionway ladder is a bit steep for is that the plans be available to you,
ment with the “working” parts of the my taste; I’d push the hatchway aft the reader. TREASURE’s drawings are
interior amidships and sleeping cab- between the cockpit seats, decrease readily available at a very reasonable
ins forward and aft, both with large the ladder angle, and make up-and- price from the Laurent Giles Archive,
storage areas beyond them in the down travel a bit easier. The totally and what a set of plans it is! There
absolute ends of the hull. There is a separate engineroom has standing are approximately 30 drawings in
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DESIGNS
The engine is placed low in the hull, where

it serves as ballast.
the set, including about ten stan- Indeed, the usual Giles office prac- Tad Roberts designs boats on Gabriola
dard plans covering items such as tice was to supply only a body plan Island in British Columbia, Canada.
hatches, chainplates, and deck fit- and offset table from which to loft
tings. Note that these drawings were the hull. Plans are available from Laurent Giles
never intended for amateur build- This is a wonderful design, which Archive, 29B Hillcrest Rd., Hatfields
ers. The designers assumed that any- I’m more than a little in love with. Beach, Orewa, New Zealand; www.lau
one undertaking a project like this Build a TREASURE, and you won’t rentgilesarchive.com.
would know what they were doing. be sorry.
Cruising,
not streaming
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common law trademarks of the Hagerty Group LLC, ©2021 The Hagerty Group, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

DESIGNS: SKETCHBOOK
LONGIDIENUS
A 39' outboard cruiser
by Laurie McGowan
The power cruiser LONGIDIENUS is long,

lean, and light—and trailerable.
Hi Lau rie,
I’ve been thin kin g for a

Particulars wh ile about a lon g, lean
boat bui lt of foa m compos , light-di spla cement, out
ite or ply wood. I live on the boa rd-powered
LOA 11.87m (38' 11" ) of New Zea land, and a nor theast shore of the Nor
boat like this wou ld be th Isla nd
Beam 2.40 m (7' 10" ) I’m picturi ng someth ing idea l for cru isin g our bea
about 12m (39' ) lon g by utif ul coa st.
outboa rd of around 100 2.4m (about 8' ) wide, pow
Waterline beam 2.0 m (6' 7" ) hp, and capable of a cru ered by an
motor wou ld be hun g on isin g speed of around 12-
LWL 11.46 m (37' 7" ) an inset tra nsom but not 13 knots. The
I quite like the Gadabout fully enclosed.
Draft 0.34 m (14" ) design from Phi l Bol ger
aesthetic. I thin k a V-shap & Friend s but ima gine
ed ent ry wit h a bit of a a different
Displ. 2.39 tons (5,275 lbs) up over the gunwale, tra chi ne flat to stop the wat
nsition ing into a sha llow er creepi ng
D/L ratio 44 opposed to the complet V at the ster n, wou ld be
ely flat bottom of the Gad desirable as
Prismatic coefficient 0.66 spa rta n, to keep the wei about. The accom modat
ght as low as possible (ab ion s wou ld be
be set up to com fort ably out 2,500 kg, or 5,500 lbs)
Power 60- to 90-hp outboard accom modate two but sui . She wou ld
The cockpit area wou ld table for occasional ly slee
be simple—maybe a bit sai pin g fou r.
wit h lockers in them and ling -ya cht-like, wit h fore-an
some sor t of tra nsom con d-a ft seats
boa rd the boat out of a din fi guration that wou ld ma
ghy over the ster n. Ideally ke it easy to
wit h grabra ils on the cab , she wou ld have nar row
intop so one cou ld go forw side decks
able ease. The boat wou ard to tend the anchor wit
ldn’t spend much time in h rea son-
sha llow dra ft wou ld be ma rin as. A boat such as
a bit skittish ma neuver this wit h ver y
benefit from hav ing a sma ing in clos e qua rters, so I thin k it
ll centerboard am idsh ips, wou ld
tur ns. Thi s mig ht sou nd about wh ich it wou ld piv
a bit odd, but I have exp ot in tight
ver y effect ive. erience wit h this sor t of
setup, and it is
I thought the name of the
boat cou ld be LONGIDIEN
Rom an boatbu ilder in US. He was a third-centu
Ravenn a, Italy, who is ry A.D.
hea dstone fou nd in the com memorat ed on an
area. ancient Rom an
Rob Dry fhout

Nor thla nd, New Zea land
Sketchbook-282-ADFinal.indd 102 7/19/21 7:51 PM

The warped V bottom has a fine, deep entry that is buoyant and slices through waves. Flat sections aft minimize drag at
slow speeds and reduce rolling.
Dear Rob: ocean at slow speeds, but there is the deep V forward to pro-
Thanks for the great boat idea! Long, light, and lean is a great vide volume and improve the boat’s motion through waves.
combination that has stood the test of time. And, this is a Even at the mid-teen speeds, this boat should move nicely,
trailerable boat. I like everything you wrote, and though I’d as the narrow beam will help you slice through waves instead
never heard of the builder, Longidienus, I can imagine what of taking off over them. The flat sections aft will help reduce
some of his boats might have looked like. Perhaps like the neat rolling, too.
drawing titled Caudicaria Navis by Robert Das in WB No. 281, On such a long and narrow boat, it’s tricky to avoid having
the previous issue of this magazine? It’s fascinating to read flat surfaces take over visually, especially with full headroom
of the boatbuilding and design developed by the Romans, belowdecks. As you mention, Gadabout does that a bit, but, in
who were adept at borrowing ideas from others to help fur- fairness, that design’s concept was utilitarian from the start,
ther their trade and empire goals. Do you mind if I call the with a premium on interior volume. It had to fit in a shipping
boat LONGI? I noticed Kiwis and Aussies like nicknames, and container, be buildable by first-time boatbuilders around the
LONGIDIENUS is a bit of a mouthful. (I also checked online world, and be suitable for coastal patrol as well. That’s a lot
to make sure Longi isn’t a nasty word somewhere.) to ask for!
To reduce the sense of flatness, I have also curved the
Style sheer downward aft, all the way to the waterline. This curved
For the hull, I’m using the “warped” shape you specify, and line also gives you easy access to a dock or dinghy. Having a
it matches nicely with the performance you’re after. That high working deck aft, as in Gadabout, would have raised the
is, the run has a shallow V that won’t drag through the topsides too much for your needs, and we must keep everything

