Re: [bolger] Re: E&D Closes

The same Meadolark?  Absolutely, i'm sure - it looked like my dim memory of a book sketch of Meadowlark, and the lines sing like LFH could make 'em.  I'm surprised a boat like that hailed from one port for so long.

Gisey's quote about sailors and speed hit me spot on - it's something i have been pondering for the last few weeks.  Why stop with widening a hull planform to a flat bottomed box when you can jump even wider to a Wharram style catamaran with cuddy cabin to fly just as shallow and twice as fast?  Did Phil ever seriously work with this direction in hull design?  Why might he not have?

Your continuing micro saga also goes in my box of bittersweet stories about people and their boats.  To build or buy, sell or un-sell, enjoy it so much yet be able to let it go, then welcome it back again.  It's a micro that deserves, like most old boats, far more than it delivers on the market today.  I know what they say, but the two SADDEST, not happiest, days of my life are first when i shell out any money for a boat and then when i have to see her go again sold to someone else.

All the Best,
Stefan

"One gathers peace as a feather in the palm of one's hand."    -anonymous

Stefan Topolski  MD
Assist. Professor, U. of Massachusetts Medical School
Clinical Instructor, U. of New England
Founder and Director of
Caring in Community, Inc.  501(c)3
1105 Mohawk Trail
Shelburne Falls, Ma.




On Sep 9, 2010, at 1:40 PM, Adirondack Goodboat wrote:


Stefan, thanks for the view of E & D. My boatbuilder son Reuben and I went there a few years ago, when I had a hot check in my pocket from selling a Drascombe Lugger, and saw essentially the same scene but were given to understand that elsewhere E & D were building the Sakonnet 22s which were quite successful. We saw a big shoal leeboarder up on stands and went over to it. Standing beside it, I said to Reuben, "I think this is a Meadowlark, LF Herreshoff. My friend Tom McGuane used to have one of these."
Well, up stood a guy in the boat, and told us that that same Meadowlark used to belong to Tom McGuane! And we had a good gam. I've never forgotten either his name, Cushing Gisey, nor his statement: "I pity anybody who wants to go fast in a sailboat."
Not wholly coincidentally it was Tom McGuane who got Joel White to finish the plans for that 22 foot double-ender and had Joe Norton cold mold the original boat, seen on the cover of WB.
So now: Do you suppose that leeboarder you saw was Tom's and Cushing Gisey's Meadowlark? Seems very likely, to me.
Maggie and I sold the Micro in the dark, in Vermont, on the way home from the ACBS festival in Salem (where, for the rest of you, we also saw Stefan Topolski), but the next morning the lady who bought it, who had never had any other boat except a Tortoise, decided she had taken too big a step. So she and her husband towed the boat back to me next day!
I didn't mind buying it back at all and Maggie didn't either. Plus we got three jars of her wild-fruit jelly.
 
Mason
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2010 10:33 AM
Subject: Re: [bolger] Re: E&D Closes

 

I feel very sad, but not surprised, about this news.  I visited E&D a year ago this month to enquire about shallow draft boats.  I had been in Newport that day talking to IYRS about a yacht restoration we were finishing up.  The yacht needed a new home. Long story.  


So i thought i'd duck over the bridge to see where Dovekies had been built and to see what the yard was doing now.  Their website was popping.  They had a 30-odd year anniversary regatta.  Should be fun...

Instead you could hear the memories lying in the dust and bushes everywhere you turn.  You drive down the winding dirt road past encroaching vacation homes to its end near the head of an inlet with Buzzard's Bay in the distance.  A half dozen large red boat sheds, full size barns really, for the building and storing of boats all sat shuttered.  Newly posted barely weathered paper signs on some announced th at the contractors renting and anything within had to go as of some date now past.  The other barns were too deep in the brush to really get to.

Standing near the travel lift were a few nice old and newer boats, fg and wood, standard fin keels mostly but even still a large shallow draft leeboarder hefting some 8,000 pounds.  The one working building had two small boats and a lot of empty space in her working half while the offices alongside inside had but a part-time caretaker.  Beautiful but old photos lined the walls. The launch ramp/slings are silting up.

Environmental and other regulations keep them from dredging.  Property taxes and other costs skyrocket while boats glut and boat values plunge.  The Dovekie and Shearwater hull forms lie out back in the weeds still working for the yard as garbage bins collecting rainwater in good times.  The caretaker tells me that even driving like a bat out of h-ll to put out 3 Dovekies a week at their peak they still couldn't turn a real profit.  Now they might be able to make me a hull blank, but  the fellow watching over the place said that the supplier of the custom stainless fittings is dead and they couldn't finish a Dovekie or fit it out.

E&D didn't feel alive.  The best of times were long behind them.  That was one d-mn depressing day for me.  

All the Best,
Stefan

"One gathers peace as a feather in the palm of one's hand."    -anonymous

Stefan Topolski 


----------------------------------------

On Sep 3, 2010, at 2:42 PM, prairiedog2332 wrote:

This was the production builder of the Bolger Dovekie and Shearwater.
Peter Duff a long time friend of Mr. Bolger, can maybe take some of the
credit for starting this whole minimal, shallow water ca mper cruising
thing that has smitten many of us.

