February 2012
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Object in NYT Home & Garden →
I love reading quotes from NYT and hearing Charlie’s voice in my head. Especially when its things like “Edwardian-Victorian Parlor vibe”. Go Seattle!
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Schooner Hindu Back in the Water
After several months of dedicated effort, the Schooner Hindu was returned to the water in Key West today, very exciting news! I only post this notice because the news has not yet hit the official blog, which I told you to follow some time ago. Judging from the pictures on facebook they are either recovering or still partying, in the grand tradition of Key West and wooden shipbuilders the world...
January 2012
7 posts
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The New South Street Seaport - Here's What I Know
Good news! I recently received an invitation to a party for the re-opening of South Street Seaport Museum in lower Manhattan. The goings-on down there have been pretty mysterious for the last few months, but it looks like they will be opening back up after all, though there are still lots of questions. If you haven’t been following this at all, the basic story is this: South Street Seaport...
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Costa Concordia Disaster on Daily Mail →
It is an enduring part of our long relationship with the sea that big ships inspire complacency, and the sea asserts itself through tragedy. Peace to those lost at Giglio last night.
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December 2011
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November 2011
2 posts
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Mare Liberum - Dory Builders, Teachers, and... →
Decades after John Gardner, two guys from New York have identified the northeast coast fishing dory as a craft to reconnect people to the water. Mare Liberum has come up with a set of plans and an art-based platform for construction and use of this traditional small craft. Check them out, download the PDFs, build yourself a boat over the weekend.
October 2011
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The Project Room, where I will be speaking... →
As a result of the Wawona project and my collaboration with John Grade last winter/spring, I was asked to sit in on a talk about the sculpture as part of the Authorship Project at PR in Seattle. It should be interesting, I will be providing background on Wawona and drawing connections between John’s work and the wooden boat scene: craft, time, adventure, etc. I may also use the forum to...
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Mark Dion's "Oceanomania" exhibit at Monaco →
Conceptual artist Mark Dion has put together a fascinating exhibit of contemporary art and mysterious ocean treasures for two Monaco museums. One part wunderkammer and one part art gallery, the show explores the wonders of the sea and our perceptions of its depth. For treasure, Dion draws on the collection of the Institute Oceanographique, and the art is displayed at the Nouveau Musee National de...
September 2011
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NYT - Boggsville Boatel and Boat-in Theater →
Contemporary artists have taken notice of the waterfront, even in New York, the most lubberly and inwardly-focused of all the coastal cities. Connie Hockaday’s Boggsville Boatel is a new way to experience the funkiness of waterfront culture out in Far Rockaway, Queens, and, by virtue of the age of the boats involved, ot touch a former culture of recreational boating. She has strung together...
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May 2011
6 posts
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The Head and the Heart shot at The Center for...
A shot from the day I let Kyle Johnson and The Head and the Heart on board the Arthur Foss tugboat (remember?) made it into Rolling Stone Magazine this month, the one with Dylan on the cover. Cool huh? Arthur didn’t get in, though; the shot chosen came from later in the day when we wandered down to the Center for Wooden Boats. At least there is still a boat model in the shot. And that...
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Smithsonian "Shipwrecked" Exhibit Controversy on... →
I just listened to this coverage on NPR of a controversial exhibit at the Smithsonian, which I learned about this past weekend at a conference. The exhibit, “Shipwrecked: Tang Treasures and Monsoon Winds” is an exhibit of Chinese ceramics taken from a shipwreck off Belitung Island in Indonesia. These artifacts were “recovered” from the wreck in a less-than-scholarly manner...
April 2011
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Neil Young's Schooner in Yachting Magazine →
In Seattle we have known for some time that Neil Young’s 101’ Baltic topsail schooner W.N. Ragland was for sale. She is moored out on Bainbridge Island in the Sound, awaiting her next assignment. I enjoyed this profile of her in the latest issue of Yachting, in which her unique aesthetic is described, aptly, as...
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My First Byline in WoodenBoat Magazine
An article I wrote has come out in the new issue (220) of WoodenBoat magazine, on newsstands now, or at your doorstep. In which I research, work on, and race a class of powerboats from 1910. The “Number Boats,” first one-design racing class for motor boats, native to the Thousand Islands of New York State. Good stuff, I think. WoodenBoat has been an authoritative source for information...
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Blog of the Restoration of the 1841 New Bedford... →
I heard a really cool anectdote about the Morgan’s restoration from a freind this morning, and found more info on the blog above. Apparently, many futtocks and other timbers being used in the restoration of the ship are almost as old as the ship itself. That may seem ill-advised, but these timbers came from a 100+ year-old timber basin, also called a “pickling pond.”
These were...
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March 2011
4 posts
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"Skin and Bones: Maritime Tattoos in the Life of... →
Do you have an anchor tattoo, and are wondering what to do this weekend? Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut is opening an exhibit on Saturday about maritime tattoos and tattoo culture going back 200 years. Learn the trade.
I would get an anchor myself, but authenticity requires an artist who still does tattoos with a sail-maker’s needle. This may be the place to find one.
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February 2011
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Grays Harbor Historical Seaport Takes Away... →
That damn winch was a pain, far too heavy for my forklift. Luckily GHHSA has a spar shop to support the vessels Lady Washington and Hawaiin Cheiftan (as seen in Pirates of the Caribbean) and was able to bring some good rollers. I enjoy moving immovable objects, but after horsing that load of iron around by myself a few times I let the GHHSA boys figure out how to load it on the trailer.
I...
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Alaska's Digital Photo Archives - A Web-Accessible... →
The digitized archive of the Alaska State History Museum collection of photographs, now web-accessible. A great research tool for the history fishing and boating— and, these days, for fashion and lifestyle design. Expedition vessels loaded with cleaned buck, with the the sports lounging about on deck smoking. Trappers and young Aleut girls on snowshoes, native hunters cleaning walruses, and...
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More Coverage of the Wawona Project from Three... →
Deborah Bach came out to our site last week while the lead rigger and shipwright working on the C.A. Thayer in San Francisco were there to pick up blocks and hardware for the restoration. Thayer is a sister-ship to Wawona, and is owned by San Francisco Maritime Heritage National Park, operated by the National Park Service.
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Three New York Galleries Seek Proposals for... →
This just showed up in my inbox yesterday from a dear friend who knows that one of my missions in life is to make New Yorkers more aware of the water around them. Another is to encourage maritime themes and trades in contemporary art. I am having some success with that last one in Seattle, but the other has been shelved, for now.
This is a good opportunity to hit both, and I am working out...
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“Go on sailing bigger and better oceans? To what end? I knew what single-handed...”
– Ann Davison, towards the end of her book My Ship Is So Small (1956) about her solo trans-Atlantic crossing in 1952. The quote has a defensive ring, now that her accomplishment—she was the first woman to do it—has been overshadowed by the circumnavigations of Krystyna...
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