By John Amaral, ACBS member
Block Island Double-enders are a boat type you don’t often see. No original still exists and replicas, like Saudades, are rare. Its a modest, but heavy-built lapstrake boat that sprang from the essential needs of simple fishermen: cheap to build, simple to hand, predictable, stable, safe. Evolved over longtime daily use and shaped by the unforgiving requirements of the open ocean, only those changes that best met fishing crooked waters year round – at the least out of pocket cost, were adopted. Saudades’ open cockpit, evolved for commercial fishing, is spacious for sportfishing, daysailing family and friends to a favorite beach or harbor. It features a full canvas cover that can be closed off for overnighting, or half closed to use the head in private.
They were famed for their ruggerd construction, From their appearance in the 1840s until the growing adoption of automobile engine power in the early 1900s, which resulted in the need for a boat with a wide stern, the double-ender fleet annually averaged about 50 boats. All came home safely with their crew, except two: one hit a rock off Pt. Judith, and the other was listed as: “Gone missing.”
Mystic Seaport Museum’s Glory Anna II, built by Paule Loring of Wickford, Rhode Island in 1948, swings in season to her mooring on the Thames River just off the Museum’s docks. She was the first replica built to lines Loring took off the last hulk rotting away on a Block Island beach, plans later published in Howard Chapelle’s American Small Sailing Craft. Besides insuring the survival of the Block Island Double-ender, Loring was a well-known marine artist, cartoonist and creator of the Down-east cartoon curmudgeon lobsterman, “Dud Sinker.”
In 1985, Daniel Blake of Vicksburg, Mississippi, liking the “rightness” of the Block Islander’s lines in Chapelle’s book, built Merry Savage. But she was not shoal enough for the ever shifting sand bars of of the Mississippi and not long after, Dan sold her to Tom Farbanish, who brought her to Lake Champlain, Vermont.
An avid catboat fan, I had purchased a summer house in Wickford, Rhode Island which featured a large catboat fleet. The Fall of 1998, having lost my racing crew to Silicon Valley and sold my Marshall 22, I began my search for my next “last boat” which I wanted to be wooden and traditional.One Tuesday in mid- February 1999, reviewing boat listings in “TheWant Advertiser” Tom’s ad caught my eye: “Wooden Block Island double-ender. Hull, sails in good condition. Homemade trailer included.” Listed was a reasonable asking price, and a Pennsylvania phone number. I called immediately.
“Yes, the boat is still for sale.” Tom confirmed her condition, and location… a mountain side in White River Junction, Vermont! Arrangements were made to see her the following Saturday.
Within an hour of arriving with a friend and surveying the boat, I called Tom from a pay phone at the local general store: “Consider her sold. I will send you a check as soon as I get home.” Tom would deliver my new boat to Wickford the following May. When she arrived, I asked local wooden boatbuilding guru, George Zachorne, to survey her. He confirmed my survey, and, as he was getting into his pickup, he paused: “You know, Paule Loring used to have one just like her here in Wickford.” Until then, never having heard of Loring or Blake,
I knew nothing of the debt I owed to Paule Loring, Howard Chapelle, and Daniel Blake.
A few busy weeks later, after replacing two punky stern deck boards; re-canvassing and bedding both bow and stern decks; designing, making and “Dolphinite” bedding sheet copper head covers for both stem and stern posts; applying leather chaffing gear to oar lock receivers and bow mooring chock; sanding /oiling walnut thwarts and locust blocks; sanding/painting topside planking, decks, ribs, and floors; copper painting her bottom; and swelling her up, she was christened Saudades and launched into her ancestral home waters of Narragansett Bay – at the very same Pleasant Street Wharf abutting the house where Paule Loring had lived.
While famous for being very seaworthy, Block Island double-enders are neither known for being fast, nor for coming about smartly. She has surprised a few while tearing along on a beam reach in strong winds, carrying sail while they are well reefed-down. But with her heavy scantlings, deep drag, generous beam, and all those laps that are so lovely to look at, but which provide maximum wetted surface, and a paradise for barnacles, sea lice, and marine salad of all colors and textures, she was not going to be fast. Then, I have always opined that “fast” on a sailboat is an oxymoron.
Three months after her launching, while off Fox Island and reaching south down Narragansett Bay toward the Jamestown Verazzano Bridge, a small powerboat coming north, made a decisive hard turn toward us. Turning abreast and slowing to match our pace, its captain, Gregg Coppa, local boating author asked, “Are we looking at a Block Island Double-ender?” I confirmed that they were. Gregg explained that as a boy sailing Sprites and Blue Jays out of Wickford Harbor, he frequently saw a nearly identical boat, the Glory Anna II, owned by renowned local marine artist and colorful character Paule Loring. It suddenly struck me: we were confirming the Block Islanders’ promise: Saudades had “Come home.” She had come full-circle.
This is a terrific story – it vividly captures what vintage boating is all about.
Thanks, John, for saving this classics lapstrake double-ender
Sorry I don’t remember seeing her on my “home” waters of Lake Champlain, but glad she is now “Home” again in Narraganset Bay
It’s my pleasure to have done so. Thank you for your kind words. Saudades now lives in New Hampshire, I have just been told by the man to whom I entrusted her, Will Robinson, that she may soon move home to Block Island and new owners there.