I didn’t know George but I did stop by his shed a few times. George was a busy guy, I remember at least once going by and finding three boats under construction in the big shed. He would not stop to talk, just a wave and “Go look around.” It was a noisy, windy place, right on top of the hill next to the Air Force Base.

George apprenticed with Tom Taylor in Vancouver, from 1964 to 68, then moved to Comox to start his own shop. He cranked out a bunch of boats, some good sized. He liked to just build the hull, deck, and perhaps the house, then let owner’s play about with the time consuming systems, interior, and rigging. For George it was all straight ahead boatbuilding, with no time for fussy detail.

Auriga II of Victoria, built 1964, 3.8 tons gross
Stormhaven Fishboat, built 1972, 5 tons gross
Daemon Herreshoff Marco Polo (modified to 12′ beam) Built 1971, 23.23 tons gross
Another Marco Polo, not sure of the year
Meriah Herreshoff Mobjack (45′) ketch, built 1969, 18.46 tons gross
Candlewin Another Mobjack launched 1976
La Picaresca Atkin Clione (35′) 1982, Fir on oak frames
Rhiannon another Clione, launched ?
Grischuna another Atkin I think, launched 1981, 10.4 tons gross
John Muir 64′ clipper bow schooner, launched 1976, 39 tons gross
Beowulf (?) 62′ fishing schooner
Sage (?) 30′ Harrison Butler design, sailed by my cousin to Nova Scotia and Alaska, I sailed her in Maine.
Senang Hati Launched 1985, 15.93 tons gross, Red Cedar planking on White Oak frames
There are others…….

Below we see the standard Bruigom construction setup. Some would call this “backwards” boatbuilding but I imagine George figured it saved time. The ballast and backbone were set up right side up with the molds erected on top and well braced to the roof of the shop. Over the molds were run the clamp, bilge stringers, and some ribbons. Then the ribs were bent over the set-up instead of inside (east-coast style) and planking could proceed.

She was launched as the Gracie S. in 1893, built at Union Iron Works in San Francisco Bay as a South Pacific trading schooner. She was named for a niece of her first owner, sugar baron Claus Spreckels. But that time was drawing to a close and the steam schooners were fast replacing sail. So she was relegated to the life of a pilot boat in San Francisco, were she worked the harbour entrance under cut down rig for 52 years. Sterling bought her in 1946 for $7000 when he was 30 years old, he sold her once and bought her back when fortunes turned. She was 95’ 6″ on deck, 81′ on the waterline, beam 24′6″, and draft 11′0″, 100 gross tons.

Between being owned by Sterling, the Gracie S. went north to Seattle, where William Garden surveyed her in 1948 and wrote about it in Pacific Motor Boat magazine. He called her a “Monument to Fir”, she was 55 years old then. “Frames, Beams, clamp, shelves, ceiling, planking, in fact everything but rail caps, top timbers, skylights, scuttle, companionway and joinerwork is fir. One especially interesting detail was the corner of a teak skylight coaming rotted next to the fir deck which was still sound.”

Garden outlined her general arrangement….The after 12 feet is Lazaret with access through a door under the main companionway. Then there’s a fine after cabin 18 by 20 feet with 6 berths along the sides and benches in front, the table is centered under the skylight. Next forward is the engineroom to port of the mainmast and a messroom to starboard. Then the galley and an 8 man foc’sl around the foremast, then a crews head and forepeak.

Construction scantlings…….”Planking 3 inch, frames 8 by 8 to 8 by 5 inches at heads; deck 3 by 3; beams 6 by 10 inches with 6-inch sided knees moulded 14 inches through the throat on alternate beams; clamp 8 by 12 inches; ceiling 3-inch; keelson 12 by 12 inches; keel 18 by 18 inches; shoe 11 by 12 inches, and rail cap 4 by 8 inches. Rail cap and top timbers are teak.”

In 1959 Sterling sailed Wanderer out the Golden Gate headed southwest, for Tahiti. In defiance of a court order, aboard were his four children, a mostly amateur crew, but a good hand in Spike Africa as mate, along with his family. Sterling would later write, “Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in.”

