This image graced the cover of Jim’s homemade book about *Vintage*.

All of these words and images are taken from a book compiled by Vintage’s original owner, Jim Mitchell, when he was ninety-four years old.

PREAMBLE

Why does it happen that I dream about VINTAGE so often; about sailing on her and sitting in her cabin after a day's sail; about the warmth of her cabin with the cook stove heating up and her wood fire aglow. It doesn't make sense. After all, I'm 94. I've had at least five careers. We've got grand children and great grand children as well as two daughters. I've a wife whom I love dearly.

One of my careers with my wife as partner involved the founding of an award-winning vineyard and winery, the first in Rhode Island. In addition to all this I built and owned several boats in my lifetime including my first schooner, HAE YONG, (Korean for Sea Dragon) which I built in Korea and sailed in the Yellow Sea. Later I sailed her from Panama to Boston. It's because of her that I wanted to return to the schooner rig for a new cruising boat after we retired from the vineyard.

The more I think about this the more I've come to realize that the period we owned VINTAGE was one of the happiest I have ever had. We had sold our winery, we were free to do other things.

VINTAGE suited me perfectly, and I couldn't imagine a better vessel for our needs. Therefore, she remains in my mind as an almost perfect fit. Why?

No boat is perfect! Only certain boats are close to perfect for certain uses. Like other schooner rigged craft, VINTAGE is certainly no exception. From my wife Lolly's standpoint, we were exposed to the weather while on deck and at the helm. We got wet and cold at times. Raising sails is a slow and somewhat tiring process. The vessel is quite large for two people. Therefore, handling her takes a fair bit of room. Like all schooners she doesn't perform as well as some other craft when going to weather. She requires strength and a certain amount of agility.

But, these problems pale in comparison to VINTAGE'S advantages. Schooners are one of the best choices for long distance cruising. The divided sail plan lends itself to different combinations dependent on wind strength, and if it's properly designed, a schooner will almost sail itself on various headings. Off the wind a schooner can out run almost any other craft of similar size.

Perhaps best of all, VINTAGE has accommodations to rival a cabin in the woods! Below decks are two separate cabins plus a forepeak. The aft cabin has two separate berths of full household size with drawers below. Between them is a desk and chair with book shelves above. Two doors lead forward. One opens to a head and sink with hanging space. The other opens into a work and tool room. Between these two spaces is the engine, fully accessible from both sides.

The forward cabin is the heart of the boat with its wood stove which is both cook stove and heat source. It sits at the forward end of the cabin, flanked by a sink on one side and icebox on the other, a box that holds up to 150 pounds of ice. Wood storage up to half a cord is in the forepeak.

Aft of the galley is a large table on top of the centerboard case seating six or more. Along the two sides of the cabin are two more bunks of the same size as in the aft cabin. The roominess of this cabin combined with the sculpture of a mermaid mounted on the table created a feeling of comfort often missing in many vessels. I should add here that each cabin contains four windows that tilt inward when opened with screens that slip in.

Above deck, the overall feeling of spaciousness is further enhanced. While the deck level amidships is only three feet above the water line, the side decks exceed three feet of open walking space. Forward of the cabins is an eight foot wide bow containing a hydraulic windlass mounted on the king post as well as a bowsprit which extends 16 feet beyond the bow; an imposing extension of the schooner hull. On the bowsprit are two sizeable anchors, and on each side of the bow itself are the anchor lines coiled on deck. The bow is eight feet wide and sits six feet above the water. The area is a comfortable working area which also contains the foremast and space around it for the rail and belaying pins with all the various lines required for a schooner.

A similar situation exists aft. What's most evident is the steering station. It's like a buggy seat for two, one on each side of a sizeable wheel driving a hidden drum that contains the steering line.

This line passes through a series of blocks to a horn on the top of the rudder. As a later addition the area was covered over by a canvas structure to provide weather protection from behind as well as the sides of the vessel. Also evident are the davits for a ten-foot dinghy that is almost always carried while underway. The mainsail is also sheeted here and so several blocks are evident. Since schooners are rigged without means to restrict the main boom when the sail is dropped, snubbing gear is required to hold the boom in place. The stern is well taken up with all this gear and so even with a stern width of eight feet it is not too much. It is worth mentioning that since the rudder is outboard, it forms a natural place to locate a boarding ladder so steps were bolted to one side. This important part of any vessel's equipment in this case is four feet in width and over five feet in height with the horn extending well above the deck.