DESIGNS: SKETCHBOOK
tanks, galley, helm, head, and batteries. The head could be

moved into the wheelhouse from the cockpit if full head-
room were required there, however.
Construction
I’m going w ith a stringer-built construction, w ith four
stringers per side and bottom, and with them standing proud
of the bulkheads by 10 mm (3⁄8") or so. This is an amazingly
strong and light method of construction, because it avoids
point-loading along the hull and the stringers are in
line with the main forces on the boat.
The only watertight bulkhead, for-
ward, has the gap between the
bulkhead and inner hull filled
The hull is built of with foam and fiberglass.
fiberglass-sheathed Both the topsides and
okoume plywood on hull bottom are “developable,”
plywood bulkheads and meaning they unfold flat, so the
spruce stringers. panels may be CNC -cut out of ply-
wood, with puzzle joints facilitating
the panels’ assembly on the floor.
Tapered scarfs could also be used,
with each panel attached to the framing
in place. The latter method might be the most
low for the boat to be trailerable. Because the deck is lower sensible, and you could use Mylar patterns to mark
than Gadabout’s, I’ve placed the motor in a three-sided box the panels for cutting.
at the very end of the hull, and there is a cut in the bottom In a recent conversation with the naval architect Jim Kyle,
to allow the motor to be turned and lifted. I tried moving he mentioned that planing strakes, or chine flats, on modern
the motor farther forward, with a panel hinge in a bottom wooden boats are usually poorly designed. “Huh?” I said,
opening when the motor was raised, but found the weight and hoping to not sound too clueless. “It’s a weak and heavy joint,”
complexity to be too much of a problem. he said, “having, especially, the bottom meeting the chine at a
The sheerline is traditional but moderate, and she has shallow angle aft. It would be stronger, lighter, and quicker
an almost-plumb spoon bow. The tipped-down coach roof is to extend the bottom’s edge right out to the topsides (in a
common in some Nordic designs. The extended eyebrow trim fair way), then have the bottom edge of the topsides extend
of the trunk cabin ties together the straight coach-roof top down to the original height of the strake-to-bottom joint.
and the sheerline, and it nicely breaks up the height of the You’d just fill in with wood and thickened epoxy horizontally,
wheelhouse side, as well. The height of the wheelhouse aft
provides full headroom where it is needed, but such height
isn’t needed as you step down into the saloon.
Moving forward from the cockpit, the layout is simple.
After passing by some lockers, you first come to two long set-
tee berths with a table. This is the main living space, and
the 360-degree view is excellent. At the forward end of the
wheelhouse, the galley is to port and the helm is to starboard
along with storage. You are
well protected from the
strong tropical sun of your
area here. For natural ventila-
tion, in the middle windscreen I
have put two windows that swing
open for natural ventilation,
which is especially appreciated
while at anchor.
There is good access to
the head, hanging locker, and
V-berth forward via a passageway.
However, the headroom there is
only 5' (1.52m), which was the trade
off for improved visibility from the
wheelhouse. The boat looks better,
too, with the coach roof at that
height. The weight of the motor and A centerboard, visible here, aids close-quarters
fuel aft are balanced forward by the handling in a crosswind.

DESIGNS: SKETCHBOOK
in whatever is the best way The wheelhouse contains the helm and galley, and offers a
afterward.” I agreed that that 360-degree view. The head, hanging locker, and V-berth are
is a great idea, and as with forward of this, and the cockpit is aft.
most good ideas someone’s
likely already using that
method to good effect, so I’ll
use it here.
Performance
As the power curve shows, the fuel effi-
ciency should be very good, and the transi-
tion through the speeds gentle. You shouldn’t
notice a speed hump; the performance curves
before and during planing line up very well around
11 knots. A “slender body” algorithm curve lines up with
those as well, and you might want to consider reducing the
size of the motor if you really won’t cruise at over 15 knots.
I’m choosing a 90-hp Suzuki for LONGI, though even 60 hp
might suffice. The weight and costs would be significantly less
with the 60.
You bring up the excellent point of slow-speed turning in
a design like this, which is long and shallow and has a fair
amount of windage. Generally, this type of boat is a disaster
to control at slow speed in a breeze because there’s not a lot
in the water, and it usually wants to slide sideways downwind.
The long and lean boat is directionally stable when running,
and if you have a skeg aft, it is happy crabbing diagonally in
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DESIGNS: SKETCHBOOK
The speed curve shows no hump as

the boat moves from displacement
mode to planing. A 60-hp motor
should be ample.
the board a snap. I’m offsetting it

from the keel so it won’t get jammed
with rocks or shells after you pull
up to a beach. A small, shaped skeg
forward of the slot should help keep
water from getting forced into the
opening, due to the curve of the hull
forward.
a slow-speed turn, instead of actually turning. I recently had I hope that I got close to what you’re after, Rob. I think
to deal with this on one of my designs and had the builder the boat you describe would be a joy to use and would be
remove most of the skeg aft, then install two shallow bilge used a lot!
keels forward. Boats need something to pivot around, and,
like you, I had suggested putting a board forward for slow Laurie McGowan is a Nova Scotia-based yacht designer with a diverse
speeds. But that owner didn’t want to cut a hole in the bot- on- and below-water work history. He specializes in energy-efficient
tom. I’m waiting to hear how it works as I write this, but he commercial and pleasure boats. More of his work may be found at
said the turning radius was noticeably smaller in a brief test. www.mcgowanmarinedesign.com.
A board forward should help keep the boat head-to-wind
while anchored as well, which is always nice. A 10mm (3⁄8" )
flat and solid fiberglass plate will work well within a fiberglass Please send concept proposals for Sketchbook to
trunk, and a little shape to the leading and trailing edges [email protected].
will be nice. A pennant leading to the helm will make using
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WB282Brokers-01.indd 107 7/20/21 5:59 PM

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SparkmanStephens-282_BROKER-03.indd 109 7/19/21 5:39 PM
BOATBROKERS
Perfect boat.
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C L A S S I C A N D V I N TAG E YAC H T S
We hope that you enjoy our selection of vintage and classic sailing yachts. Please do not hesitate
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‘’S E R E N A D E ’’
62 f t N i c h o l a s Po t t e r N C l a s s S l o o p 19 3 8
There is a reason Nick Potter’s yacht designs are so special. Among his peers he had the best mentors possible: Starling Burgess, Nathaniel Herreshoff, L Francis Herreshoff,
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--------
€500,000 | Lying France
Offered for sale