The California court claimed Wanderer was old and rotten, too small and dangerous to take innocent children to sea. Sterling replied, “Yachtsmen are consumed with the notion that their boats must be one hundred percent sound. They are oblivious to the fact that the majority of the world’s working vessels are plagued by rot. Yet these are the ships that do the work, year after year, no holds barred when it comes to weather.”

Eventually Sterling sailed Wanderer back to Sausalito, and he moved ashore to write a book called Wanderer; an autobiography named after after his ship or his life. Wanderer was chartered and sailed twice more to the South Seas with young crews of escapists. Then in the dark on November 1st of 1965, rounding the southern tip of Rangiroa Island in the Tuamotus, she went hard aground. In 20 minutes the 11 crew-members abandoned ship in a rubber boat. She was a total loss almost instantly in the high surf on a coral reef. Her skipper, William King, stated afterwards that he should not have been there. But Wanderer was were she belonged, sailing the South Pacific.

Other boats built by Fred Crosby include;
Forus Built 1963, 14tons gross
Aqua Prince Built 1975, 25 tons gross
Abuptic 2 (Attributed to W.Reid Garden Bay) Built 1966 original name Hazel R. II
Sylou Built 1960, 14.33 tons gross
Edna F (Attributed to Withey’s Silva Bay) Built 1964, 14.79 tons gross
Diane Louise Built 1977 fiberglass, 16.15 tons gross
Sea Gold Built 1976 fiberglass, 13.99 tons gross

What’s notable about the Anna B is her fine entry with lots of rake to the stem, high deadrise, and long easy exit with a fair amount of flat bottom under the stern (below the chine). Note how the stern chine or knuckle runs forward. Her rudder is about as far aft as possible.

Now let’s compare the fine lined Anna B with the much chunkier appearing 1966 Remmem troller Alaskan. Measurements and tonnage for the two boats are practically identical, with the Anna B a couple of inches wider and an inch deeper than Alaskan. But look at Alaskan’s bluff entry, lower deadrise, and vestigial chine or knuckle at the transom. Her run is steeper, the rudder is further forward, and there is a lot of rake to the keel. It just shows that within a given box there’s a lot of room for variation.

As a teenager and young man in the 1960’s-70’s, I made four or five “pilgrimages” south to the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. The big square-rigger Balclutha, the three-masted schooner C.A. Thayer, the Wapama, scow-schooner Alma, the ferry Eureka, and tugs Eppleton Hall and Hurcules were endlessly fascinating. I visited in winter when few people were around, I recall it being cold and rainy, and there was no supervision for visitors. I was free to roam these ships, sit were I wanted, climb were I liked. I recall sitting in Wapama’s “caboose” (the little pilothouse above and behind the wheelhouse) surrounded by woodwork painted a uniform yellowish beige, everything was painted the same colour, inside and out. But I looked out forward at her huge spars and maze of rigging, the sweep of her deck, and I was transported to another time and place.

The Times reports someone estimates it would take $62 million dollars to restore her. Instead the Park Service will pay $1.6m to have her torn apart and trucked to a landfill. They will save some bits and pieces, her engine and a winch or two will be stored in a warehouse. I regret that some other young man (or woman) will never see the view from Wapama’s caboose.

Dan and Audrey Le Clere built boats and advocated the use of Pacific Yew for bent ribs and other timbers. Starting in 1952 when they built the Edwin Monk designed troller Shar-Bon at Quatsino, through to their last build Fair Helene launched in 1976 at Heriot Bay, yew successfully replaced imported white oak. As of 2009 Shar-Bon’s yew ribs were in fine condition after going on 60 years, probably a better result than most white oak ribs living in the same conditions. Dan says Yew “is stronger and resists rot better than any oak. Its only drawback is that it is far more difficult to steam and bend than oak.”

