January 2012 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 21.
Seventies Memories: Boat Shows By Lee S. Wilbur
One of the truly rewarding experiences of building custom boats, and I’m sure most builders would agree were the owners. From the time we’d start talking about building the boat and then the actual building and launch could often be anywhere from one to three years. During this process, there’d be numerous phone calls, visits to the shop, perhaps a visit to the owner’s home, all of which would lead to a deepening relationship and often to a lifelong friendship. My friendship with Philip Bruch, now deceased, was typical.
At the end of the seventies, LSW & Co. had made the decision to begin molding our own models. A fairly large (at that time) 38' seemed to be a size where no one else had filled. By 1980, we’d launched one, shown it in Miami and had two others underway in the shop. Phil called me from Ft. Lauderdale. At the time he owned the Bahia Mar Marine store there in Bahia Mar Marina. Said he was looking for a boat to do a little Florida cruising, perhaps show off a few of his products, and thought a Maine style boat would display nicely amongst all the “look- alike chlorox boats” in Bahia Mar. I could sense just from the phone call the building of a boat for this gentleman, and Phil was the consumate gentleman, would be a pleasant experience. The more so when he asked to have a fireplace in the salon.
Not long into the construction, and Phil had made a few trips to Southwest Harbor, that he began talking with me about showing the now named “Sagittarius” at the Ft. Lauderdale Boatshow the coming fall. An idea I readily agreed to. The Maine “Lobsteryacht” a term coined by Jack Smith of “Yachting” magazine was if anything, not a known commodity in those days, and anything we could do to promote our boats was welcome. We were, even by then, asked at shows “What’s this”, or “What kind of boat is this”. So Phil’s invitation was timely and quickly accepted.
This was probably one of the busiest times in the history of our shop. We were completing from ten to fifteen boats a year, constantly training new people, working 10 hour days, expanding the building and finishing capacity and still trying to get the boats finished and into the water somewhere near the scheduled launch dates. It wasn’t easy. I used to look forward to Mondays with just a shade of trepidation. Joke was, the owners would spend the weekend going through boat magazines and we’d get the calls on Monday wondering if it was too late to add this or that, or “why wouldn’t it be a good idea if we...?” Always tried to be accommodating, but often would add to the complexity, leading to more time needed, and of course the expense to an already agreed price, not to mention the time we’d agreed to begin work on the next boat in line. All problems to contend with in the daily life of boatbuilding.
With Phil there were few changes; however, Sagittarius was one of the last summer launches and we were behind. Heidi
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and I offered Phil and his new girl friend, soon to be wife, the vivacious Devy, the use of our guest cabin on the lake as a place to hang out while we worked overtime to get Sagittarius into the water. Years later, we’d still talk about that summer. They would stop at the shop each day, check on the progress, then go off exploring Maine. For two “in loves” it worked out great. Should all late launches have gone as well.
If memory serves, Sagittarius floated off her cradle in late August and soon after sea trials, Phil put Devy on a plane for Lauderdale, and with Stan Ward, our lead hookup mechanic, headed for Boston harbor where he’d drop Stan and singlehand the rest of the way to Lauderdale.
The Ft. Lauderdale Boat Show is a midwinter show, coming about a month before Miami’s. It’s a time of the “Christmas Winds” in the Caribbean, and for an in-water show can be a bit, shall we say, blowy. Ft. Lauderdale show had been held in Bahia Mar up until that year, but had become so large that they needed a new venue. Someone really wasn’t thinking when the decision was made to build floating docks and set them up Ft. Lauderdale’s commercial ship basin, Port Everglades.
Phil had invited me to stay at his house for the duration of the show, so I came down to Lauderdale a few days before the opening and we took Sagittarius down to the floats, got her set up and sparkling. It was quite apparent that the floats were really not too small and coupled with the surge in the basin, made for rather tipsy progress around the show. Weather report for the second night of the show did nothing to create any warm fuzzy feeling either. Winds gusting up to thirty knots and heavy rain. Couldn’t go anywhere. Boats were tied in an intricate puzzle and no place if we could get away. Next morning we were greeted by the disaster it was. Boats piled together, docks and boats just holding by a line. Show staff and tenders trying to make sense of a bad situation. Needless to say the show was canceled for the day. We were lucky. No damage to Sagittarius. Within the ensuing 24 hours, working with the handicap of lasting storm surge, the crews were able to piece the show back together and be open by 10AM the next morning. However, attendance was way off. Word had gotten out that if a person were unsteady on there feet, and this encompassed a great number of what we termed “the golden fleet” customers in their later years who could afford to buy expensive boats, this wasn’t the place. It was many years later before we showed at Ft. Lauderdale again. Within a few years, Miami had developed an in-water show, protected and located on the inland waterway, and there we successfully showed Sagittarius a couple of times before Phil, after having owned her for some ten years sold her and bought a smaller boat to use in the canals of Ft. Lauderdale in his retiring years. We remained good friends until his passing, a treasured memory.
“Lofting” provides a full size pattern of a two dimensional plan. The bow and stern sections were drawn in full scale to ensure
all angles and views met properly.
Traditionally, the fi rst section of a new boat laid is the keel. Gundalows do not have a keel (single central
timber at the bottom of the boat), so the fi rst section laid is the planking and fl oor timbers in the fl at center section of the boat. Following lofting, the curved bow and stern framing is cut and assembled along with side frames.
Trunnels “tree nails” connect wood parts in the gundalow much like pegs are used in post-and-beam
construction. Thousands of trunnels were used in traditional gundalow construction. We also use hand-cut bronze fasteners for longevity and strength.
The sheathing that wraps the sides and the bottom of the gundalow are called planks. Long
continuous timbers are set in a steam box to make them fl exible and then are bent to fi t the curvature of the boat frames.
The shear clamp, deck beams, and deck framing and
blocking are installed once the planking is completed. The deck is caulked to insure water tightness.
Thousands of feet of white cotton caulking and oakum will be driven into the gaps
between the planks to create a water tight seal.
Once the decking is in place, the house,
hatches, deck boxes, rails, rudder and stump mast are installed. Our local blacksmith fabricated and installed sweep locks, stanchions for life lines, the yard band and the windlass.
The entire boat is oiled and painted to protect it from the
water, air and sun. Oiling begins as soon as timbers are secured into place.
Sea trials and adjustments are
completed once the gundalow leaves the shipyard and is launched at Prescott Park. Small fi nal repairs, fi nish work and adjustments are made after it is in the water —then it will be ready for the fi rst public sails!
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©2011 Sam Manning studio NACL
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www.gundalow.org
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