They also produced production Stone Horse 23's, the Sam Crocker classic
that maybe influenced PCB's attraction to the benefits of the raised
flush foredeck designs.

http://www.boatus.com/jackhornor/sail/stonehorse.asp

Nels

--- In bolger@yahoogroups.com, Bruce Hallman <hallman@...> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 8:01 AM, prairiedog2332 arvent@... wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > http://boatinglocal.com/news/edey-duff-c loses.html
> >
> > Nels
> >
>
> Is this is the boat yard that was home to the live aboard Resolution,
> and lifetime hangout place for PCB?
>





Stefan, thanks for the view of E & D. My boatbuilder son Reuben and I went there a few years ago, when I had a hot check in my pocket from selling a Drascombe Lugger, and saw essentially the same scene but were given to understand that elsewhere E & D were building the Sakonnet 22s which were quite successful. We saw a big shoal leeboarder up on stands and went over to it. Standing beside it, I said to Reuben, "I think this is a Meadowlark, LF Herreshoff. My friend Tom McGuane used to have one of these."
Well, up stood a guy in the boat, and told us that that same Meadowlark used to belong to Tom McGuane! And we had a good gam. I've never forgotten either his name, Cushing Gisey, nor his statement: "I pity anybody who wants to go fast in a sailboat."
Not wholly coincidentally it was Tom McGuane who got Joel White to finish the plans for that 22 foot double-ender and had Joe Norton cold mold the original boat, seen on the cover of WB.
So now: Do you suppose that leeboarder you saw was Tom's and Cushing Gisey's Meadowlark? Seems very likely, to me.
Maggie and I sold the Micro in the dark, in Vermont, on the way home from the ACBS festival in Salem (where, for the rest of you, we also saw Stefan Topolski), but the next morning the lady who bought it, who had never had any other boat except a Tortoise, decided she had taken too big a step. So she and her husband towed the boat back to me next day!
I didn't mind buying it back at all and Maggie didn't either. Plus we got three jars of her wild-fruit jelly.
 
Mason
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent:Thursday, September 09, 2010 10:33 AM
Subject:Re: [bolger] Re: E&D Closes

 

I feel very sad, but not surprised, about this news.  I visited E&D a year ago this month to enquire about shallow draft boats.  I had been in Newport that day talking to IYRS about a yacht restoration we were finishing up.  The yacht needed a new home. Long story.  


So i thought i'd duck over the bridge to see where Dovekies had been built and to see what the yard was doing now.  Their website was popping.  They had a 30-odd year anniversary regatta.  Should be fun...

Instead you could hear the memories lying in the dust and bushes everywhere you turn.  You drive down the winding dirt road past encroaching vacation homes to its end near the head of an inlet with Buzzard's Bay in the distance.  A half dozen large red boat sheds, full size barns really, for the building and storing of boats all sat shuttered.  Newly posted barely weathered paper signs on some announced th at the contractors renting and anything within had to go as of some date now past.  The other barns were too deep in the brush to really get to.

Standing near the travel lift were a few nice old and newer boats, fg and wood, standard fin keels mostly but even still a large shallow draft leeboarder hefting some 8,000 pounds.  The one working building had two small boats and a lot of empty space in her working half while the offices alongside inside had but a part-time caretaker.  Beautiful but old photos lined the walls. The launch ramp/slings are silting up.

Environmental and other regulations keep them from dredging.  Property taxes and other costs skyrocket while boats glut and boat values plunge.  The Dovekie and Shearwater hull forms lie out back in the weeds still working for the yard as garbage bins collecting rainwater in good times.  The caretaker tells me that even driving like a bat out of h-ll to put out 3 Dovekies a week at their peak they still couldn't turn a real profit.  Now they might be able to make me a hull blank, but  the fellow watching over the place said that the supplier of the custom stainless fittings is dead and they couldn't finish a Dovekie or fit it out.

E&D didn't feel alive.  The best of times were long behind them.  That was one d-mn depressing day for me.  

All the Best,
Stefan

"One gathers peace as a feather in the palm of one's hand."    -anonymous

Stefan Topolski 


----------------------------------------

On Sep 3, 2010, at 2:42 PM, prairiedog2332 wrote:


This was the production builder of the Bolger Dovekie and Shearwater.
Peter Duff a long time friend of Mr. Bolger, can maybe take some of the
credit for starting this whole minimal, shallow water ca mper cruising
thing that has smitten many of us.

They also produced production Stone Horse 23's, the Sam Crocker classic
that maybe influenced PCB's attraction to the benefits of the raised
flush foredeck designs.

http://www.boatus.com/jackhornor/sail/stonehorse.asp

Nels

--- In bolger@yahoogroups.com, Bruce Hallman <hallman@...> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 8:01 AM, prairiedog2332 arvent@... wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > http://boatinglocal.com/news/edey-duff-c loses.html
> >
> > Nels
> >
>
> Is this is the boat yard that was home to the live aboard Resolution,
> and lifetime hangout place for PCB?
>

I feel very sad, but not surprised, about this news.  I visited E&D a year ago this month to enquire about shallow draft boats.  I had been in Newport that day talking to IYRS about a yacht restoration we were finishing up.  The yacht needed a new home. Long story.  

