Spaulding Wooden Boat Center - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Spaulding Wooden Boat Center (SWBC), in Sausalito, California

Sausalito, California

Sausalito is a San Francisco Bay Area city, in Marin County, California, United States. Sausalito is south-southeast of San Rafael, at an elevation of 13 feet . The population was 7,061 as of the 2010 census. The community is situated near the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, and prior to...

, is a living museum where one can go back in time to experience the days when craftsmen and sailor

Sailor

A sailor, mariner, or seaman is a person who navigates water-borne vessels or assists in their operation, maintenance, or service. The term can apply to professional mariners, military personnel, and recreational sailors as well as a plethora of other uses...

s used traditional skills to build, sail or row classic wood

Wood

Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...

en boats on San Francisco Bay

San Francisco Bay

San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...

.

The center offers tours, classes and special events, as well as sails on the center's fleet of wooden boats. The center is staffed by master craftsmen, history experts, longtime sailors and volunteers committed to preserving and sharing the Center's maritime heritage.

The SWBC is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and tax-exempt California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

public benefit corporation

Public benefit corporation

A public-benefit corporation is a public corporation chartered by a state designed to perform some public benefit.A public authority is a type of public-benefit corporation that takes on a more bureaucratic role, such as the maintenance of public infrastructure, that often has broad powers to...

Mission

The mission of the Spaulding Wooden Boat Center is to restore and return to active use significant, historic wooden sailing vessels; preserve and enhance our working boatyard; create a place where people can gather to use, enjoy, and learn about wooden boats; and educate others about wooden boat building

Boat building

Boat building, one of the oldest branches of engineering, is concerned with constructing the hulls of boats and, for sailboats, the masts, spars and rigging.-Parts:* Bow - the front and generally sharp end of the hull...

skills, traditions and values.

History

The SWBC was originally built as the Spaulding Boatworks on the Sausalito waterfront in 1951 by Myron Spaulding

Myron Spaulding

Myron Spaulding was a renowned American sailor, yacht designer and builder and concert violinist in Sausalito, California.-Life:...

, concert

Concert

A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...

violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

ist, renowned sailor

Sailor

, and yacht

Yacht

A yacht is a recreational boat or ship. The term originated from the Dutch Jacht meaning "hunt". It was originally defined as a light fast sailing vessel used by the Dutch navy to pursue pirates and other transgressors around and into the shallow waters of the Low Countries...

designer and builder.

In 2002 Myron Spaulding’s widow Gladys left the Spaulding Boatworks in charitable trust, with instructions for the trustees to form a non-profit, charitable organization

Charitable organization

A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization . It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization (NPO). It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A...

and living museum

Living museum

A living museum is a type of museum, in which historical events showing the life in ancient times are performed, especially in ethnographic or historical views, or processes for producing a commercial product in terms of technical and technological developments are shown, especially the craft...

.

The Spaulding Boatworks is the oldest marina

Marina

A marina is a dock or basin with moorings and supplies for yachts and small boats.A marina differs from a port in that a marina does not handle large passenger ships or cargo from freighters....

and boatyard on the historic Sausalito waterfront and one of the last remaining wooden boatyards in the San Francisco Bay Area. It has remained largely unchanged and in continuous use since its inception.

Programs

The SWBC offers a range of programs for both the general public and the serious student interested in traditional wooden boat crafts, seagoing skills and educational and fun maritime experiences.

Education

The SWBC's education programs are designed to inform the general public about the historic context, legacy and craft of wooden boat building and use on San Francisco Bay. Since 2007, the SWBC also is home to the Arques School of Traditional Boatbuilding, which offers apprenticeship programs in wooden boat building and traditional maritime skills.

Public education

The SWBC is located on the Sausalito waterfront, and in the future will offer a range of public programs that allow public access to the historic boatyard and the waterfront, including classes, workshops, events and forums on subjects ranging from traditional boatbuilding skills to the preservation of the Sausalito waterfront.