’ B O U N T Y ’’
52 f t S p a r k m a n & S t e p h e n s Ya w l 195 0
It’s been BOUNTY’s good fortune for the past twenty years to have found owners willing to keep her to the manner born in a place so fabulous for sailing, where she is used
exactly as envisaged eighty years ago by her designers Aage Nielsen and Olin Stephens, and cared for by one of the best shipwrights we know. BOUNTY’s next owners have a
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S&S yawls continue to be flavour of the month on the Mediterranean circuit - BOUNTY’s launch date qualifies her for the Vintage Division.
---------
$550,000 VAT not paid | Lying USA
For further information please contact: Our classic and vintage yachts & motor 22 Market Street, Poole,
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speciality. WoodenBoat School instruc- OAR MANUFACTURING OPERA-
tor. 789 Rocky Hill Rd, Plymouth, TION FOR SALE. The operating
MA 02360. Phone/fax 508–224–3709, assets of Barkley Sound Oar and One- and Two-week
www.by-the-sea.com/karbottboat- Paddle Ltd supplying oars to custom-
building. ers across North America and beyond
courses in Boatbuilding,
are offered for sale. Machiner y Seamanship, and
HADDEN BOAT CO.—Wooden boat includes copy lathes, blade profiler, Related Crafts
construction and repair to any size; vertical band saw, horizontal resaw,
sail and power. 11 Tibbetts Lane, 4 head molder and various sanding June–September
Georgetown, ME 04548, 207–371–2662, and related equipment all currently
www.haddenboat.com. operating. For more information call Spring/Fall off-site
the agent at 250–753–5757. S A I L M A I N E A B OA R D T H E courses also offered
SIRENS BOATWORKS—Wooden
HISTORIC Windjammer Lewis R. P.O. Box 78, Brooklin, ME 04616
boat building, restoration and repair.
French. Celebrating her 150th birth-
www.sirensboatworks.com. Located
in Merrickville, Ontario, Canada. 30 MIDCOAST day in 2021, this beautiful tradition-
ally-rigged wooden coasting sails
207–359–4651 (Mon.–Fri.)
www.woodenboat.com
minutes from Ogdensburg, NY. Con-
tact Andrew Lee at 613–661–6964. BOATYARD from Camden on 2-6 night cruises.
Escape to the open air and islands
L OW E L L B OA T S — C o m p l e t e
wooden boat restoration services and
FOR SALE off the Maine coast, with amazing
food, hospitality and only 20 guests.
Residence on property. COVID safety protocols in place.
marine surveying. GARY LOWELL,
Greensboro, NC, 336 –274 – 0892. Boat shop with paved ramp, www.schoonerfrench.com/1-800–
www.lowell.to/boats. storage areas, floats and ramp. 469–4635.
Equipment available. Owner
is willing to work with serious
inquiries. It’s time to retire.
Call 207-677-2901 or email
[email protected].
NAVTECH MARINE SURVEYORS’

Course—Surveying recreational/
commercial vessels. U.S. Surveyors Long standing and growing
Association, Master Marine Surveyor specialty boat shop seeking:
program. FL, 800–245–4425.
THE DORY SHOP—Custom-built
small boats and Lunenburg dories
• MARINE CARPENTERS
since 1917. Oars and paddles too. • FIBERGLASS/GEL COAT
Call 902– 640 –3005 or visit w w w.
doryshop.com.
REPAIR SPECIALISTS
We specialize in first class
vintage boat restorations, yacht
interior refits, and high-quality
A PA L AC H IC OL A M A R I T I M E paint & bright work. Must have
M USEU M WOODEN BOAT
SCHOOL: Build your own kayaks, a positive work ethic, be able
CHARTER THE CLASSIC 47' K. pirogues, and sailing prams. Join our to follow directions and receive
WANTED: Boat Design Business. Aage Nielsen-designed, Walsted-built historical renovation of a 107' stern- constructive feedback. Pay
Am looking to purchase existing boat sloop “ELSKOV” (see WB No. 262) wheeler riverboat and several L. based on experience & work
design business offering stock plans for an unforgettable cruise of the Francis Herreshoff wooden sailing
from which kits have been/could be
quality. Please send resume to
incomparable waters of Penobscot vessels. Be a part of our salty family.
developed. If interested in selling Bay, ME, and beyond. Themed and For more information contact: wooden [email protected].
associated intellectual property for custom itineraries available. Nuada [email protected] or 850–653–
a range of vessel sizes and types, Classic Yachting. Family-friendly. We 2500. Located at 103 Water St., Apala- CUSTOM MARINE INC.
please contact Crayke at 608–260– sand; you sail. www.charterclassics. chicola, Florida. Class scheduling is Sandusky Ohio
5180. me; 207–812–0796. flexible and prices vary.
WB282_Class-05.indd 122 7/21/21 7:10 PM

PLANS—FULL SIZE PATTERNS.
200+ low cost professional designs
for the first-time builder on our web-
site. Easy-to-use Marine Epoxy 1:1
mix. Clark Craft, 716 – 634 –9481,
www.clarkcraft.com.
OUT-OF-PRINT NAUTICAL and

SMITHSONIAN PLANS—From the Boating Books and Magazines.Thou-
National Watercraft Collection, sands of titles. Sea Fever Books P.O.
HI Chapelle, Historic American Box 809, Killingworth, CT 06419;
Merchant Marine Survey, Simplified w w w.seafeverbookstore.com, sea
Boatbuilding, etc. http://american [email protected], 860–663–1888.
HERCULES K KBL 1952 ENGINE
for sale, rebuilt, aluminum exhaust history.si.edu/about/departments/
manifold, porcelain coated, rebuilt work-and-industry/ship-plans.
transmission, tri carb. $7,500. 905–
399–0376, [email protected]. The magazine for those working in
design, construction, and repair.
Canada.
Subscriptions: One year (6 issues) $31.95 (US)
Canada: $36.95 (US funds)
Overseas: $44.95 (US funds)
HERCULES ENGINE PARTS www.proboat.com
Model M, ML, MBL, K, KL
HERCANO PROPULSION, LLC
Business Hours: M-F 8:30-4:30 EST
Phone: 740-745-1475
Fax: 740-745-2475
BUILD YOUR OWN BARTENDER.
Plans for the original, seaworthy,
planing double-ender available: 19'
REBUILT CHRIS-CRAFT 6-cylinder to 29'. Photos, video, information
engines: K, KL, KBL, KFL, KLC, M, available online. www.bartenderboats.
ML, MBL, MCL. Assorted V8s. Mitch com, 253 – 651– 6561, boatinfo@
LaPointe’s, w w w.classicboat.com. bartenderboats.com.
952–471–3300.
RUNNING GR AY M A R INE SEA

Scout-91 25-hp complete with ther-
mostats, gauges, electric fuel pump,
40-amp alternator. 88 hours since
rebuilt and new clutches in transmis-
sion. Exhaust manifold in good shape.
Engine has run on aviation gas cut
with Marvel Mystery oil. $2,550 plus TR ADITIONA LRIGGING.COM.
shipping. Chesapeake_Tech@yahoo. Sails, Rigging and Blocks. Special-
com. izing in vessels from 17th century to
NEW IN CRATE NANNI 2-cylinder the early 20th century. Appleton,
14-hp engine. Controls, gauges, and V ISI T OUR W EBSI T E TO SEE Maine 207–542–4385.
panel go with it. Bad health forces more than 300 Atkin designs. Famed
sale. $6,000. 603–256–6267. NH. Atkin double-enders, rowing/sailing DOUGLAS FOWLER SAILMAKER—
dinghies, houseboats & more. Many Highest-quality, full-seam curved
photos & some videos of building. sails since 1977. Traditional sails a
We are also on Facebook. Plans are specialty. White, colors, and Egyptian
sent digitally or hardcopy. Atkin Boat Dacron in stock. 1182 East Shore Dr.,
Plans, Box 3005 WB, Noroton, CT. Ithaca, N Y 14850. 607–277–0041,
THE FINEST WOODEN POND 06820. [email protected], www.atkin [email protected].
Sailers. Free brochure: 1–800–206– boatplans.com.
0006. www.modelsailboat.com.
F O R S A L E : T U R N BUC K L E S ,
Bronze. 10 new original packaging
Merriman Holebrook 1⁄2", 12" long,
Jordan Wood Boats
18 extended. $150 each. Contact: www.jordanwoodboats.com
[email protected], 401–787–3300. Distinctive Boat Designs
Meticulously Developed and Drawn
For the Amateur Builder
CATALOG OF 40 SIMPLE PLY-WOOD
boats, $4. JIM MICHALAK, 118 E.
Randle, Lebanon, IL 62254. www.
jimsboats.com.
EXTRAORDINARY BOATS. Quick

