Remembering Carl Cramer
Dear Matt,
Carl Cramer (Across the Bar, WB No. 305) was a good friend and a real character. I smile most when I think about the leadup to the first Family Boatbuilding event—an idea he conceived and executed, in which multiple families gathered to build boats of their own over the course of a weekend. The first one was held at the 1998 WoodenBoat Show in St. Michaels, Maryland, and during the winter before it, Carl asked me if I had a small-boat design that would fit the concept. He was tired of offering quick-and-dirty boats that were discarded after shows, and wanted to do something meaningful and durable.
At the Alexandria Seaport Foundation, which I then directed, we were building boats with families and groups, and had just developed Bevin’s Skiff, a flat-bottomed skiff for sail and oars. We’d built a few and had patterns, but no plans. I could show Carl a couple of pictures, but that was all. Nevertheless, he decided that this was the boat to build. And so it went: Carl publicized the event and signed up the families. We made kits for about 40 of these boats, plus 20 or so more to other designs, gathered tools for the builders, and recruited 20 volunteers from our shop to help out. There was no contract. There wasn’t even a handshake. It all happened on a phone call.
We planned to build Friday, Saturday, and half of Sunday. Sometime mid-Thursday afternoon, my crew drove onto a field at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum with a box truck, several very large pickup trucks, and a few vans. We unloaded for what seemed like hours. We brought everything except tents. Carl had told the builders to bring tents if they wanted them. Some did, many didn’t, and the average high temperature that weekend was 99 degrees. As with many things Carl did, we had moved forward with faith in humankind, but not a robust budget.
After a weekend of almost 300 builders working away in that heat, we had simultaneous launchings of about 60 boats, with Carl at the bullhorn. I could barely speak because I was so exhausted. Carl was unfazed. We agreed to do it the next year—and for many years after. Carl was a smart guy, and he learned: There were tents at all the subsequent events.
Joe Youcha
Alexandria, Virginia
TICONDEROGA, WHITEHAWK, and WHITEFIN
Hello Matt,
I’m a great fan of Bruce King, so the piece on WHITEFIN was the first I turned to upon receiving your latest issue. And the mention (several mentions, in fact) of her being based on TICONDEROGA jarred with my recollections.
As a great fan of WoodenBoat, too, I have the March/April 1984 issue in my collection. And reading the original article on WHITEFIN confirms it: she is nothing like TICONDEROGA. Her elder sister, WHITEHAWK, is a deliberate take on BIG TI, enlarged. WHITEFIN is not.
Any number of comments from the original article, both by the owner-builder and the designer, corroborate this. To quote Phil Long in that article: “The philosophy of WHITEHAWK was very much after Herreshoff’s TICONDEROGA, […] This (WHITEFIN) is its own boat from the bottom up …”
I think the term Spirit of Tradition hadn’t been coined in ’84, but WHITEFIN would fit loosely in that designation—a modern boat with classic looks, but not based on any specific older design. And, at any rate, she’s very, very different from TICONDEROGA—I mean, just look at her lines!
Frederico Pinheiro de Melo
Portugal 