Any schooner requires a lot of lines, and since working vessels had no winches, VINTAGE is no exception. There are some 68 blocks on the vessel ranging from five inches down to three. All are needed, although with the vessel being on the small size, none are any more than double, some with beckets. All lines are three-strand spun Dacron. One other note; it is harder to pull on lines smaller than 5/8" in diameter with any strength which helps to determine the size of both lines and blocks.

HER DESIGN

VINTAGE was the last boat designed by Captain Pete Culler, and he did it with style. He believed that designs based on the working craft of the past could fulfill today's boating needs more simply, more economically, and be easier to use than the vast majority of the modern, mass-produced craft now filling our harbors. In addition, most of the older work boats had a long genesis of design refinement resulting in better performance in the waters where they originated.

According to Howard Chapelle in his American Small Sailing Craft, the idea of employing the cheap work boat appears both attractive and practical. The owner can have a distinctive boat, and the economics are favorable. "Not only is this type of boat cheap to build, it is cheap to maintain. What you have to give up is varnish for paint, mahogany for pine, bronze for galvanized iron, gadgets for simplicity, and luxury for simple living. What is left? A boat that is individualistic, that sails and performs well, and that does her job, costing no more than one can reasonably afford."

Capt. Pete, being a strong advocate for this type of boat, based his design for VINTAGE on the Gulf Scow Schooners of western Texas from the nineteenth century. These were of a similar size.

They were often V-bottomed as they performed better to windward. He designed a hull that had even greater shape forward, approaching 30 degrees, and about the same in the stern, but retained some dead rise amid ships. He designed this bottom to be cross-planked, therefore requiring sizeable chine logs. What is distinctive about his design is the shape of the rudder that rises upward in the stern to form a horn which projects both aft of the stern and above the deck. This horn is fastened to a block and tackle arrangement that passes around a drum fastened to the wheel. To my knowledge this is most unusual, but it did occur on some early Casco Bay scow sloops.

Typical of Capt. Pete's designs he planned for a wood-burning stove and a tee-shaped stove exhaust pipe across the forward cabin top to act as a stationary Charlie Noble. He also provided for adequate wood storage in the forepeak.

Another typical feature of Pete's designs is the use of windows instead of portholes which he incorporated in the two cabins; eight of them, each ten inches high by eighteen inches long, all able to be opened by tilting the glass inward similar to those used in any number of barns.

His hull design was matched to the traditional Maine Coast schooner rig, adapted to fit the schooner size. This rig included a main topsail and a main top staysail rather than the larger, more cumbersome fisherman. Naturally, due to the boat's size, Pete employed block and tackle running rigging plus the use of deadeyes and lanyards for the standing rigging. He also employed galvanized standing rigging, properly wormed, parceled, and served with marline.

REACHING A DECISION TO BUILD

Did I really want to build such an unusual boat? It would break all contemporary ideas about boat design; not only about what would sail well, but also about how boats should be constructed and what they should be built of. Even the idea of a scow was interpreted to be a derogatory comment. I can only say it did bother me, yet it wouldn't be the first time I had broken fresh ground in deciding what to do. After all, Lolly and I had started a vineyard and winery in territory that had never had one, and ultimately it was considered to be the premier vineyard and winery in New England.

All I really knew was: (1) I wanted to return to the schooner rig in a new boat for cruising; (2) I couldn't afford a "real" schooner; and (3) Pete Culler's design appealed to me both in appearance and in his concept of utilizing the work boat as a basis of design. So I began to search for an individual who might be able to throw more light on the question. Over time one name was repeated several times by different people. I should talk to Joel White. So I did.

Joel's reaction to Pete Culler's design was more than positive. He believed that not only was the boat very good looking, but also that she should prove to be quite able. In fact, after considerable discussion, Joel told me that he had always wanted to build a sailing scow. This led to more discussion until finally he told me that if I would to let him build the vessel, he would do it with labor at his cost of $11 per hour and add a mark-up of only ten percent on materials. Part of his reason for this approach was that he had no building project for the coming winter and needed something to keep his crew employed. How could I turn down such an offer?

