Slocum`s Spray

Wow, good to see she's still going strong. Dudley produced a really excellent job on her. We did a lot of wood scrounging together since the boats were built ten feet apart and all of our PO cedar we used for frame and plank came from the same mill.
First pic: BERTIE being framed in foreground with HERMANAS Y HERMANOS, now NORTHERN SPRAY behind.
Second: The same but closer.
After Dudley did some serious commercial fishing and then a cruise to Central America, the boat was sold to a Canadian, who hired me to skipper it to Bremerton WA from SF Bay.
That was quite a trip with a really horrendous night time gale off Cape Mendocino and a failed alternator, leaving us without lights or electronics but with the diesel running fine... The wind so strong that under bare poles the gusts put the bulwarks under water.
That owner later cut out the bridge deck and converted the interior into more of an apartment with a shower and everything but his wife left him anyway.
A writer bought it and lived aboard at the Vancouver Maritime Museum for a time, then I lost track.
This is a deal at 40k.

 

BERTIE is headed from Port Townsend WA far North to the Queen Charlotte Islands, Haida Gw'aii, the "Galapagos of the Northwest", for a voyage of exploration.
If you are interested follow on BERTIE's Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bertie/146605035522005

 

It's a schooner that's for sure. According to wikipedia the Joshua Lochum yacht named Spray looked like below.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Slocum
While Herreshof build very nice schooners that were even replicated nowadays. That looked exactly like the second picture.
But I can't find the yards link anymore so I guess they have quited that.
Don't you think the schooner in the first post of this thread looks more like the herreshof-type?

 

Schakel -- Slokems boat as shown is a gaff rigged cutter. The outside forestay presently has no jib hanked on. A true schooner like shown in your second photo always has two masts with the aft being taller than the fore, the sails being gaff rigged, along with a bow sprit. This one is designed with a clipper bow verses the spoon bow. There are variations of the schooner which I like to call quazi schooners in which the aft sail is marconi rigged. or both masts are of the same height equipped with both sails gaff rigged or the aft marconi and the fore gaff rigged. The other variation is without a bow sprit and possibly again the combination of gaff and marconi rigged sails. These are commonly called the knockabout. The "bald headed" schooner also as a rule not equipped to run topsails.

 

True, But does anyone know the yard that started to build the Herreshof Schooner replica's?

 

I would think initally possibly one or two in Maine but as time went by several different yards were involved all the way from Nova Scotia to New York depending on which one the Designer and/or customer chose and/or which yard had an opening in their build schedule. Herreshoff along with Burgess often presentd articles in Rudder Magazine on Herreshoff's designs and builds so research there might give you an idea who the prime builders were.

 

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=herreshoff replica schooner&ei=UTF-8&fr=yff80c

 

Christ what more can one ask for thats like a library on the subject. Hey Bataan when you get up to the Charlottes --say hi to me distant cousins the families Gillard. Have a good trip I'll be trackin ya ---Geo.

 

20 second Yahoo search. I am liking the 21st century.

 

I found a description:

Perception

Perception was built in 1983 in New Zealand with a steel hull on a
L. Francis Herreshoff 1924 design.
She is owned and Captained by James Weisman .
She is 68 ft overall and 50 ft on deck and charters out of Vineyard Haven,
Martha’s Vineyard. But not anymore. Can't find her

http://www.provincetownschoonerrace.com/schooners2009_4guest.html
In the Herreshof site about design by year:
http://www.herreshoff.org/hmm/herreshoff_boat_collection.html

Another one:
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/death-to-false-yacht-rock.219933/page-10

So enough data about Francis and Nathiel (his son) Herreshof.
But the yard thay build these replica? I guess they quitted otherwise they would have been on-line.

I found one that comes close on Yacht world:
http://nl.yachtworld.com/boten/1978...-Ketch-1438614/country.frankrijk#.UZOSu7WeP4t

And she lies in Southern France for only 75.000 Euro.
Lots of restauration I supose.

 

Spray-boat trip

BERTIE, the modified SPRAY often seen in these posts, recently returned from a 3 1/2 month trip from Port Townsend WA, up the inside passage to the Broughton group, then to Prince Rupert, across Hecate Strait to Haida Gwaii for real wilderness cruising, then a passage South to Vancouver Island again and down the West coast there and back to PT. In all, about 2000 miles.
Attached are some photos from the trip and the only words that come to mind are awesome, tremendous, fabulous, overwhelming, beautiful and more.
Building boats is fun, but using them is better.
Here's a Facebook link to the boat's page if anyone is interested.

 

Link https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bertie/146605035522005?ref=hl

 

Beautiful pics & thanks for sharing

 

Selling the dream

Mr. Slocum was a literary genius, sailing around the world alone is about as riveting as a book can get on adventure. I doubt Spray would have such major place in maritime popularity if it wasn't for Mr slocums own ability as a super salesman of his day. His adventure really was a publicity tour and he took full advantage of that even at ports of call.

 

I agree. The Captain was a self-promoter as capable as he was a seaman.
The beauty was his lyrical writing combined with true adventure resulting in a very influential book that has been continuously in print since I think 1899. The boat performs exactly as he claimed and I think his genius was in recognizing what a uniquely good design the original was and just what crazy voyage he could realistically complete in her, given his very deep knowledge of seagoing sail.
By adding a foot or so of hull depth he turned an oyster dredger into an ocean-going small ship that still works well today since the ocean has not changed one little bit.
Thank you Captain for your relentless self-promotion since it gave you an income and a story we still read today.