The pictures here are of Fair Helene when just launched and rigged. She is 46′ LOD with 15′ beam and 5′9″ draft. Midships was a live well for cod when originally launched (she had a C Licence). Hull and deck are planked with 2″ Fir, the house, companionway, and transom are red cedar, ribs are yew, 1.5″ by 2.25″, spaced 9-10″. Also of yew is the stem (6″ by 8″), horn timber, worm shoe, rub rails, rail cap, and interior trim. The keel is 30′ long, finished 7″ by 12″ from a beach-combed Fir log. Doors and window frames are from salvaged mahogany. Fair Helene was designed by Dan, who started by carving a half-model based on Slocum’s Spray, but with increased freeboard.

“Varua, which means “spirit” or “soul” in Tahitian, is considered by many aficionados to be the most beautiful and functionally perfect sailing yacht ever built.”

Above are the hull lines of Varua, designed by Starling Burgess in 1940. In More Good Boats Taylor reports that Burgess and Robinson tested her model at the Stevens Institute and altered the stern until she could run before any sea at various speeds without disturbing them. Burgess and Robinson dubbed it her, “double chin” stern. Burgess also drew a gaff ketch rig (marconi mizzen) and consulted on the composite (steel frame, wood plank) construction details. It was wartime and Burgess was heavily involved in various navy design programs, so (the story goes) Robinson turned to LF Herreshoff to draw up the brigantine rig. When she left Gloucester in 1945 they sailed with the gaff ketch rig, but as the voyage progressed Robinson gradually changed her over to the brigantine.

It is really interesting to compare Varua’s lines with those of Tioga II (now Ticonderoga) designed in 1935. Starling would have been well aware of the rival hull by his friend LFH. What immediately strikes me is the long midsection of Varua, with steeper buttocks at each end. Looking at Tioga’s waterlines shows much finer entry and exit with lots of cutaway both forward and aft. Varua’s lines come off as more balanced and less extreme. The two are very close dimensionally, Varua is 4′ shorter on the waterline but 3″ wider and 3″shallower. I would guess Varua has the higher prismatic and thus higher potential speed, but Tioga will do better in the light and may be better all around……A race between the two would be quite interesting.

Tioga’s lines below.

Starling Burgess was undoubtedly a brilliant designer and intuitive engineer. But I wonder about the “design” of Varua. From what I can tell Burgess always employed so-called draftsmen, people like Francis Herreshoff, Norman Skene, Henry Gruber, and Marjorie Young, whom he would marry. For me the act of design is inseparable from that of making the drawings, so that making the the drawings is creating the design. So how did Burgess separate design and drawing? It has recently come to light that a well-known Gruber design (Binker) was for many years attributed to Burgess. And in Varua’s body plan I see a great deal of Gruber, or is it that in Gruber’s body plans I see a great deal of Burgess?

Power is a five-cylinder Gardner of 94 HP turning a 30″ by 18″ three-bladed prop through 2:1 reduction. Framing is bent oak, 1.75″ by 2.5″ on 10″ centers, with 1.75″ yellow cedar floors. The keel is 5.5″ by 7.5″, the keelson 5.5″ by 9.5″ lays on it’s side and is pocketed to receive the frame heels.

The gumwood sheathing on the drawing does not appear on the finished product, as well it appears the radius tops on the windshield windows turned out to be more trouble than it was worth.

It’s somewhat surprising to see that small double-enders were still being built as late as 1959. One can see a very close relationship between this hull and the Sea Star, built by Matsumoto in Prince Rupert 25 years earlier, in 1934. Sea Star is 14″ narrower and deeper with slack bilges, where I imagine Full Moon has less deadrise and more volume down low. The next 5 years, into the early 1960’s, would see a huge growth in the BC troller fleet, and massive jumps in boat size.

In August of 1953 Moonraker of Fowey sailed quietly into Victoria and tied at Fisherman’s wharf. Moonraker was small, 29′ overall with a beam of 9′8″ and draft of 6′. She was built as a Cornish fishing boat before the turn of the century by Ferris of Looe, and converted to an ocean cruiser in 1932 by Dr. Peter and Margret Pye. Their first cruise in Moonraker was trans-Atlantic and return to home in England. In 1952 they left England and in early February of 1953 passed through the Panama canal. They went west visiting the Galapagos, Marquesas, Tahiti, and Bora Bora before turning north to Honolulu and Victoria.