and easy to build, inexpensive and W W W.DA BBLER SA ILS.COM—
ult ralight Rowboat s, Sailboat s, Traditional small-craft sails. P.O.
Canoes, Kayaks and SUPs. Plans and CRADLE BOAT BEACH CRUISER Box 235, Wicomico Church, VA,
BABY TENDER FOOTLOOSE
kits. GENTRYCUSTOMBOATS.com. 22579, [email protected].
WB282_Class-05.indd 123 7/21/21 7:10 PM

BOERO BOAT PAINT AND FIN- HAVEN 12 1⁄2 complete high-quality
ISHES, CLEANERS, SEALERS, AND bronze hardware sets. See our display
PA T C H I N G 2 PA R T E P OX Y. ad elsewhere in the issue. For our
See color chart here: https://www. free catalog, contact us at J.M. Reineck
boeroyachtcoatings.com/fileadmin/ & Son, 781–925–3312, JMRandSon@
templates/boeroyachting/doc... aol.com.
F I N E LY C R A F T E D WO ODE N https://www.boeroyachtcoatings.
STOCKHOLM TAR. Genuine kiln- PLANKING STOCK IN LENGTHS
SPARS; hollow or solid. Any type com/f ileadmin/document s/
burnt pine tar. It’s the Real Stuff. to 32'—angelique, silver-balli, wana,
of construction. ELK SPARS, 577 Boero -YachtCoat in... A ll colors
American Rope & Tar, 1–877–965– angelique timbers. Call for quotes.
Norway Drive, Bar Harbor, ME, 04609, include hardener and shipping.
1800 or tarsmell.com. Gannon and Benjamin, 508–693–4658.
207–288–9045. Reply with quantities and zip code
for a fast quote. Text 860–985–9024, TE A K , M A HOGA N Y, PA DAUK ,
SHAW & TENNEY, Orono, Maine. email [email protected]. purpleheart, white oak, teak decking,
Traditionally handcrafted wooden starboard. Complete molding mill-
masts and spars since 1858. 800–240– work facilities. Marine ply wood.
4867, www.shawandtenney.com. Custom swim platforms. SOUTH
JERSEY LUMBERMAN’S, 6268 Holly
St., Mays Landing, NJ 08330. 609–
965–1411. www.sjlumbermans.com.
WHITE OAK (QUERCUS ALBA),

UP TO 60' LONG x 42" W IDE.
Longleaf pine (Pinus Pilustrus) out
to 50' long. Old-growth white pine,
22'–28'. Black locust, American elm,
and larch. Air dried 3 to 5 years
under cover. New England Naval
Timbers, CT, 860–480–3402, www.
OUR MARINE EPOXY HAS ALL newenglandnavaltimbers.com.
the features you need. Easy-to-use
1:1 mix, no blush/no sanding, low
SOFT COTTON FENDERS AND viscosity for proper wetout, f lex-
classic knotwork. For catalog, send ible. Clark Craft, 716 –634 –9481.
SASE to: THE K NOTTED LINE, BRONZE CAM CLEAT with plastic
www.clarkcraft.com.
9908 168th Ave. N.E., Redmond, WA ball bearings and 1½" screw centers.
98052-3122, call 425–885–2457. www. BRASS SAIL TRACK, 5⁄8" & 7⁄8". All TARRED HEMP MARLINE. Several
theknottedline.com. extant slides and cars will fit this styles; hanks, balls, spools. American
track. BRONZE WING -TIP NAVI- Rope & Tar, 1– 877–965 –1800 or
GATION LIGHTS with glass globe tarsmell.com.
and colored LED bulbs. Side & top
mount, stern, steaming & masthead. BOULTER PLY WOOD —Marine
For current catalog visit JM Reineck plywood 4' x 8' to 16', 5' x 10' to 20'
& Son at www.BronzeBlocks.com, —1⁄16" to 1" okoume, sapele, meranti,
call or email us at 781–925–3312, teak, ash, khaya, teak and holly.
[email protected]. Lumber—Sitka spruce, teak, mahog-
any, ash, cypress, fir, western red
LeTONK INOIS. ALL-NATUR AL cedar, teak decking—lengths up to
varnish. Centuries-old formula. Long- 20'. Milling services. Nationwide
lasting, beautiful fi nish. Extremely delivery. www.boulterplywood.com,
CLASSICBOATCONNECTION.COM
user-friendly. American Rope & Tar, 888–4BOULTER.
Your one-stop source for all your
877–965–1800 or tarsmell.com. MODERN MANILA. New Leoflex-X.
classic boat restoration needs. Call
The latest rope technology. Looks HACKMATACK KNEES. Milled to
507–344 – 8024, or e-mail mail@ COPPER FASTENERS and riveting great, works hard. American Rope & order. Westergard Boatyard, Tusket,
classicboatconnection.com for free tools, Norwegian and English boat Tar, 1–877–965–1800 or tarsmell.com. Nova Scotia. djwestergard@gmail.
catalog. nails, roves/rivets, rose and flathead, com, 902–298–1212.
clench, threaded, decoration, and
more. 50+ sizes and types, ⁄8" to 6".
3 BEAUTIFUL ATLANTIC WHITE
Your leading source since 1987. CEDAR. 4/4, 5/4, & 7/4 plus 6/4
FAERING DESIGN, Dept. W, P.O. quarter sawn. Beautiful, clear stock.
Box 322, Ea st M idd lebu r y, V T a shud a k@g m a i l.com, a shud a k
05740, 800 –505 – 8692, faering@ lumber.com, 802–527–9802.
ripton-coop.net, www.faeringdesign
inc.com. W W W.DI A MONDTE A K .COM—
BANTAM AIR HAMMER True teak wood. Planing, sanding
Boat Riveting Kit available. Quarter-sawn teak for deck-
■ Designed for
ing; tongue-and-groove; veneer;
Copper Rivets custom work. Also mahogany and
■ Cuts Riveting Time up to 70%
Spanish cedar. Highest quality. We
■ Superior Pneumatic
ship worldwide. 215–453–2196, info@
800-521-2282 diamondteak.com.
www.superiorpneumatic.com
T H E OR IGI N A L SI NC E 20 01.
The smallest composting toilet in the
world! EOS, P.O. Box 5, Mount Ver- I WANT OLD WOODENBOAT maga-
non, OH 4 3 0 5 0. w w w. a i rhea d zines, scattered numbers missing.
toilet.com, 740–392–3642. [email protected]. Finland.
WB282_Class-05.indd 124 7/21/21 7:10 PM

