Courtesy Of Wayne EttelROSE OF SHARON, a 1930 W. Starling Burgess–designed schooner, currently sits in Los Angeles. The Stockton, California, location of the new boatyard of Wayne Ettel, her longtime steward, is too far from open water to be a good home for her.
Change is everywhere these days, and change dramatically affects ROSE OF SHARON and her longtime caregiver, Wayne Ettel. He is moving his wooden-boat repair facility (see WB No. 187) up the coast to northern California—way up the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta to the former Stephens Bros. yard in Stockton. The move includes the Maritime Preservation Trust (MPT), which Wayne founded in 2017 and which owns this 51′ schooner and other classic yachts. The yard’s distance from open water, however, makes ROSE OF SHARON a poor fit for the new site, and she’s now languishing at MPT’s old Los Angeles location and is in need of a savior.
Randall Peffer, who wrote ROSE’s story in WB No. 274, continues this saga, but I urge you to also look at www.maritimept.org for more about the boat, MPT, and my longtime friend Wayne Ettel.
“ROSE and her two sisters, NINETTE and CAYUSE,” Randall writes, “were among the last schooners built to W. Starling Burgess designs before he turned his energies to designing AMERICA’s Cup victors. His schooners of the era, the most famous being the 59′ NIÑA of 1928 (see WB Nos. 237 and 238), shared his signature cutaway forefoot, downward-sloping keel, deep draft, and short ends—sometimes combined with a tall staysail rig of ‘big sister’ NIÑA’s proportions.
“ROSE OF SHARON has always had loving owners, among them Austin Lamont, who homeported her in Maine, and C.W. Stoll, who sailed her for 35 years in Michigan. But her owner of longest duration was Byron Chamberlain, who berthed her in both Washington State and California. He kept ROSE in Bristol condition after rescuing her in 1976 and having young Wayne Ettel and friends carry out a complete refurbishing. In 1981, he raced her from San Diego to Maui and was first to finish; then he cruised on to Alaska with Wayne remaining as part of the crew. Byron continued sailing, racing, and often winning until 2018, when he donated ROSE to the fledging MPT, based at Los Angeles Harbor. The trust, guided by Wayne, developed a program for teaching interns and volunteers how to restore, maintain, sail, and campaign historic watercraft of Southern California.
“However, bad news came in 2025, when the Port of Los Angeles did not renew the MPT’s lease in order to make room for a cement plant. ROSE is currently afloat in a short-term berth in Wilmington and looking for a new home.
Courtesy Of Wayne EttelBurgess gave ROSE OF SHARON features much like those of her larger cousin, NIÑA, including a tall staysail rig.
“She is swift, gorgeous, and generally sound, but she will need some work to get sailing again. Before the port ended the MPT’s lease, Wayne and his crew had removed ROSE’s engine, tankage, and joinery in the owner’s cabin aft, along with ceiling planking, in preparation for replacing six underlying frames and associated floors and renewing the three or four keelbolts in the same area. A new custodian will need to complete these jobs or hire Wayne and his crew to do it at their new location in Stockton. Her rigging, sails, and interior parts have been carefully stored under tarps or in a shipping container.”
ROSE OF SHARON Particulars
- LOA: 51′
- LWL: 42′
- Beam: 13′5″
- Draft: 8′6″
- Sail area: 1,600 sq ft
- Power: 85-hp Perkins 236 diesel
- Official: No.229842
- Designed by Burgess & Morgan, Ltd.
- Built by Eastern Shipbuilding, Shelburne, Nova Scotia, 1930
Maynard Bray is WoodenBoat’s technical editor, and Randall Peffer is a longtime regular contributor.
For more information, contact Wayne Ettel at wayneettel@me.com or 301–707–5227.