Youth education

The Spaulding Center supports programs in woodworking, boatbuilding, boat restoration, and sailing for youths interested in learning about and enjoying the maritime environment in Sausalito. In the summer of 2007, the Center offered a woodworking program for Marin City young people. In 2008, the Center worked in partnership with local organizations to introduce students aged 12 to 18 to wooden boatbuilding and sailing. Students were taught traditional woodworking skills, then used those skills to build a 12 feet (3.7 m) Norwegian Sailing Pram. Finally, the students learned to sail on San Francisco Bay in the boat they built. Students blogged about their experiences building the boat and learning to sail at Boatbuilders' and Sailors' Blog.

The Arques School of Traditional Boatbuilding

The Arques School of Traditional Boatbuilding opened in June 1996 within the Arques Trust property in the Marinship

Marinship

Marinship Corporation was a shipbuilding company of the United States during World War II, created to build the shipping required for the war effort...

District of Sausalito. It was founded by Bob Darr, who is currently the Program Director and Head Instructor. With a core apprenticeship program of just six students, it is a small school dedicated to developing craftsmen skilled in the art of building boats in the traditional plank on frame methods. The school owes its existence to an endowment provided by the late Donlon Arques who laid the groundwork for the school prior to his death in 1993.

The Arques School education programs at SWBC serve two primary goals: 1) train a new generation of shipwrights who are skilled in traditional methods and crafts, and are enthusiastic ambassadors for the values of hand-crafted wooden boats, and 2) introduce the general public to the experience of traditional sailing by maintaining a fleet of classic wooden boats that can be used in on-the-water public programs.

Classic boat restoration

The Spaulding Wooden Boat Center will continue to restore and preserve important San Francisco Bay wooden boats and communicate the skills and ideals that went into their design, building, and use. The 32 feet (9.8 m) gaff-rigged

Gaff rig

Gaff rig is a sailing rig in which the sail is four-cornered, fore-and-aft rigged, controlled at its peak and, usually, its entire head by a spar called the gaff...

sloop

Sloop

A sloop is a sail boat with a fore-and-aft rig and a single mast farther forward than the mast of a cutter....

Freda, the oldest active sailing yacht on the west coast, is the inaugural Spaulding Center restoration project.

Freda

Freda was built in 1885 in Belvedere, California

Belvedere, California

Belvedere is an affluent city in Marin County, California, United States. Belvedere is located northeast of Sausalito, at an elevation of 36 feet...

by saloon keeper Harry Cookson. Freda has been celebrated for her simple elegance, and called both the Common Man’s Yacht and the Matriarch of San Francisco Bay. She was owned by one of the early commodores of the Corinthian Yacht Club in Tiburon, California

Tiburon, California

Tiburon is an incorporated town in Marin County, California. It occupies most of the Tiburon Peninsula, which reaches south into the San Francisco Bay. The smaller city of Belvedere occupies the south-east part of the peninsula and is contiguous with Tiburon...

. Painstakingly restored in the 1950s

1950s

The 1950s or The Fifties was the decade that began on January 1, 1950 and ended on December 31, 1959. The decade was the sixth decade of the 20th century...

by Harold Sommer, captain of the last wooden tugboat

Tugboat

A tugboat is a boat that maneuvers vessels by pushing or towing them. Tugs move vessels that either should not move themselves, such as ships in a crowded harbor or a narrow canal,or those that cannot move by themselves, such as barges, disabled ships, or oil platforms. Tugboats are powerful for...

on San Francisco Bay, Freda became a fixture in the local Master Mariner fleet regatta

Regatta

A regatta is a series of boat races. The term typically describes racing events of rowed or sailed water craft, although some powerboat race series are also called regattas...

s, but has since suffered from years of deterioration.

