Boating in fresh air may be invigorating, but there’s nothing like settling into a cozy cabin at the end of the day. It soothes the spirit and is one of the great pleasures of being out on the water.
Years ago, in the midst of a difficult reframing job, I came across Barry Thomas’s excellent book, Building the Crosby Catboat. In it, Thomas describes his research into the Crosby method for fitting thick steam-bent frames into very tight bilges. He had had the good fortune to meet Horace Manley Crosby, Jr. aka “Bunk,” right when he needed him. Thomas tells of Bunk showing him and his team the tools and method for picking up the shape of a frame using a wooden chain-like “timber mold,” transferring the shape to a bending jig, and bending the frame away from the boat with the aid of a compression strap.
Before this boat, I was lost. I was a little bit lost,” says 81-year-old Warren Jacques. Like a lot of seafarers and fishers, he finds some of his best reflection time when he’s on watch at sea.
VERA LEE—née FANCY STUFF—is one of a handful of Bunker and Ellis–built wide-body lobsterboats. She was transformed into a luxury powerboat. Built in 1974, FANCY STUFF was restored and re-outfitted by Jarvis Newman and Ed Gray at their boatshop on Great Cranberry Island, Maine.
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.