So we got into more specifics. How much did he believe the scow schooner would cost? After considerable time and calculation he came with the figure of $80,000. This was a figure I could justify, and still have enough left over in case it was understated. In effect, we agreed to proceed subject to Lolly's agreement. Which she did!

The contract included a provision of my own: no sandpaper! A boat of this type should look well at a distance but should not be treated as a yacht. Several other agreements were reached. One of the prime reasons for rot in a boat is fresh water getting through the deck into the hull. Therefore, it was very important to keep the deck intact without breaks where water could penetrate. This in turn meant that the deck needed to be sealed with epoxy resin and a fabric such as "Dynel".

Since Joel did not permit resin to be used by his staff, this work would have to be sub-contracted.

Another was that we should employ local Spruce for the spars plus we should use red lead paint (not legal but still available through a source I knew) to seal the insides of the boat. We also agreed to use a hydraulic motor driven windless based on lobstermen's gear. Excluded from his costs were sails and rigging, both standing and running, including blocks. We were ready to proceed!

BUILDING VINTAGE

In the fall of 1985, the first evidence of a new project in the Brooklin Boatyard was a large pile of 4" x 6" White Cedar, ricked and piled to season for the bottom planking. Wow! Next, an even larger pile of 2-1/2" planks of both Cedar and Fir was laid down for the side planking. Another appearance was 6" x 12" planks for the keel and an equally large amount of White Oak for deck beams. While another pile of material didn't take up much space, the amount of 6", 8" and 10" boat spikes as well as a very large number of galvanized bolts was an equally impressive sight. A start had been made. It had the look of what was to become a rugged vessel.

The first actual building was to lay down the keel, 6" wide by 12" deep. I was surprised at how high it was above the shop floor until I realized that the ship carpenters were going to have to be under the bottom when driving boat spikes through the 3-1/4" planks.

This photograph shows the keel looking aft with the steel engine bed installed and sternpost in place. Also of note is the use of red lead coating the entire assembly and the fact that even this early in the building process that the shaft hole has been drilled. The keel itself is a straight piece of 6 x 12 inch Fir with the keelson on top that is another 6 x 12 inch timber laid flat. If you look carefully you will note that cheek pieces have been bolted on to the sides of the keel deadwood to accept the bottom planking which will be spiked on later. The extra deadwood shows more clearly in the picture below where you can see the line that the bottom will follow. It also shows the stern bearing already installed.

While the weather held in the fall, other work was progressing. A crew went into the woods to cut the spar timber. This was squared with a chainsaw while still in the woods, then hauled into the yard to be shaped. The next picture shows one mast already rounded, another behind that shaped for the bowsprit, and a third squared but not yet shaped for another mast. I am shown in the picture with my hand on the bowsprit.

As fall turned to winter, work started on framing the hull. Initially, it was necessary to install the chine logs. These two timbers, each 4 x 8 inch Oak had to be braced separately in place. By making them out of several layers it was possible to bend them without resorting to steam. The reason this was feasible was that the bottom would be bolted in place as it was installed, providing lots of stiffening. These two chine logs would then be topped by 3 x 6 inch ribs, 2 feet on center. In time, planking of 2 inch and 2-1/2 Cedar and Fir would be spiked on to these with 6 inch long boat spikes. All this was really heavy construction, not what you expect to see in pleasure craft, but it fit in with the concept of adapting work boat design. Two pictures below show this part of the building project. Note that in the first photograph Joel White is adjusting the curve on the outer timber.

With the ribs installed it was then possible to begin to install deck beams. These were 4 × 4 inch Oak with a three-inch crown so each rib had to be cut from a 4 x 8 inch timber. Rugged! Yes, but necessary when you consider VINTAGE has a 15 foot beam. The picture below shows the installation of the centerboard trunk as well as the engine in place. The centerboard trunk is set off to one side of the keel. This allows the ballast keel to be installed without weakening it or the timber. The picture also indicates the openings for the two cabins as well as a better indication of the true size of the vessel.

The work was more than carpentry as the next picture indicates. It is hooking up the engine to the drive shaft. It also shows that a good bit of the bottom planking is in place.

