Page 20. MAINE COASTAL NEWS March 2017 A BW - W  C ? Continued from Page 7.


be great to have a reunion for the Haj class at the Camden Yacht Club some year. Presently they have just brought in a


1950s Chris Craft runabout. “We are poking and prodding,” said Alec, “trying to estab- lish the extent of what that project is going to be. It could turn into a big one. Then we have got a 12½ coming up from Florida that is going to get a full restoration. A major project that is starting also in a couple of weeks we are going to build a 24 foot yacht tender, similar to one of those 1920s Herres- hoff launches with twin cockpits. She will have all of the fanciness, but widened out to have a hard chine and a modern diesel so she will go 25 or 26 knots. Artisan Boatworks is busy and they, like many of the yards on the coast, are looking for carpenters. Alec grew up in Brooksville and raced


daysailors at Buck’s Harbor. He added, “We raced B. B. Crowninshield Dark Harbor 12½s. They used to be the Islesboro fl eet and then they were sold to Buck’s in the early 30s about the time the Dark Harbor 20s came along. I went to boatbuilding school right out of high school, the Artisan college in Rockport. Then I went to work on private yachts for two or three years and sailed all over the Mediterranean.” He worked on the 94-foot Fife-designed


SUMURUN; then he cruised the South Pa- cifi c on an 83 foot ketch; and then did a lot of deliveries on some of the bigger schoo- ners. Somewhere in that whole time period I made the mistake of buying a little 31 foot Hinckley Islander. I took it apart completely and started to put it back together but I really didn’t know enough to do it well. Then I built a little shop to put her in. I needed some money so I went to work on yachts. Basically every life decision I made for about 10 years was all focused solely on putting that boat back together, which inevitably turned into a boat yard.” Alec never fi nished this project. “At


one point we built an addition off the side of the shed and she was in the way and we just bulldozed it. It was sort of freeing in a sense. At that point it wasn’t really the boat for me. Actually what is exciting, I got a 40 foot Sparkman & Stephens yawl a couple of


years ago that really has fulfi lled that dream and it is big enough that the whole family can sail together.” While he grew up in Brooksville, Alec


worked summers at the Seal Cove Boat Yard. He said, “I was 16 years old and they taught me how to paint bottoms. I would say the majority of what I learned about boatbuilding should be attributed to Taylor Allen and John England down at Rockport Marine where I was for fi ve years. I was there for the W76 and big schooner LYNX and a bunch of smaller projects. That is really where I learned to build boats.” Fifteen years ago, he started his own


business and over those years he and his crew have done some very impressive proj- ects. “It has evolved,” said Alec. “We started out solely focused on building and restoring these classic day sailors, just me and another guy. As the yard has grown we have become a lot more service oriented. We have built that new construction and restoration pro- gram up to a level where it is steady and consistent work and we will keep doing it because it is fun. We are also at a point where we are supporting a lot of young families, my own included, and realize that security is more important at this point. We have got about 60 boats we take care of now and we are going to put up another storage building in the spring. We’ve got glass boats, we’ve got motorboats, it is really a full service yard. We are happy to do whatever it takes.” Now a major topic among people in the


marine industry is its future. Alec said, “That is a good question. We defi nitely see a shift away from sailing. There are 20 Concordias for sale right now. Defi nitely more than there has ever been for sale before. But then there was a record turnout at the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta this year. It will be interesting as the current generation of owners start to age out and I don’t see many younger folks as interested in sailing classic boats as there used to be. Jon Wilson and WoodenBoat started this whole revolution of wooden boats. Concurrent to that there were also a lot of wooden boats that were just worn out and had no business being sailed anymore. These wooden boats were a nightmare to maintain; they were beautiful but I would never want to own one because they are a pain in the ass. A lot of those boats are gone


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At Artisan Boatworks they just moved in this 1950s Chris Craft, which needs some repairs.


