In Everette Smith's three story barn, a replica of a 1910 era racing boat is taking shape. The wood boat's deck is Spanish cedar that will gleam once the boat is finished. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Some people dream of making things with their hands while they spend their days at the office shuffling papers. Others know from early on that they’re supposed to create with their hands. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham profiles a man who knew his art would be of wood and water:
Transcript
Some people dream of making things with their hands while they spend their days at the office shuffling papers. Others know from early on that they’re supposed to create with their hands. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham profiles a man who knew his art would be of wood and water:
(ambient sound)
At just about any large of expanse of water, you’re likely to find a boat owner who’s found an old wooden powerboat and restored it. The gleaming mahogany or cedar deck is so shiny it looks like plastic.
Here at the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, New York, thousands of people visit every year, but especially when the antique boat owners gather to show off their craft. John MacLean is the Executive Director of the museum.
“These antique boats are extraordinary pieces of furniture. People would pay a fortune to have this kind of craftsmanship in their furniture in their houses. They have to be fabricated so well and the craftsmanship has to be so good because they have to be watertight.”
The wood powerboats were built from the beginning of the 20th century into the 1940’s. But there are a few wood boats that are not nearly that old. A handful of people are still building the boats. Some are replicas of old designs and some are new designs that look like they might have been built 75 years ago.
Everette Smith is among the contemporary boat builders. He started building boats in 1971… when almost no one was building them. He remembers thinking every step in the process seemed to be a major accomplishment.
“I had finished putting my first plank on. I was so proud of it. I pulled the clamps off and I stood back. And it just went ‘pshhkt’ – it sprung off in a bunch of fragments. So, by the time you really get done with it, you know you’ve accomplished something. It’s a pretty remarkable thing. I think the moment, though, is the moment you first get in it on the water. I mean that is a magic moment.”
Well, that kind of seems like an invitation.
(sound of boat starting up)
I asked if we could take one of his new, but old-looking boats – a long racing boat – out on the water.
“We’re in the Saint Lawrence River in the middle of the Thousand Islands just off Clayton, New York. We’re in a reproduction of a 1910 Lierre number boat designed by Charles Mauer. There were originally twenty of them built, so this is number twenty-one. Top speed’s about thirty-five. You know, it’s a smooth ride, but it’s not fast.”
Fast enough. Water splashes the skipper and passenger every time the racing boat hits a wave. Smith jokes about how the original boats quickly added some windshields. Not this one.
Smith says, as a kid, he was inspired by a great uncle who used to carve canoe paddles for the kids in the family. His grandfather and father taught them to maintain and varnish the wood boats that they had then, and his father used to buy boat kits for Smith and his brother to build.
“I am sort of aware of how the older generation might be looking down and thinking about what we’re doing, and there are times I’m really happy because I know that my Great-Uncle George and my grandfather would love the canoe stuff and the small boat stuff. I think they would really dig that.” (laughs)
And Smith’s contemporaries also dig it. Rebecca Hopfinger is curator of special events at the Antique Boat Museum. She says wood boat builders are admired for their craftsmanship, and their determination to pursue their art.
“Well, I think some of the people wish they were Everette. You know, I’ve heard so many guys come through the front doors of the museum and say, ‘Oh, when I have some more time, I’m just going to work in my shop and try and build a boat.’ And, you know, Everette lives it, breathes it every day. So, there’s maybe a little bit of jealousy in a sense, but there certainly is a desire to the work like Everette does.”
Everette Smith says building wood boats just came naturally in a way that a lot of people who came of age in the 1960’s embraced. Smith says he recently read Bob Dylan’s autobiography and it stirred some of the old feelings that lead him to his career.
“And I realized, reading his autobiography, that the wooden boat thing for me was just sort of a natural progression from that time. It was interest in something that was wholesome and demanding and interesting and useful, you know. And it all seems to fall right in place. It was ‘Of course.’ I didn’t have to think it over, ‘Well, am I going to do this?’ It was just like, this is obvious. This is what I want to do. This is what I got to do.”
And apparently, he’ll keep doing it. Because in his shop: nautical hardware, long boards of hardwood, and parts of salvaged antique boat motors – all seem to promise that Everette Smith will be putting a lot more gleaming wood boats on the water.
For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.