Not all the work on building VINTAGE took place on the shop floor. As we all know a lot of head scratching and calculations are involved. I think it is worthwhile to show this picture of Joel White in the blue and white cap standing at the drawing board in his office while I look on. In my long life I have seldom met anyone I can honestly say I admire more. We became very good friends during this project. When I came up I stayed in his house with his wonderful wife, Allene. His suggestions and design additions were guided by his superb judgment. Without him or someone as skilled and knowledgeable, I doubt that VINTAGE could have been completed as successfully.

Joel White, *left*, stands next to Jim Mitchell, *right*, in the BBY office.

In this project, Joel acted both as designer and as master builder. I didn't know it at the time but it would be the last boat on which he would personally act as builder. It seemed as if he very much enjoyed the physical and mental activity. I also didn't realize that this activity helped keep his mind off the fact that his father, the well known author E. B. White, was dying.

Back on the shop floor, work was progressing rapidly on planking, both sides and bottom. Two pictures in particular show how large the boat seems now. One shows the length of the boat while another shows both the side planking and the bottom.

Finally, the hull is almost complete. The cabins have been built and installed. The deck is on and fiberglassed. Even a fife rail has been built in the schooner style on the aft end of the hull. It is spring, and the boat is ready to be moved out of doors.

While boatbuilding is mostly about the carpentry, no boat sails without the art and skills of the sail maker. Nathaniel Wilson provided those skills for us sewing 1411 square feet of spun Dacron sailcloth in traditional sails in his shop in East Boothbay, Maine. I still remember lifting the sail bag containing the mainsail. It was about all I could do.

Finally, it all came together! VINTAGE was ready to be launched. She had been rigged. Sitting on the launch pad, she looked HUGE! The bowsprit projected far overhead. She’s not yet ready for sea, but major work was complete.

LAUNCH

After launch, there was still work to be done to make VINTAGE ready to go to sea. I had taken on the responsibility for the running rigging. Much of this had been turned over to the yard to rig the boat for launch, but two jobs remained. One was to apply baggy wrinkle to the topping lifts on the main and fore mast to minimize chafe of the two sails. This is a somewhat tedious procedure, but is more or less essential if you want the sail to last. This bare wire is usually only present in small sizes such as topping lifts. On the larger ones such as shrouds (i.e. standing rigging) these were always wormed, parceled and served. The other chore was to apply rattlings to the shrouds of both the main and fore masts. These could be made of wood or rope. I chose wood since it is easier to climb when it is necessary to work on the several blocks mounted at the cross trees.

Again it is a fairly tedious job as there are about eighteen rattlings on each mast as shown.

Any schooner has lots of strings to pull and VINTAGE is no exception. But in work boats as a whole, the large number of blocks (68), and the amount of rope (2,400 feet) does not add up to much expense compared to the cost of winches. If I remember correctly I paid only about $2,000.00 for all the blocks, or less than the cost of one or two winches. These I purchased from a small company in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, and they performed well over the years. Purchases for all the iron work also came from the Lunenburg Foundry. It turns out they are one of the very few firms which will still do galvanizing, or sometimes even more important, re-galvanizing.

Every cruising boat needs a good dinghy. For VINTAGE, we selected a 10 foot Amesbury skiff in which we installed a garboard drain since it would spend a considerable part of its life hoisted up in davits.

Jim Mitchell on his dinghy with *Vintage* behind him.

SOME EARLY CRUISING TALES

With her heritage as a coastal work boat there is no use pretending that VINTAGE is an "Ocean" Cruising vessel. She is not! Her righting moment peaks at about 30 degrees. In a bad ocean storm she might not survive. That said she was subjected to such a storm after we sold her in which the new owners radioed to be lifted off in the Mona Passage. Afterward they were taken back and found her sailing happily along with no one aboard!

By rights, VINTAGE is a coastal cruising boat that is very comfortable and competent in her environment! And this is how we treated her: a cruise to Nova Scotia; a cruise to the Bahamas; a trip the length of the Inland waterway in both directions; a cruise to New Brunswick up the St.