So i thought i'd duck over the bridge to see where Dovekies had been built and to see what the yard was doing now.  Their website was popping.  They had a 30-odd year anniversary regatta.  Should be fun...

Instead you could hear the memories lying in the dust and bushes everywhere you turn.  You drive down the winding dirt road past encroaching vacation homes to its end near the head of an inlet with Buzzard's Bay in the distance.  A half dozen large red boat sheds, full size barns really, for the building and storing of boats all sat shuttered.  Newly posted barely weathered paper signs on some announced that the contractors renting and anything within had to go as of some date now past.  The other barns were too deep in the brush to really get to.

Standing near the travel lift were a few nice old and newer boats, fg and wood, standard fin keels mostly but even still a large shallow draft leeboarder hefting some 8,000 pounds.  The one working building had two small boats and a lot of empty space in her working half while the offices alongside inside had but a part-time caretaker.  Beautiful but old photos lined the walls. The launch ramp/slings are silting up.

Environmental and other regulations keep them from dredging.  Property taxes and other costs skyrocket while boats glut and boat values plunge.  The Dovekie and Shearwater hull forms lie out back in the weeds still working for the yard as garbage bins collecting rainwater in good times.  The caretaker tells me that even driving like a bat out of h-ll to put out 3 Dovekies a week at their peak they still couldn't turn a real profit.  Now they might be able to make me a hull blank, but  the fellow watching over the place said that the supplier of the custom stainless fittings is dead and they couldn't finish a Dovekie or fit it out.

E&D didn't feel alive.  The best of times were long behind them.  That was one d-mn depressing day for me.  

All the Best,
Stefan

"One gathers peace as a feather in the palm of one's hand."    -anonymous

Stefan Topolski 


----------------------------------------

On Sep 3, 2010, at 2:42 PM, prairiedog2332 wrote:

This was the production builder of the Bolger Dovekie and Shearwater.
Peter Duff a long time friend of Mr. Bolger, can maybe take some of the
credit for starting this whole minimal, shallow water camper cruising
thing that has smitten many of us.

They also produced production Stone Horse 23's, the Sam Crocker classic
that maybe influenced PCB's attraction to the benefits of the raised
flush foredeck designs.

http://www.boatus.com/jackhornor/sail/stonehorse.asp

Nels

--- In bolger@yahoogroups.com, Bruce Hallman <hallman@...> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 8:01 AM, prairiedog2332 arvent@... wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > http://boatinglocal.com/news/edey-duff-closes.html
> >
> > Nels
> >
>
> Is this is the boat yard that was home to the live aboard Resolution,
> and lifetime hangout place for PCB?
>


--- Inbolger@yahoogroups.com, "prairiedog2332" <arvent@...> wrote:
>
> This was the production builder of the Bolger Dovekie and Shearwater.
> Peter Duff a long time friend of Mr. Bolger, can maybe take some of the
> credit for starting this whole minimal, shallow water camper cruising
> thing that has smitten many of us.
>
> They also produced production Stone Horse 23's, the Sam Crocker classic
> that maybe influenced PCB's attraction to the benefits of the raised
> flush foredeck designs.
>
>http://www.boatus.com/jackhornor/sail/stonehorse.asp
>
> Nels
>
>
> --- Inbolger@yahoogroups.com, Bruce Hallman <hallman@> wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 8:01 AM, prairiedog2332 arvent@ wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >http://boatinglocal.com/news/edey-duff-closes.html
> > >
> > > Nels
> > >
> >
> > Is this is the boat yard that was home to the live aboard Resolution,
> > and lifetime hangout place for PCB?
> >
>
The Montgomery Boatyard on the Annisquam River in Gloucester was the home of Resolution; she sits not far from there now...on the hard.
This was the production builder of the Bolger Dovekie and Shearwater.
Peter Duff a long time friend of Mr. Bolger, can maybe take some of the
credit for starting this whole minimal, shallow water camper cruising
thing that has smitten many of us.

They also produced production Stone Horse 23's, the Sam Crocker classic
that maybe influenced PCB's attraction to the benefits of the raised
flush foredeck designs.

http://www.boatus.com/jackhornor/sail/stonehorse.asp

Nels


--- Inbolger@yahoogroups.com, Bruce Hallman <hallman@...> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 8:01 AM, prairiedog2332 arvent@... wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >http://boatinglocal.com/news/edey-duff-closes.html
> >
> > Nels
> >
>
> Is this is the boat yard that was home to the live aboard Resolution,
> and lifetime hangout place for PCB?
>
On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 8:01 AM, prairiedog2332 <arvent@...> wrote:
>
>
>
>http://boatinglocal.com/news/edey-duff-closes.html
>
> Nels
>

Is this is the boat yard that was home to the live aboard Resolution,
and lifetime hangout place for PCB?