Trip To The Jersey Shore

[Ariel 109]

Went down and visited David Beaton and Sons Boatyard in West Mantoloking, NJ. A really nice experience looking at all the old boats and working buildings and talking to Tom Beaton the manager. I wanted to shares these pictures with you guys. The little white koster boat has a blog, be sure to check out.

http://www.sjogin.com/?page_id=17

Ben

[Ariel 109]

This is the reason for the visit. We went to check out this Herreshoff S-Boat that has been languishing ashore for the last decade. Just a foot longer than a Ariel. These boats have running backstays and their jibs are self tending. They draft almost five feet, old style. There is still an active small fleet racing (5-6 boats) on the western Sound. I'd love to attempt her restoration and get her back racing, just a dream.

Ben

[commanderpete]

I can almost smell the wood.

Here's a short video about building the Sea Bright Skiff. There's a 20-30 minute version on the internet I can't find right now

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZOujiRfLA0

Edit: Here it is

http://www.folkstreams.net/film,41

My Dad used to keep the boat at this yard, back when it had a marine railway and old-timey craftsmen. Oh well

[Ariel 109]

City Island is long past the golden age of yachting. Some remnants here and there. But it's really now a place for people to go eat seafood dinners and cause traffic jams on weekends. Got to blame it all on the tax man taking all of Harold Vanderbilt's money and the general decline in rich peoples tastes.

Three shots from the wonderful Rosenfeld Collection. Trader John, one of the old timers I've met on City Island used to work for Mr. Rosenfeld on the photographer's boat Foto.

Thanks for the links Commanderpete.

You can spend hours looking over this site.

https://www.rosenfeldcollection.com/index.cfm

The America's Cup sloop VANITIE's 168-foot mast stops traffic on City Island Avenue as two dozen men inch it out of the Nevins spar shop in 1928.



Launching party of POLLY at Nevins, 1945



M-Boats, 1935

[commanderpete]

So much good stuff there. Somebody always buys me a Rosenfeld calendar every year.

Here we have the J-Class "Ranger" owned by Harold Vanderbilt, born at a local Vanderbilt Mansion.

"In 1930, Harold achieved the pinnacle of yacht racing success by defending the America's Cup in the J-class yacht Enterprise. His victory put him on the cover of the September 15, 1930, issue of Time magazine. In 1934 Harold faced a dangerous challenger in Endeavour, as the British boat won the first two races. However, Vanderbilt came back in his yacht Rainbow to win three races in a row and defend the Cup. In 1937 Harold defended the Cup a third time in Ranger, the last of the J-class yachts to defend the Cup. Vanderbilt's wife, Gertrude "Gertie" Lewis Conaway, became the first female to compete as a full-fledged team member in an America's Cup yacht race."

Next is a picture of "Ranger's" Afterguard

"Afterguard on the stern deck, from left to right: Rod and Olin Stephens, Professor Zenas Bliss, Mrs. and Mr. Harold Vanderbilt (Harold is at wheel), and Arthur Knapp dressed casually"

Now we have to be satisfied watching "The Jersey Shore" on TV and the modern America's Cup "yachts" that won't sail in over 15 kts. of breeze. But, they can make 22 kts. in 6 kts. of wind so what do know

[Ariel 109]

I really enjoyed the Seabright skiff documentary. I know somebody who's family had a motorized Ulrichsen "Jersey Sea Skiff" that must of been derived from the fishing skiffs. I'll never look disinterested at those old lifeguard boats again.

Harold Vanderbilt was a expert bridge player. I wonder how much gambling was a factor in yacht racing back then? Do you guys in the SF Ariel fleet bet on your races?


These shots were taken a Brewer's Post Road Marina in Mamaroneck after I chickened out from going sailing in the Ariel today. Too gusty for me to be sailing alone. Tough call because I really wanted to go out. Ah, there will be other days.

The Herreshoff S-boat fleet still wintering. They have taken the canvas boat covers off them.







This beauty was near by.

...................................

The Hodgdon yard of East Boothbay, Maine launched the 55-foot "P-class" gaff-rigged sloop in 1916. BERNICE was designed by George Owen, a contemporary of Nathaniel Herreshoff. In the late 1920s or early 1930s she was re-rigged to a fractional marconi yawl

....................................

[C38]

Holy Moly!

That boat looks like it came right out of Pirates of the Caribbean.

Amazingly beautiful lines however!

also, how long is it? hard to tell from the photo

[Ariel 109]

That boat looks like it came right out of Pirates of the Caribbean.