John River; and a more or less complete exploration of the Eastern Maine Coast. We only raced her twice; once in the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta where we would have won our class if we could have found the finish line in the fog. The other was a Penobscot Bay Schooner Race in which we did well given our size.

A delightful highlight in our cruising life was a night we spent in the Barred Islands anchorage.

There were only three boats that evening. After supper a woman on board the boat next to us brought a small harp on deck and began to play. That inspired the man aboard the other boat to bring up a tin whistle. Then he began to accompany her and a very accomplished duet began. It was a truly magical evening!

On another night in the same anchorage, we had anchored, and a friend on his boat rafted with us for the night. Then sometime around midnight a "Norther" came gusting through. On this particular night the harbor was filled with sizeable cruising boats as well as a raft of small power boats none of which seemed to have any idea of how to anchor safely. Before we knew it they started going aground. Then two of the larger boats broke loose and began circling the harbor in the dark. One went aground! Another became entangled in our bowsprit! We were finally able to back him off and tie him along our free side, only stern to!

There we were, three boats on one anchor— ours!! But our anchor held. Early in the morning the Coast Guard came up from the Rockland, Maine Station to help sort out the mess.

On a very early cruise, we sailed Down East to Roque Island where we spent two or three days.

A picture from that cruise is worth showing. It was on this cruise we learned an important lesson.

If the tide changes and there is no wind, the boat can drift around the exposed fluke of a yachtsman's anchor and then the anchor can pull free. No harm was done, but a lesson learned. If worried, use two anchors.

The beauty of shallow draft cannot be overstated. On several cruises in various anchorages, we would pull up to the head of the harbor and anchor. Occasionally a boat that came in later would see how far we had pulled in and attempt to follow us, but then would ground out long before reaching us. Sometimes the language would be quite strong, but it wasn't our fault. They should have looked at their charts. On one occasion we took advantage of our shoal draft by sailing into Little Harbor in the Abaco's down wind with our sails up. There's a three-foot bar at the entrance to the harbor at low tide. It was low tide, and I was showing off. Looking at the boats in the harbor I could see that several were looking through their binoculars to watch us ground out. It didn't happen! We sailed in, dropped our sails, and anchored, leaving some local residents a bit unhappy that they missed a possible incident.

One delightful day on the Inland Waterway we decide to sail as the wind was largely on our quarter. Pretty soon we came up to a Hinkley Southwester under power. The owner kept powering along and wouldn't look over our way, but his wife a little sheepishly waved at us. This kept going on for hours. Every time the breeze picked up we would pass them; every time it dropped they would pass us. Eventually they pulled off to one of the island communities along the way while we continued on to find a tree to tie to for the night.

Speaking about passing other boats reminds me of one morning when we sailed out of Northeast Harbor under full sail with a strong north west breeze. We came across two Concordias also under sail and passed them easily. They kept looking up at their sail trim as if they thought something must be wrong. Lolly made a comment I still find priceless, "I bet they'll sell their boats tomorrow." Needless to say, as we rounded into Blue Hill Bay they made up the distance and passed us. We were now travelling up wind. It simply bears out the fact that schooners simply can't compete into the wind.

On the other hand, our experience sailing into the harbor on Petite Manaan shows that when a schooner is properly trimmed and going on a broad reach it is very hard to beat. A friend who was also on that cruise clocked us going ten knots. That night when anchored in the harbor while the wind blew hard, he also noted we were the only boat to lie quietly into the wind, not moving at all, while the other boats were sailing around their anchors. This is just another truth about schooner behavior. With the anchor joined to the hull quite a bit forward of the hull, there is less tendency for the boat to yaw. This is further heightened by the amount of windage far aft with the large area caused by the main mast and attendant gear for the sail. The very opposite of this are the multi-hull vessels that are notorious for sailing around their anchors.

The one time we actually raced against the schooner fleet in Camden and Rockland, we purchased a racing jib to replace our normal cruising one. It was a full 500 square feet, as large as our main. To sheet it in we used the snubbing gear normally employed to secure the main. It helped, but in getting it into place Joel White, who sailed with us that day was literally hauled into the air while trying to secure it. This is the race in which we did better than we expected, given our smaller size. Our friend George Underwood, the same who commented on our speed took this picture off the monument near North Haven. Note the main top staysail that can be hauled across for either tack.

