Sample’s Shipyard in Boothbay Harbor has become Boothbay Harbor Shipyard, owned by Terry McClinch with David Stinson as General Manager. The yard is specializing in the building, storing, restoration and repair of wooden vessels of whatever size and rig.
The yard crew is being augmented by younger people eager to learn the shipwright’s trade through a modest apprentice program where a new person may work with an experienced crew and learn as he goes along.
Why do we need another yard specializing in wooden boats? Has not fiberglass made wood practically obsolete?
“Not at all,” says David Nutt, an associate of the firm who formerly ran a yard for wooden boats on Southport Island. He is recently back from sailing around the world with his wife and four children in a 60-foot schooner and has seen a great many wooden boats. He believes a well-built wooden boat properly maintained will be useful after many a fiberglass boat has developed blisters in its gelcoat and has been stripped and restored at vast expense. Some fishermen prefer the easier motion of a wooden boat to the quick, jerky motion of fiberglass. And some people are willing to pay more for the extra skill and care that goes into an individual boat built of a natural material, than for a production model popped out of a mold. There are still many wooden boats, yachts and commercial vessels afloat that need skilled maintenance and repair.
The yard made a good start with the restoration of a racing sloop, alera, a New York 30 built in 1905 by the Herreshoff yard in Bristol, Rhode Island. She was rescued from a Canadian driveway in 2004 and trucked to Boothbay Harbor. Her deck, most of her frames and some of her planking were replaced, but she held her shape very well. With new spars, sails and rigging, she was launched in June 2005 and won the WoodenBoat Regatta in Eggemoggin Reach in August.
The yard is now building a 36-foot wooden schooner. Designed by David Stinson, she incorporates some modern concepts with traditional ones that have proven themselves. She appears quite slim, 10 feet, and draws 3 feet 9 inches. She has a heavy centerboard and a good chunk of outside ballast. Her designer says she will right herself with her mastheads in the water. In the Herreshoff tradition, her frames are light and quite close together with floor timbers at every frame. She gains longitudinal stiffness from her planking, angelique below the waterline. Each plank runs the full length of the boat and the seams are caulked tight. Above the waterline, she is double planked with cypress and an outer layer of fir running fore and aft and laid tightly edge-to-edge. She will be additionally stiffened by three watertight bulkheads. Above the waterline, she will look much like a modern schooner yacht built in the fisherman tradition but with a Marconi mainsail. She will have no inboard engine but will have an outboard motor that can be hung on a bracket on her rudder. It should move her 4 or 5 knots in smooth water. She is destined to be a charter boat, primarily a day sailer with a professional skipper.
The yard will not do yacht work exclusively. There is a 700-ton marine railway capable of hauling almost any yacht or commercial vessel on the coast. Here it has hauled the three-masted windjammer victory chimes, and the big Nova Scotia fisherman sherman zwicker as well as tugs, yachts and excursion boats of all sizes and materials. Rather unusual was the square-rigged ship bounty built for the movies “Mutiny on the Bounty” and “Pirates of the Caribbean.” She had many of her frames below the waterline replaced and may be back in April to have the ones above the waterline attended to.
The greatest strength of the yard is its skillful and experienced crew. They have worked on many vessels large and small in wood, fiberglass and steel. They have done major repairs on the windjammer roseway, on Coast Guard boats, fishermen and excursion boats, as well as elegant work on fine yachts. The yard is ready to do
machine work, electrical and electronic work, paint and varnish finishing and engine work, both gasoline and diesel. Nearby is the sail loft of Nathaniel Wilson, rigger and sailmaker of international reputation.