now. There are fewer basket cases and I think that the majority of wooden boats in service today are in really good shape. I hope that that concept that they are a nightmare to maintain is hopefully going to fade away. They do require maintenance, but they are not any more expensive to maintain than a glass boat if you keep the glass boat to a high standard. There is a real revival of craftsmanship going on right now. People in the higher end of the game are starting to realize that for what it cost to buy a 40 foot Hinckley or Sabre you can actually have a custom-designed and custom-built wooden


boat. We need to market ourselves better. People these days just want to Google ‘best boat’ and hit the PayPal button. I think it is hard to fi nd the people who are willing to invest the time and commit to the process of designing a boat and having it built. I think we can fi x that by marketing better. We have been singing to the choir for a lot of years.” If you have a love for a wooden boat and


really want to restore a classic such as a Bar Harbor 31 or you already have a boat which needs repairs or a place to stay the winter contact Alec at the Artisan Boatworks.


American Rich Wilson Continued from Page 19.


necessary. He tried to repair his hydrogene- rator, but it still was not working. Sébastien Destremau (TECHNO-


FIRST-FACEOCEAN) crossed the equator and now all racers were in the Northern Hemisphere. 20 February (Day 107): Twenty-three


year old Alan Roura from Switzerland crossed the fi nish line in 12th


place at 0812


hrs UTC. His time was 105 days, 20 hours, 10 minutes and 32 seconds. He also became the youngest entrant to complete the Vendee Globe.


Colman is getting closer to the fi nish,


but he has two serious problems: food and power. He is down to his emergency rations and about four days of power. He fi gures he has another fi ve days to go and is determined to fi nish. 21 February (Day 108): The only American in the Vendee Globe, 66 year old Rich Wilson, crossed the fi nish line at 1250 UTC with a time of 107 days, 48 minutes and 18 seconds. One of his goals was to best his 2008-9 time of 121 days and 41 minutes, which he easily did. He also set the record for an American in a non-stop race around the world, which had been held by Bruce Schwab, 109 days and 19 hours. Rich is a very experienced off shore


racer. He sent new record passages from San Francisco to Boston in 1993; New York to Melbourne, Australia in 2001 and Hong Kong to New York in 2003. It was noticed that when he crossed


the fi nish line the boat was in near-perfect condition just as when she left to start this 27,000 mile race. Rich had issues with his autopilots, hydro-generators and was had to make some sail repairs. This race for Rich was not about age, but


he does hope to inspire older people that age is just a number. He said following the race, “It’s great to be back. To see France and all the French people here. It was great to see Eric (Bellion) and Alan (Roura) here. They were my brothers in the south. We talked


almost every day by e-mail. In this race I think there was a lot more communication between the skippers than in 2008-2009 – Koji, Fabrice, Nandor, Stéphane and Didac who was chasing me. We talked about every- thing in the world. It was a little bit harder, because I’m older. The boat was easier because of the ballast tanks. You can use the ballast rather than put in a reef all the time, which is what I had to do on the other boat. What distinguished the race for me was that it was grey all the way. Across the south and then all the way up the Atlantic. Grey. Grey. It was so depressing. Four or fi ve days ago, the sun came out for twenty minutes and I leapt out and stuck my face and hands under the sun. It was grey and just for so long. That was hard. “I found all the calms that exist in the


Atlantic. It was never-ending in the Atlan- tic. Eight years ago, I said never again. But now it’s too diffi cult. This is the perfect race course. The most stimulating event that exists. My goal was to fi nish this race and to work for SitesAlive, which has 700,000 young people following. What is fantastic about this race is the support of the public with all the people here. I remember the fi rst time, someone said, if you fi nish the race, you’re a winner. I think that is correct. I could give you a quotation from Thomas Jeff erson. When he was ambassador to France, he said everyone has two countries, their own and France and I think that is true. “The Vendée Globe is two Vendée


Globes. It is very long. The oceans, the capes. It’s all very hard. But the other Vendée Globe is the one ashore. The welcome that our team and I have had here. It’s incredible. I felt older. I am 66! My thoughts go out to Nandor who fi nished two weeks ago at the age of 65. We sent back data each day con- cerning me and the boat. Each day, I did an average of 12,000 turns on the winch. But it was hard. “The worst thing was it was so grey. I


had a map of the stars with me but I couldn’t use it. The best thing was communicating with the others. We’re a real community.”


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