DESIGNED BY JOHN ALDEN in
NEWPORT NAUTICAL TIMBERS 1912, the last remaining 25' Corin-
thian One-Design is for sale. Stored
in Charlevoix, Michigan, “CORI 1”
is in good sailing condition. Her
history and picture can be viewed at
“c l a s s i c s a i lb o a t s .o r g ” a nd o n
“yachtworld.com.” Interested in all 1955 25' SHEPHERD. Two 305-cu.-in.
reasonable offers. Please contact Jeff Crusader engines with Velvet drives.
Glenny at Irish Boatworks, 231–547– Double planked mahogany. Twin
9967. Charlevoix, MI. axle trailer. Needs refurbishing.
EXCEPTIONAL WOOD CUT FOR BUILDERS $10,000. 214–662–2350. TX.
Custom Cut Lumber

Live Edge Slabs • Large Inventory 12' TOM HILL DESIGNED Solo
Bristol, RI • 401-253-8247 canoe (Charlotte), 27 pounds. Cedar
NewportNauticalTimbers.com
rails/breast hooks, okoume planking.
$3,500. See Launchings on pg 87.
HOMESTEAD MARINE PLYWOODS [email protected].
1972, 33' WOODEN LOBSTER ME.
AB Doug-fir, CCA treated fir, ribbon
BOAT. One of a kind! New house
sapele, teak & holly, teak, (BS1088
and engine beds (five years ago),
sapele, okoume, hydro-tek meranti)
bottom refastened (one year ago).
SOLID LUMBER ash, cypress, Doug-
210 Cummins (9,000 hours). New lift
fir, teak, (Philippine, sapele, genuine
and injector pump, 1.9 to 1 clutch
mahoganies), AD & KD white oak,
LITTLE HARBOR, TOR-40, keel/ 72 series Borg Warner, radar, bottom
Spanish & red cedar, ipe, custom cut
centerboard sloop, $40,000. Designer: machine, small chart plotter, two
oak timbers & planks, nationwide
Ted Hood; built Japan 1961. Length VHFs, AM/FM radio. Tight boat, no
shipping, Vickery, OH. 419–684–5275,
overall 40', waterline 30', beam 11'4", leaks. $25,000. Please leave a mes-
www.marine-plywood.us. draft 4' 6"/9' 6". Double planked sage! 207–367–2491. Stonington, LAURENT GILES VERTUE design,
mahogany hull, fiberglass sheathed ME. “FLYING FISH” is proven blue-water
ply wood deck, teak cabin sides. sailer. Cold-molded hull built with
Yanmar 3HM35F engine. Jake.tric@ best materials to highest standards.
gmail.com. Pensacola, FL. Launched 2010, veteran of t wo
Atlantic crossings, fully found and
offshore ready. Inventory: new Yan-
mar engine, six sails, chartplotter/
depthsounder, AIS transponder,
radar, self-steering, series drogue,
nesting dinghy, plus more. Details/
CLASSIC 1935, 7 1⁄2' OLD TOWN
photos: f lyingfishadventure.word
dinghy, impeccably restored to per-
press.com. As seen in WoodenBoat
fection. Original cedar hull sheathed
Nos. 230 and 275. Contact builder/
in ’glass and epoxy resin, stronger
owner in Maine: f lyingfishjack@
than new. No expense spared to
gmail.com or text 207–315–5344. ME.
make her a museum/collector’s
grade showpiece, yet great for every-
day use as a service boat or an elegant
yacht. Wonderful hull design capa-
ble of three passengers. Perhaps the
most perfect example of this boat
in existence. Detailed information
and photos available. $6,000. Craw-
ford Boatbuilding. 781–837–3666, WHIRLWIND, 1948, 18' mahogany
16' WHITEHALL WOODEN sailing [email protected]. MA. on molded plywood runabout, 20-hp
1929, 16' DAYSAILER, BUILT IN
England. Launched Eling Wharf, /rowing boat. Made by Great Lakes Mercury outboard (low hours), con-
Southampton, June 20, 1937. Small Boat Co. in South Haven, MI. Lap- vertible fold-down canvas top, almost
boat with a big feel. Bristol condition, strake construction, 5' beam. Includes new Shorelander trailer. $6,000.
sound and seaworthy, excellent sails, trailer, canvas cover, two oars, gaff Enjoyed in freshwater only. Leave a
spinnaker, cushions, covers, docu- rig sail and swing down keel. Stored message. 610–416–6450, wgfreed@
mented European history, motor indoors. The Whitehall is an excel- rcn.com. Bucks County, PA.
available. $22,000. davidhughlyon@ lent sailboat, a great rowboat and a
hotmail.com. Santa Barbara, CA. respectable power launch with a
small 2-3-hp long shaft outboard.
$8,000 or best offer. [email protected],
815–885–3360. Belvidere, IL.
1982, KENNY POWELL CUSTOM 1939 CAPE DORY SAILBOAT. 18'

Schooner, “TILLICUM 1.” Offered with custom trailer. Restored in 2006.
through www.oceanyachtsales.com. Excellent condition. Two sets of sails.
1980 VICTOR CARPENTER con-
75,000 CAD, with or without trade. Rigged with racing winches. Canvas
structed 36' sailing yacht STINGER.
Greatest cruising and racing schoo- deck, mahogany trimmed. $19,500.
Complete North Sails inventor y,
ner ever. [email protected]. 914–803–3138, steve.blumenthal@
Barient winches, Navtec rod rigging,
Nova Scotia, Canada. cynvec.com. VI.
Signet instruments and Atomic Four SOUND INTERCLUB. 29' Charles
engine. Yacht and equipment are in Mower design. Built by Henry Nevis,
almost new condition. Triple axle City Island, N Y. 1924, Pegety hull The lovely thing about cruising is that planning usually turns
trailer included. 810 – 488 –9783, #24. Needs dedicated owner. 504– out to be of little use. —Dom Degnon
[email protected]. St. Clair, MI. 812–9991. Located in TX.
WB282_Class-05.indd 125 7/21/21 7:10 PM

