Why sail

wooden
boats?
A Manifesto
By John M. Watkins
Why wood?

We live in a world of mass-produced, disposable items, a world of virtual things that have no existence
in real time or real space, a world of paper empires and electronic marvels. Contrast a wooden boat to
this: Trees grow from the soil and reach up toward the sun, and their wood is shaped by that hand of a
person according to their notion of what is beautiful and what is right. A wooden boat isn't better than
something popped out of a mold because it is more efficient. Perhaps it isn't better at all. The point is,
it means something different. We like wooden boats not just because of what they are, but because of
how they make us feel. It's a bit like how we relate to people.

My love affair with wooden boats started in Maine. We had been sailing when we lived in northern
France, in a land sailer that looked like a wood-framed buggy with a cotton sail, so my love affair with
sailing started when I was four. We moved to Maine when I was five. When I was eight, my father
bought our first boat, a MerryMac built by Ned McIntosh. She was a 13 ｽ-foot plywood catboat,
simple, stable, and forgiving. We named her the Blue Heron. My father bought sailing lessons from
the previous owner with the boat. He joined the Kittery Point Yacht Club, which had only one
physical asset, a small, ugly dinghy members could use to row out to their moored boats. You would
then sail back to the dock to drop it off for the other members to use.
Soon we were in our first race. I dropped the bailing bucket overboard before the start, and when we
went back to get it, the wind quit as the fog rolled in. After that, the conversation went something like
this:

“Dad?”

“Shhh.”

“Dad?”

“Quiet, I'm racing!”

“Dad, that lobster pot just passed us.”

Eventually the fog lifted and the land appeared from an entirely unexpected location. The wind
increased enough so that we could stem the current. We could see the start-finish line, and the leaders
approaching it in brilliant sunshine on water lightly rippled by the wind.

I was hooked.

My own first boat wasn't a sailboat. My father was an Air Force navigator. He flew into Thailand
when we were stationed on Okinawa, and toured a boatyard when he was there. One of the stock boats
was an eight-foot sampoa, a paddle boat made with three planks cleverly shaped to produce a graceful
and efficient hull. It was made of camphor wood, hammered together with steel nails and sealed with
pitch. It weighed about 20 pounds. With a 100-pound 14-year-old boy in it, the boat had about four
inches of freeboard, mainly provided by the coaming. I can still smell the camphor wood when I think
of that boat.

I remember one day while we were living on Okinawa telling my mother I would paddle down the
beach a couple miles and meet her at the next town. I had thought to go between an island and the
shore, but on arriving at the “island” found that it was a headland I would have to paddle around. Soon
I found myself close to a sheer cliff, paddling a boat intended for the quiet waters of the Thai canals.
The wind was blowing on shore and the water got choppy where the waves hit the cliff and were
reflected back. In those short, sharp seas, as a wave moved along the boat its crest would overtop both
sides of the boat. I realized I could find myself swamped and pushed against the cliff. Following
established maritime custom, I cursed and prayed and bent the paddle in my efforts to get far enough
from the cliff that the waves would be longer. I got to where the waves weren't slopping over the
sides, then found a little beach where I could dump out the water that had reduced my freeboard to
about two inches. Eventually I got to the fishing village where my mother was sketching the scene. I
didn't worry her with an account of my trip. I did learn that good seamanship consists not so much of
the ability to get out of bad situations as it does of having the sense not to get in them.

People talk about kids' self esteem. Some think this means liking yourself. It doesn't. It consists of
knowing you can do things. Helping my dad build a rowboat, making trips in my sampoa, sailing a
dinghy out of sight of land on the East China Sea, all gave me confidence.

It seems to me that I have always had an unwavering and unreasonable belief that I was good at
sailing. If this was not immediately evident, that was because there was just something I didn't yet
know. Once I learned whatever it was, it would become evident that I was good at sailing. Eventually
I was. My father and I came to agree that he could be the captain if I could be the sailing master. He
is a more practical man than I, so his last two boats were glass. I never mastered practicality and
instead have owned a sharpie, a Swampscot dory, a second sampoa, a Yankee One Design, a Snipe,
and a second sharpie that I designed and built myself, all wooden boats. Some were types of boats
most people had never heard of. I've had the pleasure of taking people out for sails on sharpies, a
Bristol Bay sailing gillnetter, and a variety of other classic types of boats. I've had a chance to learn
from classic types, from some that would only tack if you backed the jib to some that could tack with
no steerage way.

Those of us who have owned a series of wooden boats have all at some point said “never again,” or
perhaps even “next time, Tupperware.” And we have all been seduced again by some beauty made of
wood. A wooden boat engages you in a way a glass one never will. Like a small child or an aging
parent, its very survival depends on your willingness to care for it, and like a living thing it has been
created. A wooden boat can fill your heart or break it, cause you to spend your money in completely
impractical ways and monopolize your time and attention. Like any boat, they can make you the
possessor of a small fortune, provided you start with a large one. We know in our hearts it's worth it,
but is it wise? If we are not to loose our treasure, our minds and our lives to such a relationship, we
must band together with others for support, advice and commiseration. Thus the creation of
organizations like the Center for Wooden Boats and publications such as WoodebBoat magazine..

One of the joys of the Center for Wooden Boats is the opportunity to use boats of the sort you would
normally only see pictures of in books. For those of us addicted to the romance of sail, this has given
CWB a distinctive place in the world that no other organization I can think of has tried to occupy. To
rent out boats is one thing; any number of commercial enterprises have done so. To rent out museum
exhibits is quixotic to say the least.

I think it is that very impracticality that attracts volunteers determined to protect and nurture the
organization. Paradoxically, this has given the organization greater strength than any outfit renting
rubber duckies.

The best thing about this alliance of wooden boat enthusiasts is that you can contribute to it what you
are best at. I like introducing people to the joy of sailing, so I teach sailing and take out people on our
free public sails. Some people like to man the nerve center of the organization and be the contact
person at the front desk, or be the person who organizes others. Some prefer the pleasure of
craftsmanship; boats are the ultimate wood project, without a square corner on them.

WoodenBoat is a magazine, but also a community. On a variety of topics related to classic or wooden
boats, if you do a web search, one of the top results will be the WoodenBoat forum. The process of
people talking to each other about wooden boats is creating a base of knowledge people will be
consulting for years to come, at the same time encouraging a sense of community.