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FRED'S
BOAT SHOP (Page 3 of 7)
"My father operated the boat shop as his main source of income only
intermittently. During the 1950s, he was also a house building
contractor, and during the 1960s he operated an aluminum window business
out of the boat shop building. During the 1970's he was employed at the
Boston Naval Shipyard in Boston. Among the boats he worked on there was
the USS Constitution ("Old Ironsides"). Besides building and renovating
boats and offering winter storage, Fred's Boat Shop was also a dealer of
the Gloucester Sea Jacket line of marine finishes. Fred's Boat Shop was
a popular storage yard for lobstermen and owners of small wooden
pleasure boats. The location in tidal water of the North River (only 1/4
mile from downtown Salem) meant that boats could only be hauled out or
launched at high tide (whatever time of day or night that happened to
be), and the railway was limited to use by boats with a draft of, at the
very most, about six feet. Launching a six foot draft boat usually had
to be done during the very highest tides, which in the spring happens
only around midnight during a full moon.
"As a child, I was often assigned the job of starting the fire in the
pot-bellied stove. There was always an ample supply of sawdust,
shavings, and wood scraps. For fun, I would carve sticks into boat
shapes and launch them in the North River, or walk around on the boat
cradles floating in the river for storage. Later I became an avid reader
of books by marine architects L. Francis Herreshoff and Howard Chapelle
and considered a career in marine architecture. (An interesting detail
in Chapelle's 1936 book Yacht Design and Planning is that crow quill
pens are preferred over goose quill pens for drawing fine lines.)
"Among the boats that have been stored at Fred's Boat Shop have been a
6-meter class racing sloop originally owned by the King of Sweden. This
boat always required the very highest tides of the year (midnight in the
spring, noon in the fall). Another interesting boat was the 13' flatiron
skiff Mudlark designed and built by sailmaker David Howard, as well as
the crabbing skiff Howard bought and restored. As a sailmaker, Dave
designed and made his own sails and liked to experiment. He designed a
half dozen different sailing rigs for the crabbing skiff before deciding
on a standing lug, and even had a miniature spinnaker for the Mudlark.
(Story continued
on page 4.)
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KNOW OF A BOAT
THAT NEEDS SAVING?
TELL BONE
YARD BOATS!
LOOKING
FOR A PROJECT BOAT?
YOU'VE
COME TO THE RIGHT PLACE!
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