1929 CHRIS-CRAFT COMMUTER
Cruiser. An opportunity to own an 1969 GR AND BANKS TR AWLER
incredible piece of history: “WIL- Classic. Project Boat. Make offer for
LOW” (formerly known as “ALTHEA”). whole boat or parts. Two 120-hp Ford
She was Chris-Craft Boats’ first-ever Lehman Diesel Engines. Please con-
Commuter Cruiser model and is in tact us at 304–232–1333, americowv
the finest condition of her life since @aol.com.
she was brand new. She has been
recently repowered, and has been
restored to the highest of standards
by our Coeur Custom Wood Boats
team with no expense spared. Selling
price: $425,000. Find out more:
208–664 –8274. Full listing: www.
coeurcustoms.com. Location: Coeur
2 0 0 8 B L U E M O O N Y A W L . d’Alene, Idaho. 18'' 1946 CENTURY R ESORTER
Designer: Thomas Gilmer. This boat 21.5' A LDEN DOUBLE ENDER. restoration project. Mahogany on
is a beauty. Built: ApprenticeShop, Built by Rick Barkhuff (instructor white oak frame. Reframed transom
Rockland, ME. 1st Place, Concours at The Landing School, Arundel, a nd keel. Tr a i ler i s i ncluded .
d’ Elegance, 2012 WoodenBoat Maine) and Chip Flanagan (boat Joh n a shel l 0 518 51@g m a i l.com,
Show. 23' waterline, 30' LOA. Cedar builder in Portland, Maine). Lots of 970–769–3962. Bayfield, CO.
on steamed-bent oak, teak decks. photos and extensive information.
Sails: Gambell & Hunter. Yanmar Many extras including heavy-duty 8'' PD R ACER TO FINISH. Main
14-hp diesel, low hours. VHF, Gar- custom trailer, electric power with part hull f inished and painted.
min GPS chartplotter, depth and brand new 24-volt spare motor, sail Needs seats and insides painted. No
compass. Berths 2+, head and stove. cover, cockpit cover, etc., etc. Disabled mast or sail. 570–326–1339. Located
Website: tinyurl.com/time-the-boat. foot so have to sell. $18,500. Website: Central, PA.
$48,500. alec@artisanboatworks. alden21.com. Email vectorart@aol.
com, 207–542–0372. Located Rock com, phone 831–241–8018. Burdett, 29' CLASSIC WOODEN DRAGON
Hall, MD. NY. sailboat and trailer. Built in Denmark
in 1959 by Borresen. Comes with all
the original documentation. Boat is
restorable, but it does need work and
1957, AT K I N SCHOON ER ga f f love. Beautiful mahogany on oak
rigged. Restored 2012-2017, new frame construction. Aluminum mast
African mahogany plywood/glass and boom. Comes complete with full
deck. Bald cypress deck beams, white set of sails and spinnaker. Thank you
oak frames, 3" floor timbers, 7x6" for your interest, Steve. 443–823–
stem, white cedar hood ends, 13⁄8" 2268, [email protected].
carvel planking, both garboards and Location is Essex, MD.
three planks above. Set of five sails
including gollywobbler. Bulletproof 42'' MATTHEWS 1955 SEDAN with
Sabb-2 H, 18-hp, new rings and cyl- CHAUTAUQUA, 1926, 38' Lawley twin International Palmer engines
inder sleeves 2012. 6' standing head- cruiser. Best in show Mystic and Bos- and an Onan generator for someone
room, sleeps 3+, July 2018 survey. ton. Professional restoration, original who appreciates the love of wooden
Sale includes hurricane mooring in interior, structural canopy with cur- boats. FREE! My contact is 518–598–
19 6 8 W I N T H R O P W A R N E R Colonel Willis Cove, RI. Wishing t a i n s a nd s c re en i ng. $4 6, 50 0. 6794. NY.
designed Acadia Ketch “MANITOU,” $60,000, best offer. Jimder40@gmail. [email protected], 207–799–
a classic well maintained ketch sailed com, 860–305–1582. 4500, South Portland, ME.
only in fresh water. Length 33', beam
9'9". Built in Taiwan; 35-hp Wester-
Contact me to place
beke diesel engine. Honduras mahog-
any planking on oak frames. Price:
$29,500. Contact: kljensen@uslink.
net. Currently on Lake Superior.
a classified ad!
1949 MODI F IED F R IEN DSHIP Next ad deadline is
Sloop (R alph Winslow Design).
Gorgeous Classic Gaffer, meticu- September 5, 2021
JERICHO BAY LOBSTER SK IFF. lously maintained and rebuilt to the
Built from WoodenBoat plans. New highest standard. Recent haulout,
with 1.5 hours on the boat and motor. new prop, Yanmar diesel. For more Patty Hutchinson
Built with 5⁄ 8" clear Western Red information and photos, please go
Cedar and WEST SYSTEM epoxy. to boatrightarts.com/blackwitch. Classified Sales
Includes 2018, 20 -hp four stroke CA.
Mercury outboard and trailer. Price
[email protected]
$19,900. 989 –550 –7120. bayboat 207–359–7726
[email protected] for additional
information. Bay City, MI.
WB282_Class-05.indd 126 7/21/21 7:10 PM

