Trip To The Jersey Shore

I admire naming your vessel after a loved one. The S-Boat I'm resurrecting had the original name Estelle, after the first owner's mother. I think if I had Carl Alberg's Commander I'd change the name back to Alma.

Rockwell Kent was an illustrator, author and a free thinker (artist). Found this book by him from 1930 titled "N & E" about a sailing adventure to Greenland in which he participated. Loaded with wonderful illustrations, hard to pick just four.


http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...entMooring.jpg

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...KentTiller.jpg

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...lKentAtSea.jpg

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...entCabin-1.jpg

I'm currently reading the same book. So far I am really enjoying it. The illustrations are amazing, coming from an art background myself makes the book that much better!

Went up to Newport yesterday to visit with Jim Titus the boat builder who's resurrecting the S-Boat Tern. Walked into his shop and low and behold three curved S-Boat masts under construction. First new batch in over a decade I found out, beautiful.

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...r/IMG_0360.jpg

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...r/IMG_0356.jpg

Here are some pictures of Tern, warning, not for the faint at heart. Work has just been started on her and the first order of business is reconstructing her backbone so that new ribs can be fitted. What's that old line about long journeys?

Tern's builder's plate is the last version Herreshoff used before going under, I believe. Similar to the Pearson builder plate in shape?


http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...r/IMG_0413.jpg

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...r/IMG_0374.jpg

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...r/IMG_0398.jpg

Ben

I am truly jealous of you living right in the middle of all these historic boats and wood boat building masters. Being able to walk into their shops and watch them work and visit with them is priceless. We have nothing like that here in Florida. Wood boats don't come here for more than a short visit and then they are gone.

I need to schedule a vacation to come up there and just marvel over all that sailing history.

This is a good book. An added attraction is Peter Nichols naming off a bunch of sailing writers that inspired him. Eric C. Hiscock, Bernard Moitessier and Robin Knox-Johnson are mentioned. He even brings up the actor Sterling Hayden's autobiography "Wanderer", a book on my reading list.

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...r/IMG_0433.jpg

It would take too long to describe how many great books I've found in boxes on the sidewalk marked "free" here in New York City. Last week I found these two books together near my shop. My shop is in a rich hunting ground for the "free" books.

"The Shipping News" is a wonderful book. Don't be put off by all the accolade. A great book about getting through tough times. "Cod" is one of those science subject biographies. Maybe you've read "Longitude" by Dava Sobel, a similar good book. After these I want to go up and visit the Maritimes.


http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...r/IMG_0464.jpg

Some pictures I took this summer.

A nice catboat down at Beaton's Boatyard. Don't know what type.

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...r/IMG_0335.jpg

A few pictures of my one of my favorite topics, derelict wooden boats. First is the S-Boat Sufi up at Newport with Jim Titus at Mt. Hope Boat-works. And the second shot is of the S-Boat Volunteer still down at Beatons, see beginning of thread. Be great to see both of these boats restored and back racing. These boats are out of the Western Sound S-Boat Fleet and sorely missed. Anybody want to keep a few skilled boat-builders busy? Now's the time!

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...r/IMG_0421.jpg

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...r/IMG_0320.jpg

Finally another shot of this unidentified R-class boat at Barrons on City Island. Wonder what she looked like before they remodeled her deck and cabin.

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...r/IMG_0341.jpg

Took this while waiting for the Hutchinson River draw bridge to close on my way up to go sailing on the Ariel this past Saturday morning. Haven't posted a crane picture is some time, working water front!

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...r/IMG_0565.jpg

Here's the book I'm reading right now, Sterling Hayden's "Wanderer".

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...r/IMG_0586.jpg

Great Interview with Sterling from the Tomorrow Show, 1980.

http://youtu.be/f8WjH5qSGPA

Sterling quote:

“To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea… cruising, it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about. I’ve always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can’t afford it.” What these men can’t afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of security. And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine – and before we know it our lives are gone."

http://youtu.be/N1KvgtEnABY

Good stuff Ben!

That quote is absolutely brilliant.

Hayden also wrote a novel.
'Voyage' was a critical success as a novel Hayden wrote sometime in the '70s.
Never read it - but Wanderer was read by everybody.

Stayed angry with Hayden for naming names to the Joe McCarthy HUAC character assinations in the '50s.
Never went to any of his pictures after that, except for Dr Strangelove where he had a supporting role as Gen Jack D. Ripper. Got to like him again after he defied a judge and sailed to Tahiti with his kids. But then lost track. Good to be reminded.
Wanderer is a great life story.

It is of course his autobiography. Wanderer is written by a really unique, could say, 'larger than life' guy. He was large, couldn't miss him at 6'5". But not. Because he got himself wound up as a public hunk in Hollywood and nearly lost his conscience by selling out to easy money. People who write about him say he never forgave himself for tattling to the politicians, and that came about because of acting and his association with Hollywood.

Hayden actually ran away to sea at 15. He was afterall a sailor, a voyager, who got stuck in the stink of the lubbers, and paid the price. He always was a thinker, a moralist and a romantic. But foremost, a sailor.

Here's some more progress pictures of the S-Boat Tern.

New floors being fitted on Tern's new forward keelson. The boatbuilders are getting ready to start reframing.

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...r/e57b9394.jpg

Here's a shot of the keelson. There will be a grooves cut along it's length to accept the garboard planks.

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...r/f180d4e3.jpg

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nice book by Christopher Pastore about the story behind the Reliance, largest boat to sail for the America's cup. Looks she's on the back of the Rhode Island Statehood Commemorative Quarter! Get a load at the length of that spinnaker pole, 84 feet long.

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...r/d2d15fdf.jpg

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...r/fb9c97bc.jpg