That's good! I'll certainly be thinking that for now on when I sail by her. And I would say she is about 45' long not counting the bowsprit.

Saturday there is a classic wooden boat regatta up in Greenwich and the S-Boats are taking part. I know that some pretty spectacular old boats are going to be there. So I should have some more pictures to post real soon.

[ebb]

Sweet lines. Looks like a cutter, from the single mast and bowsprit. Strictly sail.
Cronkite owned a number of boats that got larger and wider as time went by.

They all look like single malt and filet mignon yachts with biminis and pilot houses.
Maybe someone at the regatta can put a name on her?

He owned a Westsail 42 cutter, but that can't be it in your photo.
He also had an Al Mason designed Sunward 48' ketch, that is to die for.... if you got the hat.
google: SUNWARD 48 Sailboat details on sailboatdata.com

an affectionate tribute:
google: Cronkite: a sailor in a news anchor's chair
www.soundingsonline.com

[Ariel 109]

Ebb I'll get to the bottom of this Walter Cronkite rumor. All the old codgers on City Island have a Uncle Walter story. Somebody has got to know.

We took the S-Boats up to Greenwich this evening. Some amazing boats arrived as we were mooring. Here's the bow of Nellie a Herreshoff from 1902.

[Ariel 109]

Some shots from yesterday's regatta. The overcast sky played havoc with my old trusty digital camera. But quite a day of sailing.

Nellie a N. G. Herreshoff design from 1903





Nor'easter IV John Alden Q-Class design from 1926

[ebb]

Haven't read this guy yet.
He has a website with a photo across the top of a guy single-handing a skipjack of our proportions.

We thankfully don't do politics here.
But I did read some of his de Tocquevillesque (1835) observations on Democrasy in America.
A reviewer quoted on his blog calls him 'sane' - among other compliments.
I read his thoughts on Palin, and he is much much saner than I will ever be.

Think I'll get this book you recommend.
He obviously has a fine lively sane intellectual mind. Sanity is rare in this age. Refreshing in an intellectual!
Looking through some of the reviews:
More than just a travel book, It's a journal that tries to get to 'the meaning of the sea.' through native history, personal catastrophy, 'the dark sea within'.
He takes this vovage alone on a 35' ketch.

I have to find out how he keeps his sanity!

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THE SEA?
(not even google can get you there.)

[Ariel 109]

Commander Peter, would be great to have a visit from you at City Island. Your landing spot is very close to where Noesis was moored this summer. What's that lovely little boat, did you build it?

Ebb, I think you'd enjoy Raban's writing. He takes so many interesting side paths in his writing, sharing and opening up all these ideals. He gives great book recommendations in all his books. I'm searching for a reasonably priced copy of Hilare Belloc's "Cruise of the Nona" because Raban mentions this book in "Coasting" and makes it sound so interesting.

[ebb]

Hilair Belloc has a nice Wikipedia.
A prodigeous literary giant but shackled to a huge bias that kept me from reading him
back in the days when reading authors was an obligation.
My daughter when she was an academic wrote a paper on the cultural bias
writers, professors, archeologists bring to their interpretations of the past.
EG, if your cultural view of man is men before women, that is how you will see the Neanderthal.
And by extension any accessment of the present state of man.

Evidently, like Belloc in 'The cruise of the Nona', Raban takes us down side paths in '..Juneau' that are on his mind when writing his sailing book. These side paths are the plate and color of the feast befor our eyes. However, for me, the lens of the writer has to be crystal clear not one filtered through rose colored glasses.
Maybe Raban has this radical CLEAR VIEW, sanity. Hope so.

That's all I'm allowed to say here.

[Ariel 109]

Ebb,

Raban has none of the old prejudices which we all know were quite common in Belloc's time. In "Coasting" one theme Raban takes apart is the ideal of the what drives amateur sailors to take to the sea in small boats, a relatively recent human pastime. In earlier times people did not go to sea unless they really needed to. He writes about the early books on yachting and the bias of their writers, quite interesting.

From Raban's "Coasting", the four boats he names below are the yachts of early sailing writers.

"The "Rob Roy", "The Kate", "Perseus" and "Nona" are a lot more than mere yachts. Loaded down on their marks with testaments, theories, dogmas and solutions, that are like arks of the Covenant, holy vessels bearing sacred texts. Jesus Christ...Aristotle...Malthus...Mussolini..each of the lone sailors puts to sea with a ghostly first mate. And the boats themselves are miniature ships of state, their trim style of domestic ecomony set side by side with the ramshackle and disordered house of England across the water."