INDEX TO ADVERTISERS
ADHESIVES & COATINGS Port Townsend Shipwrights
Epifanes North America - - www.epifanes.com - - - - - - Cover IV Open House - - - - - - - -www.ptshipwrights.com - - - - - - - 99
Fasco Epoxies Inc. - - - - - -www.fascoepoxies.com - - - - - - - 82 Roanoke Island Maritime
Interlux - - - - - - - - - - - -www.interlux.com - - - - - - Cover II Museum - - - - - - - - - [email protected] - - - - - - - 21
Marshall’s Cove Marine Paint The WoodenBoat Show - - - www.thewoodenboatshow.com - 22-23
- - - - - - -www.marshallscovemarinepaint.com - - - - - - -106 HARDWARE & ACCESSORIES
System Three Resins, Inc. - - www.systemthree.com - - - Cover III Barkley Sound Oar &
Tri-Texco inc. - - - - - - - - -www.tritex.com - - - - - - - - - - - 73 Paddle Ltd. - - - - - - - - www.barkleysoundoar.com - - - - - 98
West System Inc. - - - - - - -www.westsystem.com - - - - - - - - 63 Fair Wind Fasteners - - - - -www.fairwindfasteners.com - - - -106
BOATBUILDERS Fisheries Supply Co. Inc - - www.fisheriessupply.com/open - - 17
Hamilton Marine - - - - - - www.hamiltonmarine.com - - - - - - 7
Arey’s Pond Boatyard - - - -www.areyspondboatyard.com - - - 98
J.M. Reineck & Son - - - - - www.bronzeblocks.com - - - - - - - 82
Artisan Boatworks - - - - - -www.artisanboatworks.com - - - - - 71
Keystone Spike
Beetle, Inc. - - - - - - - - - -www.beetlecat.com - - - - - - - - -116
Corporation - - - - - - - -www.keystonespikes.com - - - - - -100
Billings Diesel &
R&W Traditional
Marine Service, Inc. - - - www.billingsmarine.com - - - - - - 85
Rigging & Outfitting - - -www.rwrope.com - - - - - - - - - - 99
Brightside Marine - - - - - -www.brightsidemarine.com - - - -116
Shaw & Tenney - - - - - - - -www.shawandtenney.com - - - - - - 80
Broad Reach Boatbuilding
Strong Fire Arms - - - - - - -www.strongfirearms.com - - - - - -105
- - - - - - -www.broadreachboatbuilding.com - - - - - - - -113
Top Notch Fasteners,
Carpinteria Dory Company - www.carpdory.com - - - - - - - - -114
LLC - - - - - - - - - - - - www.tnfasteners.com - - - - - - - -100
Cayuga Wooden Boatworks - www.cwbw.com - - - - - - - - - - -116
Choptank Boatworks - - - - www.choptankboatworks.com - - -115 INSURANCE
Concordia Yacht Sales - - - -www.concordiaboats.com - - - - -113 Hagerty - - - - - - - - - - - -www.hagerty.com - - - - - - - - - -101
Devlin Designs - - - - - - - -www.devlinboat.com - - - - - - - -112 Heritage Marine Insurance
E.M. Crosby Boatworks - - -www.emcrosbyboatworks.com - - - 72 - - - - - - -www.heritagemarineinsurance.com - - - - - - - - 81
Edgecomb Boat Works - - - www.edgecombboatworks.net - - -114
Kozmiuk Wooden Boats - - - www.kozmiukwoodenboats.com - - 116 KITS & PLANS
Lyman-Morse Arch Davis Design - - - - - -www.archdavisdesigns.com - - - - -118
Boatbuilding, Inc. - - - - -www.lymanmorse.com - - - - - - - 19 Canoe Model Kits - - - - - -www.canoemodelkits.com - - - - -106
McMillen Yachts, Inc. - - - -www.woodenyachts.com - - - - - -115 Chesapeake Light Craft,
MP&G, L.L.C. - - - - - - - - www.mpgboats.com - - - - - - - - -116 LLC - - - - - - - - - - - - www.clcboats.com - - - - - - - - - -117
Padanaram Boatworks - - - www.padanaramboatworks.com - -112 Francois Vivier Architecte
Parker Marine Enterprises - www.parker-marine.com - - - - - -114 Naval - - - - - - - - - - - -www.vivierboats.com - - - - - - - -118
Pendleton Yacht Yard - - - -www.pendletonyachtyard.com - - - 115 Glen-L Boat Designs - - - - -www.glen-l.com - - - - - - - - - - -119
Reuben Smith’s Hewes & Co.
Tumblehome Boats - - - -www.tumblehomeboats.com - - - -113 - - - - - - -www.hewesandcompanyinc.com/marine - - - - -118
Ron Rantilla Rowing Newfound Woodworks Inc. - www.newfound.com - - - - - - - -119
Systems - - - - - - - - - - -www.frontrower.com - - - - - - - -115 Noah’s - - - - - - - - - - - - www.noahsmarine.com - - - - - - -119
Seal Cove Boatyard - - - - - www.sealcoveboatyard.com - - - -114 WoodenBoat Store/
Six River Marine - - - - - - -www.sixrivermarine.com - - - - - -115 Nutshell Pram - - - - - - -www.woodenboatstore.com - - - -118
Snediker Yacht ZO-Boats - - - - - - - - - - -www.zoboat.com - - - - - - - - - - 119
Restoration - - - - - - - - www.snedikeryacht.com - - - - - -113
Sparkman & Stephens - - - www.sparkmanstephens.com - - - - 5 LUMBER
Stonington Boat Works, Edensaw Woods - - - - - - - www.edensaw.com - - - - - - - - - -115
LLC - - - - - - - - - - - - www.stoningtonboatworks.com - -115 MUSEUMS
Van Dam Custom Boats - - - www.vandamboats.com - - - - - - - 94
Harbor History Museum - - www.harborhistorymuseum.org - - 70
W. Duncan Boatbuilder - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -116
Woodwind Yachts - - - - - - www.woodwindyachts.com - - - - -114 PRINTS & PUBLICATIONS
BROKERS & BOATS FOR SALE The Calendar of
Wooden Boats - - - - - - - -www.woodenboatstore.com - - - - - 6
Artisan Boatworks - - - - - -www.artisanboatworks.com - - - - -108 Professional BoatBuilder - - - -www.proboat.com - - - - - - - - - -116
Brooklin Boat Yard - - - - - www.brooklinboatyard.com - - - -107 WoodenBoat E-Newsletter - - www.woodenboat.com - - - - - - - 98
Cutts & Case - - - - - - - - -www.cuttsandcase.com - - - - - - -108 WoodenBoat Subscription - - www.woodenboat.com - - - - - - - 33
Devlin Designs - - - - - - - -www.devlinboat.com - - - - - - - -110
Metinic Yacht Brokers - - - -www.sealcoveboatyard.com - - - - 108 SAILS & CANVAS
Robbe & Berking Classics - - www.classic-yachts.com - - - - - - - 65 Best Coast Canvas - - - - - -www.bestcoastcanvas.com - - - - - 80
Rockport Marine - - - - - - www.rockportmarine.com - - - - -110 E.S. Bohndell & Co. - - - - -www.bohndell-sails.com - - - - - -105
San Juan Sharpie Schooner Gambell & Hunter - - - - - -www.gambellandhunter.net - - - - 99
- - - - - - -https://jrynne.wixsite.com/ss-grace - - - - - - - 94 M&B Shipcanvas Co. - - - - www.shipcanvas.com - - - - - - - - 20
Sandeman Yacht Company M&H Bartles, Sailmakers - -www.mhbsailmakers.com - - - - - - 20
- - - - - - -www.sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk - - - - - - -111 Sperry Sails, Inc. - - - - - - -www.sperrysails.com - - - - - - - - 94
Sparkman & Stephens - - - www.sparkmanstephens.com - - -109
Thomas Townsend Custom Marine SCHOOLS & ASSOCIATIONS
- - - - - - -www.thomastownsendcustommarine.com - - - -107 The Apprenticeshop - - - - www.apprenticeshop.org - - - - - -105
Boat Building Academy - - - www.boatbuildingacademy.com - -101
CRUISES & CHARTERS Cape Fear Community
American Cruise Lines - - - www.americancruiselines.com - - - - 1 College - - - - - - - - - - -www.cfcc.edu - - - - - - - - - - - - 81
Northwest Navigation - - - -www.northwestnavigation.com - - 100 WoodenBoat School - - - - -www.thewoodenboatschool.com - 95
EVENTS MISCELLANEOUS
Harbor Historical Association/ U.S. Bells - - - - - - - - - - -www.usbells.com - - - - - - - - - - 80
SC Maritime Museum - - www.woodenboatshow.com - - - - 83 WoodenBoat Store - - - - - www.woodenboatstore.com - - - 8-13
WB282_Index-02DIG.indd 127 7/21/21 12:12 PM

by Maynard Bray
WINDSEYE
Above—WINDSEYE was
built to a design by
Wilder B. “Bill” Harris as a
comfortable family cruiser.
1964 Concordia 31 sloop A survey found the hull
structurally sound. Right,
both– WINDSEYE’s interior
JANICE OTTO (ALL)