One cruising story I truly feel is important is that when leaving the Abaco's heading for Charleston, South Carolina we crossed north of the islands after dark. All of sudden I saw what looked like a large Christmas tree heading toward us. So I got on the radio and said, "To the very large motor ship off the Northern Bahamas, this is the sailing vessel VINTAGE If you would give me your course and speed, we will alter course to avoid you." The vessel replied, "Sir. If you will alter your course slightly to starboard, you will pass astern of us." I did so and we more than passed behind him. I have kicked myself ever since for not having said something more like. "I haven't seen a ship like yours since I was sailing off Inchon in the Yellow Sea in 1967." I wonder what they might have answered? I had been sailing there then and had seen an Aircraft Carrier at that time. It could have been that same ship!

As a somewhat humorous story, we were in North Carolina on the waterway when our engine suddenly began to chatter. We didn't know exactly what had happened but knew we needed help.

So we pulled into a marina in Bell Haven. Once there, with the help of a mechanic, we discovered that a bolt from the air intact had come loose and damaged at least one of the inlet valves. So we were stuck until new valves could be obtained. While waiting I decided to replenish our dwindling wood supply for the stove. The two African American dock men allowed as how the local furniture plant had waste wood which they were happy to let us have without charge. The next morning a truck delivered the wood, but it needed cutting. One of the dock men agreed to loan me his chain saw so I was set to go. I sawed the wood to the length needed to fit our stove, carted it down the dock, and loaded it into the forepeak hatch until I had about a half a cord. The laughter of those two men and the smiles of others around the marina made my day.

The boat was soon repaired and we were back on our way south. This was the only time in all the years we had VINTAGE that we ever had a problem.

What more is there to say. The high point of almost every day was to pull into an anchorage, put the vessel to bed for the night, and retreat below, where on most evenings in Maine it was cool enough to want to fire up the stove and luxuriate in its warmth. Then have a glass of wine followed by supper. A simple life but one filled with the beauty of the coast of Maine. Can any sailor want for more!

PS. At some point, I found it more difficult to raise sails and somewhat dangerous to climb aloft. So VINTAGE was sold to a couple that wanted to use her as a day charter vessel in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. They did this for a short time but then gave up and sold her to Dayton Trubbe who had run a boatyard and his partner Ingrid Cody, a young woman from Australia. They changed her name to NINA, removed her topmast and have lived aboard her for the past twenty years. She has just had her first major rebuild, replacing her masts. This is unusual but laudatory since she was built as a workboat. During this time she has been sailed north at least three times and kept in the water more or less continuously. She now has a bathtub where the work area was, and a diesel stove has replaced our wood burner. The forepeak has become her own space complete with a double bed.

VINTAGE PARTICULARS

Designer - Pete Culler of Hyannis, MA. Design was on his desk when he died in 1978

Builder - Joel White (1930-1997) Brooklin Boatyard, Brooklin, Maine. This was the last

boat for which he acted as the master builder.

Owner - James A. and Lloyd (Lolly) A. Mitchell, Little Compton, Rhode Island.

Moved to Camden, Maine in 1989

LOA; 67 feet

LOD; 45feet

Beam, Max; 15 feet

Beam at Bow and Stern; 8 feet

Draft; 2 feet six inches, board up 7 feet, board down

Overall height above WL; 63 feet

Sail Area; 1411 square feet

Displacement; 34,000 pounds, dry

Auxiliary Power; 65 HP, (Westerbeke diesel)

Fuel and Water; 150 gallons each tank (2)

Out side ballast; 2,000 pounds, plus 700 pounds trim

Berths; Three, each 40 inches wide by 78 inches long, plus one double 54 inches wide

by 78 inches long.

Planking; V-Bottom, 3-1/4 inches thick, Cedar

Sides, 2-1/2 inches thick, Cedar and Fir

Deck, two layers ¾ inch plywood over 4 x 4 beams 12" o.c.

Chine logs, 4 inches by 8 inches, Oak Centerboard, 2-1/2 inches, Oak, 4 feet by 11 feet

The story of Vintage, a very unusual scow schooner by James A. Mitchell

Getting Restive ready for Bermuda