wooden boat: Setting sail
Crafted of wood in the shipbuilding tradition, 38-foot schooner makes its debut this weekend in Gloucester's Parade of Sail
By David Rattigan, Globe Correspondent | September 3, 2006
ESSEX -- The answer to the question Harold Burnham has been asked most often over the last year is scrawled in spray paint on a plank that's tacked to a cabinet in his boatyard. It reads, ``We will launch her when she's done."
homemade sign reads, ``No drinky drinky until splashy splashy."
Since the fall of 2005, when he started milling the wood of a thick tree trunk that would become the keel, Burnham has been working on the Isabella, a wooden schooner that is scheduled to make its debut in today's Parade of Sail at the Gloucester Schooner Festival .
Shipbuilding has been part of Essex's history since the 1600s, when travel along the coast and down river was the region's most important form of transportation. Over the centuries, more than 4,000 wooden vessels have been built in the town, according to Tom Ellis, president of the Essex Historical Society and Shipbuilding Museum. Essex vessels were distinguished not just by volume but by quality and innovation, he said. ``They were the envy of sailors all over the world."
Production methods have changed, but traditional wooden shipbuilding is alive at Burnham's Shipyard, from the use of wood milled on site to the recognition of centuries-old rituals.
Last November, there was a public celebration at the yard for the laying of the keel to signal the ``official" start of the project. Attendees were allowed to write their names on what would become the vessel's spine. Earlier this month, the shipyard held a formal boat launch, which drew an estimated crowd of 2,000. They watched from vantage points around the inlet and cheered as the 38-foot, 20-ton vessel was tipped on its side and eased along the greased launchway into the water.
The tradition also includes building the boat by the water's edge, to be observed by those sailing past. With the help of modern technology, the project also could be viewed via an automatically updating webcam on the website of the Essex Shipbuilding Museum (www.EssexShipbuildingMuseum.org), which is located next door to the boatyard, at the Town Landing.
``All the methods we use to build these boats are as efficient as they ever were," said Burnham, 39, who learned many of the techniques as a teenager, observing Brad Story, a prolific boat builder from another old Essex family, who operated a boatyard in the buildings that now house the museum. He learned of other old-time methods through photographs and historical documents.
Burnham began building wooden vessels in the traditional way starting 10 years ago, with the 65-foot schooner Thomas E. Lannon, which was commissioned by Ellis and launched in 1997. This is the fourth traditional schooner built by Burnham, who is the 28th Burnham to operate a shipyard in Essex since 1819.
Burnham said he can build a vessel in the traditional way and charge the same price, or less, than an owner would pay for a comparable new boat.
``Those techniques and ways that we do it have been handed down in this town for almost 400 years," he said. ``The nice thing is, there's an awful lot of people in the next generation that worked on this boat and will be able to use those methods to take on more projects, as long as people like Bill Greene want a well-built wooden vessel," he said, referring to the boat owner who commissioned the project.
Burnham doesn't use those methods solely as historical curiosity, he said, but because they deliver better quality for the cost than other methods. And while he builds in a traditional way, using wood carved from a tree trunk, the Isabella is a new design, not a replica.
Burnham isn't exactly sure how many people have worked on the project, but said that the ``mad rush" of work being done in the last few weeks is typical of the end of any boat-building project.
``There's a lot of interesting characters in this yard," Burnham said, noting that many enjoy the challenge of the work. ``If you're building something and it's just spreading goo into a mold, it's just not the same. When this boat goes away, it will be rewarding not only to the owner, who will reap the benefits of all these people's work, but everybody will look at it and see a different thing."
Francis Cleary of Gloucester, who has worked as a carpenter on both houses and boats for 25 years, said he enjoys the nature of the work, and the variety. ``It's all custom work," Cleary said. ``You can go buy a real nice sailboat for a lot less than this, as a production boat, but you wouldn't have nearly the boat, and wouldn't have the uniqueness."
Neither the builder nor the owner has divulged Isabella's price.
This is the second
wooden boat John Miles has helped build. The retired Lynn firefighter said the work presents multiple challenges. The wood of the hull, for instance, has to be milled in a precise pattern that will mirror a matching piece on the other side of the hull. ``If it's not right, as soon as you put it up, you'll see it," he said.
In comparison to building houses, he noted, ``You don't have to cut two-by-fours out of trees."
Burnham recently purchased the flagship of the Bath Maritime Museum in Maine, and plans to refit it for use as a commercial passenger vessel next summer out of Gloucester. He also plans to do some work on the historic Schooner Adventure, a large, long-term restoration project out of Gloucester.
He doesn't have a commission for a new boat, but noted that frequently, one job comes from the previous one and the celebration that surrounds the continuation of a town tradition.
``Almost all of the customers I've had from the last few years have come from the launch," he said. ``Having lived through it, [the owners] all appreciate it."
Asked if he is sad to see the vessels go at the end of the project, he said, chuckling, ``No -- God no -- I can't wait to see them go."
``The end of every project is pretty intense. There's a lot going on, everybody's got a lot at stake, everyone's in a rush. It's natural for it to be that way. What's really nice is a year or two years later when you're sailing along the coast and bump into everybody. That's when everybody's happy to see you.
``When you're in the thick of it, it's pretty intense, but the memories are fond ones."
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
