by Michael Glenn, Adirondack Chapter
When she was created, Theodore Roosevelt was President of the United States and the Democrats were considering Woodrow Wilson for their candidate in the next election. It was a much simpler time than today, and her contemporaries were from local stock like herself, not from lands far away. Her service would be long, reaching across decades, until finding her way into my heart. Her only name was Whitehall, which was given to her clan, and her origin was a long and mysterious history. Some disagree on where it emerged from, was it northern New York State, at the base of Lake Champlain, or was it in England? Others suggested New York City, where a street bore the same name. In any case, she was admired for her beauty.
Unlike others, beauty was not her only claim; she was stable and quite grounded in being functional, as much a workhorse as an object to behold. Being referred to as feminine is not uncommon, and in the case of the 100-year-old Whitehall that came to be mine, it is appropriate. Her lines are fine and visually attractive with long curves. Her transom takes the shape of a fine wine glass, fully rounded and graceful in appearance, but also graceful in movement. The shape she carried was a trait descended from years of breeding from the hands of craftsman who found her figure served well in larger, ocean-going vessels. These curves gave her movement that sliced through chop and running seas with ease and her upturned nose and shaped stern allowed her to rise over a wave with elegance. Her skeg gave her the ability to track quite true as she glided through the water, carrying a great load with a minimum of freeboard.
She was lapstraked, with planks attached to her frame and to themselves, allowing the planks to “lap” one edge over another. Being the age she is, she was clinker built, where the fasteners are hammered through the intended boards and then bent back at the exit with a cinching iron, making a clinking sound. She was designed to be fast, displacing less water than more traditional rowing boats. At the same time, her stability in choppy water and capacity for cargo made her the workhorse of commercial ports. Her oars were made from a single piece of wood, unlike today’s method of laminating pieces to reduce costs and minimize waste. She was meant to have a long life of beauty and grace, but she held no fear of labor.
No doubt, picnics were packed into her and brought to islands and distant beaches, with cold chicken and biscuits, salads and iced tea, to refuel the person at her oars, pulling on the long oak boards that were fashioned into her only engine, her oars. How many people did her fifteen feet of length hold? A family of seven I imagine, keeping in mind that families were often larger then and included more than two generations. The party would travel from the summer home they owned to a cool, shaded beach, brought by their proud craft that pulled easily under her load, designed with many work applications in mind.
Many a Whitehall has carried a ship’s chandler from his shop out to a ship in the harbor to bring sought after provisions or perhaps repair materials. I don’t imagine my Whitehall has ever worked at this trade, or carried a group of sea-weary sailors from ship to shore for a boarding house, which was another common use. I imagine a father and son had taken her out to catch dinner for the family, hauling in a stringer full of lake trout and perch, with the catch being shown in the air long before the boat slips into her berth at the dock. I can almost taste the bucket of bullheads captured in the spring, when they are the most tender.
I try to imagine her past, with the few morsels of information I was able to glean from the last owner. She had been in only one family for most of her life, bringing pleasure to several generations on Lake Champlain. For the most part she had aged gracefully enough, with little overall damage. Her one blemish was on her port side, where, tied to the dock without the protection of a fender, a small hole was worn though. Her gunwales were bleached by the sun after decades of exposure while dutifully doing her work. Like the scars of any laborer, she bore the scars of her servitude, but there were also marks from sins.
In her latter years, she was removed from the water and stored away. It was always “Someday, I’ll restore her.” Moved from view, her looks began to slip away. Left on the ground, some of her gunwales began to decay, a victim of neglect, her keel exposed to the harming rays of the sun.
Her spruce and oak remains solid overall, and with time and patience, the layers of paint and varnish can be scrubbed away like layers of accumulation on a statue left in the elements. Years of sun-damaged varnish can be removed, to reveal the soft, warm glow of Mother Nature’s gift to the sailor—wood. No longer a desired material for boat makers in general, wood is now the medium of the artist and craftsman. Laboratory formulations cannot give life to a vessel like the once-living grained fiber. The softened keel with be laid out for use as a pattern, no longer able to perform by itself. A twin, of like material but much younger birth, will be made. Layers of fresh paints and varnishes will have to be applied, in the methods of the original maker. A luster will return to her battens and braces. A glow will return with each application of warmed varnish, each coat applied in twenty-four hour intervals, gently so as to highlight her fine features. She will require the constant attention needed by a high maintenance mistress.
Like any mistress, she will bring about jealousy, from my spouse in the time I will have spent with her. Even more will be from those at the marina who envy her. On her bow I’ll place her portfolio, showing her in stages of restoration to be thumbed through by her admirers at boat shows. She can then be proud of her sordid past as well as her regained beauty, detailed in the pages of her pictorial biography.
The only regret I have is that I don’t possess any documentation of her earliest beauty, something that would add greatly to her diary. Her maker remains nameless, giving her a tinge of illegitimacy in title, but her beauty will overcome her lack of proof of her heritage. There is no mistake of her being a Whitehall, no mistake of her beauty, only the aura of mystery surrounding her past, which only adds to her allure. She might be smaller in stature than most in a boat show, but what she lacks in volume she compensates for in presentation. If the only award she brings home is pride, I’ll have won a valuable reward.
beautifully written
Mike- what a beautifully written article! Best of wishes for a great restoration!
I am fond of these little boats simply for their look. The first ones I ever saw was somewhere around 1962 to 1964. It was as a young lad who had been allocated a bit of extra reach while riding my Schwinn bicycle. I was stretching beyond the limitations of sticking to my block where mom could keep a protective eye on me. I pushed my boundaries by a bit and rode down the side of the highway for a short distance to reach my treasure island. The “ Cyclery”. It was a local Bicycle shop specializing in the sale and repair of Schwinn bicycle’s and the sale of spare parts for bicycles. They had everything from the big heavy Huffy tanks to the spindly ram horned multi speed delicate Raleigh English made bikes.
Also, they had recently added an addition to the shop. It was a sales display area and contained small recreational boats. Amongst all the small specialty class racing sailboats were the stunning little longish boats painted in bright white with varnished rub rails, inside trim and mahogany seats with rattan inserts along with polished brass fittings. The hull was of lapstrake configuration, but made of the new fangled material called fiberglass. They were called ‘Whitehall’ and they came in 2 sizes. One was equipped with sales and the other was equipped with a sliding rowing seat along with some fancy orelocks. I have loved those little boats from that day forward.