wo boats of this design were built in the late 1930s and shares many of the features
seven others after World War II; this one is of the latter of her larger cousins, the
group. She was launched as HOPEFULL (an unusual Concordia Yawls, and her
spelling confirmed by Lloyd’s Register of American Yachts), and appointments are all original.
kept that name until her third owner, Tom Hale of Martha’s
Vineyard Shipyard, bought her around 2004 and named her
WINDSEYE after a Concordia Yawl he once owned. iterations of these “low-cost family cruisers” were immedi-
Brooklin, Maine, was her home for her first 40 years, much ately ordered and built by Bud McIntosh before World War II.
of that time under the original owner, Gil Wilkinson. He WINDSEYE and the other postwar boats that came afterward
already knew the Concordia Company well, having arranged were built by Concordia.
to set up the Brooklin-based Center Harbor Yacht Club with an All nine of the 31s have double guards and contrasting
entire fleet of Concordia-built Beetle Cats. HOPEFULL even- sheerstrakes to emphasize their sheerlines. Their cockpits are
tually was passed on from his family, and in about 1993 Bob roomy and comfortable, with seats that are below the sheer for
Gallant acquired the boat after purchasing the protection and comfort. Their companion-
author E.B. White’s house here in town. Brook- Particulars way hatches are wide, like those of their more
lin Boat Yard, then owned by White’s son, Joel, LOA 31' sophisticated cousins, the Concordia Yawls.
cared for the boat throughout her time here. Beam 9' 6" They have the same Concordia berths that,
(One year, I even got to paint her deck while I Draft 5' 3" when swung upright, form the slatted back-
worked at the yard.) Sail area 530 sq ft rests of the main cabin settees. Belowdecks,
All but one of these 31s were sloops; the Displacement 14,000 lbs she has standing headroom, an enclosed toi-
aberration was the ketch VITAL SPARK (ex– Power 30-hp Yanmar let, and two more berths forward so that four
PARA HANDY ) which is now moored near diesel can sleep aboard. WINDSEYE’s structure has
where HOPEFULL once lay. Also gracing Cen- Official number 298639 passed a recent survey, and not long ago she
ter Harbor is WoodenBoat founder Jon Wilson’s Designer and builder had a diesel installed to replace the Grayma-
larger FREE SPIRIT, known as a Concordia The Concordia Co., rine gas engine, but she needs some new sails
33. I believe space for WINDSEYE could be South Dartmouth, and other such items. Word is that the good
arranged were she to return. Massachusetts, 1964 maintenance has continued after she was
Wilder B. “Bill” Harris drew the plans for trucked across the country 13 years ago for
the 31-footers under the banner of Concordia, the designer of owners in the San Juan Islands, and photos bear this out. If
record. In 1937, a year earlier, Harris had cut his Concordia you choose to inspect her, I doubt you’ll be disappointed.
teeth on a slightly smaller boat named SHAWNEE for a cus-
tomer, but the design for the Concordia 31s (originally known WINDSEYE is presently lying afloat in Friday Harbor, Washington.
as 25s for their waterline length) was speculative based on To find out more or to arrange an inspection, contact her owner, Rick
what Harris and Concordia founder Waldo Howland thought Bronk, at 360–288–4360.
would sell. They were right. Because of the design’s simplic-
ity and good looks, the boats did sell, and the two prewar Maynard Bray is WoodenBoat’s technical editor.
SAC-282-EDFinal.indd 128 7/21/21 12:31 PM

®
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“If there is magic on this planet
it is contained in water.”
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Tore Holm - Bronze Fastenings - Butterfly Skylight: The Magazine For Wooden Boat Owners, Builders, and Designers

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Tore Holm - Bronze Fastenings - Butterfly Skylight: The Magazine For Wooden Boat Owners, Builders, and Designers

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282 TORE HOLM • BRONZE FASTENINGS • BUTTERFLY SKYLIGHT

THE MAGAZINE FOR WOODEN BOAT OWNERS, BUILDERS, AND DESIGNERS

Lessons of a Schooner September/October 2021

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The hero your boat deserves!

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CRUISE CLOSE TO HOME™

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34 Building a Tolman Wide-Body Skiff:

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Departments 117 Kits & Plans

4 Editor’s Page 118 How to Reach Us

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A Tale of Two Schooners Subscription Services

Copyright 2021 by WoodenBoat Publications, Inc.

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Order On-line today at www.woodenboatstore.com

Due to an editing error, Montie Masterson,

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Call, click or come on in!

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How could I not get these?

SAM MANNING LINO-CUT

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WOODENBOAT PULLOVER HOODIES

PO Box 78, Brooklin, Maine 04616 1.800.273.SHIP (7447)

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FORTY-FIVE WOODEN BOATS

FIFTY WOODEN BOATS

THIRTY WOODEN BOATS

FORTY WOODEN BOATS

FORTY-FIVE WOODEN BOATS

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YANKEE TENDER CATSPAW

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QUICK LAUNCH BOARDING LADDER

MARLINSPIKE RIGGING KNIFE

ZIP-TOP TOTES WITH EMBROIDERED LOGO

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NEW! WOODENBOAT SCHOOL ENGAGEMENT

The WoodenBoat Store PO Box 78, Brooklin, Maine 04616 1.800.273.7447

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PLIMOTH PATUXET MUSEUMS

O ver the past few years, I and other boatbuilders at Lowell’s

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MAYFLOWER II (see WB No. 274), to more

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WANDER BIRD, now back in Germany as ELBE NO. 5

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Volume 87 A Spread of Canvas: Part 2

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2 • Canvas, Part 2 (SUPPLEMENT TO WOODENBOAT NO. 282)

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Canvas, Part 2 (SUPPLEMENT TO WOODENBOAT NO. 282) • 3

GettingStarted_Vol87-282-EDFinal.indd 3 7/21/21 7:02 PM

Will sail covers

Don’t leave them rigged on your boat for long

4 • Canvas, Part 2 (SUPPLEMENT TO WOODENBOAT NO. 282)

GettingStarted_Vol87-282-EDFinal.indd 4 7/21/21 7:07 PM

JIB BAG ROLLER-REEFING

Canvas, Part 2 (SUPPLEMENT TO WOODENBOAT NO. 282) • 5

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6 • Canvas, Part 2 (SUPPLEMENT TO WOODENBOAT NO. 282)

GettingStarted_Vol87-282-EDFinal.indd 6 7/21/21 7:02 PM

SHOULD I ASK MY SAILMAKER TO “WINTER” MY SUIT

Absolutely! We highly recommend

Make notes and bring your sails to

Canvas, Part 2 (SUPPLEMENT TO WOODENBOAT NO. 282) • 7

GettingStarted_Vol87-282-EDFinal.indd 7 7/21/21 7:02 PM

WHEN SHOULD I CONSULT MY SAILMAKER?

WHAT CAN I DO WITH MY OLD SAILS?

WOODENBOAT PUBLICATIONS, INC.

8 • Canvas, Part 2 (SUPPLEMENT TO WOODENBOAT NO. 282)

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