On a mountain trail, pace-by-pace progress over hours sometimes leads to a viewpoint from which the altitude achieved suddenly becomes spectacularly clear. Something similar is going on now in custom wooden yacht construction, as exemplified by two projects currently underway in Maine boatyards that show just how much the boatbuilding industry has changed.
A long time ago now, at a cluttered, used-book shop on the New Jersey shore, I acquired the 1945 edition of Sailing Craft: Mostly Descriptive of Smaller Pleasure Sail Boats of the Bay. First published in 1928, Sailing Craft had been conceived and edited by a wealthy Philadelphian named Edwin J. Schoettle. Although he’d gained considerable success as a manufacturer of cardboard boxes, Schoettle’s real passion was sailing. It was this boat obsession, centered on but not limited to Barnegat Bay in New Jersey, and his impressive social connections that gave Schoettle access to the best-known yachtsmen and designers of his time.
My first visit to the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in the mid-1970s was memorable for many reasons. The collection of automobiles, steam and gasoline engines, locomotives, bicycles, and other objects ranged from marvelous to mind-boggling. But it was one particular surprise that remains foremost in my mind. During my wandering on what is said to be the world’s largest expanse of parquet flooring, I suddenly encountered, of all things, a catboat. There she sat in a well-fitted wooden cradle with a plaque identifying her as SPRITE, built by the Herreshoffs of Bristol, Rhode Island.
The journey from concept to reality was a long one for David and Rosemary Lesser and their yacht’s designer, Paul Gartside, but patience and clear communication brought LA VIE EN ROSE to fruition. She was launched at Jespersen Boat Builders in Sidney, British Columbia, in 2012.
The Haven 121⁄2 is the designer Joel White’s centerboard adaptation of the classic Herreshoff 12½, a lead-keel ballasted daysailer. Both boats measure about 16' overall and are named for the length of their waterlines. Both were designed without auxiliary power; a paddle, in most situations, was all that was needed to get a boat back to the mooring if the wind died. But when your mooring is a mile up a creek that empties into the Pawtuxet River on Chesapeake Bay, it can be handy sometimes to have auxiliary power—especially when the wind and tide are against you. Electric propulsion is a quiet and environmentally friendly alternative to internal combustion.
KATIE MACK is a 46′ bridge-deck cruiser built in British Columbia and launched in 1932. She was a rumrunner originally. Today, she cruises New England waters as the summer retirement home of Pam and Hugh Harwood.
ST. LOUIS is a 36' Elco fantail electric launch from 1896. She has her original motor, much of her brightwork is original oak, and she has been housed in the same sublime boathouse, and owned by the same family, since 1900. She’s a bit of a local legend in Bolton Landing, on the western shore of Lake George, New York. Over the past year and a half, she has undergone a complete structural rebuild of her hull.
Because of careful attention for six decades by Dr. George Gilbert, her only previous owner, the 1954 Newbert & Wallace lobster yacht ALBATROSS only needed deck, cabin top, and cockpit sole resheathing when she came to a new owner last year.