Ted Box of Vineyard Haven hopes to launch his 70-plus-foot schooner, a scow, in June. The building of the wooden boat in full view on a vacant lot of the Boch property off Beach Road is visually arresting. The boat building project began over a year ago and is picking up pace.
Gannon and Benjamin Marine Railway, a well-known boatbuilding operation on Beach Road in Vineyard Haven, has a new partner. Ross Gannon and Nat Benjamin have been running the boatyard since 1980 and together have built 50 wooden boats and a far-ranging reputation in preserving the heritage of wooden boat building.
Now, Brad Abbott, who has worked day to day in the shop for nearly two years, has joined with the two in running the business.
The story of the building of the schooner Charlotte is a true Vineyard tale. Tonight at 7 p.m. the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival will open the weekend’s festivities with a documentary about the building of this wooden boat.
The film is called Charlotte. But the title feels too narrow for it is far more than a story about one big sailboat or one beloved boatyard. It is the story of a people and a community with a love of the sea.
Tom Dunlop will speak about his new book Schooner: Building a Wooden Boat on Martha’s Vineyard at the Chilmark Public Library on Wednesday, Sept. 8 at 5:30 p.m.
Cruising World, in its June 2010 issue wrote: “It was the most festive launch in more than a generation: the christening of Rebecca of Vineyard Haven, a 60-foot, 76,000-pound schooner designed and built, plank on frame, at the Gannon & Benjamin Marine Railway, one of the leading traditional boatbuilding yards on the U.S. continent.
Winter is the ideal season when wood shavings fly, drills and sanders sing and Vineyard boat builders assemble and repair boats.
At one of the Island’s smallest boat shops, Rick Brown of Far Cry Boats in Vineyard Haven is working on two. Space is a premium inside his 15 by 36-foot workshop with limited heat. His fragrant shop is at Maciel Marine, next door to John Thayer’s cabinet shop, and has one of the best views of Lagoon Pond. The air smells of fresh-cut oak.
A new boat-building enterprise with a strong educational component
has been launched in the concrete building at Five Corners in Vineyard
Haven.
On Tuesday, Myles Thurlow of West Tisbury was inside lofting the
first of two new 32-foot rowing boats. With volunteer labor and
contributions from the community, they'll be in the water by the
end of the summer.