Originally built with rock elm

Rock Elm

Ulmus thomasii, the Rock Elm or Cork Elm, is a deciduous tree native primarily to the Midwestern United States. The tree ranges from southern Ontario and Quebec, south to Tennessee, west to northeastern Kansas, and north to Minnesota...

frames, Douglas fir decks

Deck (ship)

A deck is a permanent covering over a compartment or a hull of a ship. On a boat or ship, the primary deck is the horizontal structure which forms the 'roof' for the hull, which both strengthens the hull and serves as the primary working surface...

, black elm and fir hanging knees, fir planks, and lignum vitae

Lignum vitae

Lignum vitae is a trade wood, also called guayacan or guaiacum, and in parts of Europe known as pockenholz, from trees of the genus Guaiacum. This wood was once very important for applications requiring a material with its extraordinary combination of strength, toughness and density...

deadeye

Deadeye

A deadeye is an item used in the standing and running rigging of traditional sailing ships. It is a smallish round thick wooden disc with one or more holes through it, perpendicular to the plane of the disc. Single and triple-hole deadeyes are most commonly seen...

s, Freda embodies the creativity and self reliance of San Francisco Bay wooden boat builders.

Freda, Matriarch of the Bay, is a Web site devoted to the history and restoration of Freda.

Foundry patterns

In May 2007, Lin and Larry Pardey

Lin and Larry Pardey

Lin and Larry Pardey are a married couple famous internationally for their expertise in small boat sailing. They have sailed over 185,000 miles together, having circumnavigated the world both eastabout and westabout. They have also sailed westabout past all the great southern capes, including...

loaned the foundry

Foundry

A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal in a mold, and removing the mold material or casting after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals processed are aluminum and cast iron...

casting

Casting

In metalworking, casting involves pouring liquid metal into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowing it to cool and solidify. The solidified part is also known as a casting, which is ejected or broken out of the mold to complete the process...

patterns for their Lyle Hess-designed 30 foot cutter Taleisin to the safe keeping and management of the SWBC. The patterns will be used for education programs at the Center by the Arques School and loaned to others who wish to have parts cast.

Boat collection

The SWBC will maintain a fleet of restored or newly built wooden sailboat

Sailboat

A sailboat or sailing boat is a boat propelled partly or entirely by sails. The term covers a variety of boats, larger than small vessels such as sailboards and smaller than sailing ships, but distinctions in the size are not strictly defined and what constitutes a sailing ship, sailboat, or a...

s and rowboats that will be available to students at the Center and to the public. The 34-foot gaff rigged sailboat, Polaris, a carvel

Carvel (boat building)

In boat building, carvel built or carvel planking is a method of constructing wooden boats and tall ships by fixing planks to a frame so that the planks butt up against each other, edge to edge, gaining support from the frame and forming a smooth hull...

-built (fir planks butted edge to edge on oak ribs) pumpkinseed sloop, which was built on San Francisco Bay in 1906, is currently available for skippered sails at the Center. Once Freda is restored, it also will be available for sails on San Francisco Bay, as will select boats built by the Arques School of Traditional Boatbuilding.

Wooden Boat Finder

The Spaulding Center offers the free Wooden Boat Finder as a matchmaking service for anyone wishing to sell or buy a wooden boat, or to those seeking others to join in a cooperative venture to own or restore a wooden boat. There is no charge to post an ad and the Spaulding Center takes no share of sales.

The Spaulding Quarterly

The SWBC produces a quarterly publication, The Spaulding Quarterly, on the activities and events of the center.

External links

Spaulding Wooden Boat Center
Brightwork, the Spaulding Wooden Boat Center blog
Freda, Matriarch of the Bay, a Web site devoted to the history and restoration of Freda, a gaff sloop built on San Francisco Bay in 1885
www.woodenboatfinder.org, Spaulding Center-sponsored Wooden Boat Finder wooden boat matchmaking Web site
Arques School of Traditional Boatbuilding, part of the Spaulding Center for Wooden Boats
Spaulding Center Boatbuilders' and Sailors' Blog
Master Mariners Benevolent Association
Richardson's Bay Maritime Association
Marin History Museum
Sausalito Historical Society

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