MARITIME DESIGN

Call me Ishmael. When Melville's call of the sea came to me, it drew me first to a sweet little pond in central park devoted to the sailing of model boats. A like minded group of young boys joined me under the resident genius, Al Harding, a.k.a. The Kite Man of Nantucket, who built scale clipper ships, German dreadnaughts, and submarines. Al shared with us the mysteries of design and model making, with lead casting, wooden spar making, silk sail gluing always with balance a must and speed a plus. From there he retired to Nantucket to become one of the top five twentieth century kite designers.

In time the scale grew from twenty inches to sixteen feet as I started to build Night Star, a 16' flat bottom sailing skiff in my loft. Upon completion I took out my Wooster Street windows, lashed a line to the radiator one flight above and lowered the boat three stories to the pavement. Our great mistake was to retire for a beer and return to find a parking ticket for the boat firmly attached to the bow. The lady it was built for would later read Moby Dick as we drifted through the lagoons of Long Island.
Strangely two of these same boats were built in other apartments downtown at the same time. I sailed in one around Governors Island and the other became the subject of an amusing cocktail article. Chris Danes and I raced in the historic 6th Annual Harrison Street Regatta, an art race to New Jersey and back with the second boat crossing the finish line, the winner. That year I was assigned as artist trophy maker. I made a beautiful bronze buckle of a small rowboat being swamped in heavy seas. The Harrison Street Regatta was launched from Art Beach, the Battery Park City landfill that stood for five years to settle and was the site for yearly art structures and installations and was a Coney Island of art and sand.

Night Star was retired in a Bellport charity auction and raised money for a good cause.
Ambitions grew as I watched Italian fisherman smoke their twilight pipes while bobbing in an azure sea. I knew I could build the same craft and smoke my pipe one day.

I set out to build a felucca, a model that appeared in the harbors of San Francisco. Dating from the days of Steinbeck and the American model of the Italian fishing boats I saw previously off of Giglio Island.

My great friend, Captain Gifford Whitney directed me to a refined version of that design and offered a sea side south Bronx warehouse in which to build it. The archive design was the thoroughbred of New England surf sailing double enders and had blue blooded designers from the Beetle Whaleboat Company.

The original boats were hauled up on the beach daily by stunted oxen on NoMan's Land Island and could haul, two men, their fishing gear, sailing rig and two thousand pounds of codfish from the surf back up on land. It survived famously with no known casualties in some of the most dangerous waters off Nantucket.

I toiled fourteen months of mornings and tended the shop on Prince Street afternoons and evenings back downtown. It is historically accurate within inches and remains in my use to this day, the beloved Promised Land.

Together we have sailed on weekly journeys across the Long Island Race without motor or radio to make the way up the mystic river and glide down with the historic beauties on river parade day. We have taken the prize "Best Dressed Pirate Boat," on the shores of Bellport, Long Island and tossed many a lobster shell over the side, doused with white wine and the flicker of oil lamps.

My model boats were assembled as a fleet for a wonderful little show in Sag Harbor, Long Island at the Christie Building, affiliated with Wally Findley Galleries, where I exhibited and sold a production line of model boats and some of my old favorites, boats built yearly for years.

Here my dual production, daughter Lily, helping to model Sister, a Gaf-Rigged Cutter, also exhibited at the Small Ships show in Sag Harbor.

Earlier Lily starred in her cat boat baby rocker, covered in Wooden Boat Magazine in 1992.