After wintering with the Smeetons and Tzu Hang at Musgrave Landing on Saltspring, in May of 1954 they sailed north up the inside passage. With only a tiny auxiliary engine (cruising speed under power 2.5 knots) they spent two weeks beating against the daily Northwesterlys to arrive at Port Hardy. With no electrical equipment aboard navigation was all by eyeball, compass, and log…..In Peter’s words, “The fun of it was we’d hardly ever finish finish the day as we’d planned it.” In the 1950’s nobody sailed these waters for pleasure. North of Port Hardy they met fishermen and natives, who always provided local knowledge on the next best anchorage. After crossing Queen Charlotte Sound they wound their way among the islands, stopping at Rivers Inlet, Spider Anchorage, and Saint John’s Harbour. From Camano Sound they crossed Hecate Strait to Selwyn Inlet, and stoped at Skedans village before sailing into Queen Charlotte City.

A month after leaving Saltspring Moonraker sailed out of Queen Charlotte City bound nonstop to Ketchikan. That afternoon they met a 50 knot “summer” gale, and spent the night running under bare poles and streaming warps. But these gales are short-lived and the next evening saw them alongside a float in Ketchikan. Summer was passing so they turned south, stopping at Prince Rupert, “Oh how it rained”, and then out Venn Channel and west across the Hecate again to Langara Island. On this passage they crossed paths with the only other yacht they saw that summer, a schooner powering north towards Alaska. From Langara they ran south, stopping at Port Louis and entering Tasu Sound. From Tasu they were 9 days sailing southeast 470 miles to Victoria. While they hoped to stop at Nootka Sound, they were hove to in half a gale as well as becalmed for 14 hours off Cape Cook, then becalmed again for 12 hours further south. Meeting another south-east gale in the mouth of Juan De Fuca and being swept by a wave put a proper ending on the summer’s cruise.

Peter wrote in Yachting World, “So ended what has been the most strenuous cruising we have ever known. It is curious that the harder the sail the better it is to remember and, at the moment, surrounded by gracious houses and lovely gardens and yachts with coloured sails, we are filled with nostalgia for Queen Charlotte City and the grimness of that west coast. We shall never be quite content again.”

Later that fall Moonraker sailed south again for Panama and home to England via the West Indies.

From Harold’s son Bernard,

“Annieville school only went to grade six,all other education happened in my grandfathers boatshed or on his gillnetter. I think he said he started fishing on his own in a row skiff with a friend when he was old enough to row. He quit gillnetting two years before he died.

In the early fifties he built and fished the Glenkris,then 3 or 4 Patsy R’s. The last Patsy R which was built in 61 in the slough boatshed was sold in 63. He couldn’t see owing BC Packers $10,000 for a boat so he bought an old double ender named Belle which he fished until 71 when he built the Decimal Dolly. Britain had just switched over to the decimal monetary system and there was a picture of a beautiful blond wearing a dress made of coins in the sun paper. Her name was Decimal Dolly.

He would gillnet Springs in the Fraser,then go to Smiths inlet for the peak of the sockeye run and then back to the Fraser for the early Stewart sockeye run. He liked to can the Stewart sockeye because they went the farthest up the Fraser and had more oil in them. Next he would go to San Juan for the peak sockeye weeks then back to the Fraser when the run showed up there. ”

“I found an article from the fisherman’s union newspaper about the Dan Cameron launching. Harold told the reporter he fished halibut 19 seasons until his back went out. He crewed on halibut boats from the Swiftsure bank to Kodiak Alaska.”

Harold was of the old school of boatbuilders, men who understood their craft so completely that they were competent hull designers, structrual engineers, planers and busnessmen, as well as woodworkers. Harold carved the half-model in the picture above. And this is the only building guide that existed. The molds were built directly from measurements taken off this model, there was no traditional lofting. Fairing of the molds would be done full size with the ribbons on the boat.