Spaulding Wooden Boat Center facts for kids
The Spaulding Marine Center in Sausalito, California, is a special place where you can learn about old-fashioned wooden boats. It's like a living museum! Here, skilled builders and sailors show how people used to make, sail, and row classic wooden boats on San Francisco Bay.
The center offers fun tours, classes, and special events. You can even go for a sail on one of their amazing wooden boats. The people who work there are experts in history and sailing. Many volunteers also help keep this important maritime history alive.
The Spaulding Marine Center is a non-profit organization. This means it's a group that works for a good cause, not to make money. It's dedicated to helping the public.
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What the Spaulding Marine Center Does
The main goal of the Spaulding Marine Center is to save and use old wooden sailing boats again. They also want to keep their boatyard working and active. It's a place where people can gather to enjoy and learn about wooden boats. They teach others about traditional boat building skills and the history of these crafts.
History of the Center
The Spaulding Marine Center started as the Spaulding Boatworks. It was built in 1951 by Myron Spaulding right on the Sausalito waterfront. Myron was a very talented person. He was a concert violinist, a famous sailor, and a designer and builder of yachts.
In 2002, Myron Spaulding's wife, Gladys, decided to turn the Spaulding Boatworks into a special trust. She wanted it to become a non-profit living museum. This way, its history and skills could be shared with everyone.
The Spaulding Boatworks is the oldest boatyard on the historic Sausalito waterfront. It's one of the last wooden boatyards left in the San Francisco Bay Area. It has been used continuously since it first opened, looking much the same as it did years ago.
Programs and Activities
The Spaulding Marine Center has many programs. These are for both the public and for serious students. You can learn about traditional wooden boat crafts and sailing skills. They also offer fun maritime experiences.
Learning About Boats
The education programs teach people about the history and craft of wooden boat building. They also show how these boats were used on San Francisco Bay. Since 2007, the Spaulding Marine Center has also been home to the Arques School of Traditional Boatbuilding. This school teaches students how to build wooden boats and learn old sailing skills.
Public Workshops and Events
The Spaulding Marine Center is located right on the Sausalito waterfront. They offer many public programs. These let people visit the historic boatyard and learn about the waterfront. They have classes, workshops, and events. Topics range from traditional boatbuilding to saving the Sausalito waterfront.
Youth Programs
The Spaulding Center helps young people learn about boats. They have programs in woodworking, boatbuilding, and sailing. These are for kids who want to enjoy the maritime world in Sausalito. For example, in 2007, they had a woodworking program for young people from Marin City.
In 2008, the Center worked with other groups. They taught students aged 12 to 18 about wooden boatbuilding and sailing. Students learned traditional woodworking skills. Then, they used these skills to build a 12-foot (3.7 m) Norwegian Sailing Pram. Finally, the students learned to sail on San Francisco Bay in the boat they built themselves!
The Arques School of Traditional Boatbuilding
The Arques School of Traditional Boatbuilding opened in June 1996. It was founded by Bob Darr, who is still the main instructor. It's a small school with only six students in its main program. The school focuses on training skilled builders. These builders learn how to make boats using old-fashioned methods, like "plank on frame."
The Arques School helps train a new generation of shipwrights. These are people skilled in traditional boat building. They also help the public experience traditional sailing. They do this by keeping a fleet of classic wooden boats. These boats can be used in public programs on the water.
Bringing Old Boats Back to Life
The Spaulding Marine Center works to restore and save important wooden boats from San Francisco Bay. They also share the skills and ideas that went into building these boats. The Freda is a 32-foot (9.8 m) gaff-rigged sloop. It's the oldest active sailing yacht on the west coast. Restoring Freda was the first big project for the Spaulding Center.
The Story of Freda
Freda was built in 1885 in Belvedere, California. A saloon keeper named Harry Cookson built her. Freda is known for her simple beauty. She has been called both the "Common Man’s Yacht" and the "Matriarch of San Francisco Bay."
One of the early leaders of the Corinthian Yacht Club in Tiburon, California, owned her. In the 1950s, Harold Sommer carefully restored Freda. He was the captain of the last wooden tugboat on San Francisco Bay. After that, Freda became a regular sight in local sailing races. However, she had suffered from many years of wear and tear before her restoration at Spaulding.
Freda was originally built with strong rock elm frames. She had Douglas fir decks and fir planks. Her parts show the creativity of early San Francisco Bay wooden boat builders.
You can find more about Freda and her restoration at Freda, Matriarch of the Bay website.
Foundry Patterns
In May 2007, sailors Lin and Larry Pardey loaned their special foundry casting patterns to the Spaulding Marine Center. These patterns are for their 30-foot cutter boat called Taleisin. The patterns are used in education programs at the Center by the Arques School. They can also be loaned to others who need to make metal parts for boats.
Boat Collection
The Spaulding Marine Center keeps a group of restored or newly built wooden sailboats and rowboats. Students at the Center and the public can use these boats. For example, the 34-foot gaff-rigged sailboat, Polaris, is available. It's a carvel-built "pumpkinseed" sloop. This means its fir planks are joined edge to edge on oak ribs. Polaris was built on San Francisco Bay in 1906. You can go for skippered sails on it at the Center. Once Freda is fully restored, it will also be available for sails on San Francisco Bay. Some boats built by the Arques School will also be available.
More Information
- Spaulding Wooden Boat Center
See also
- Myron Spaulding
- Sailboat design and manufacturing
- Boat building
- Sausalito
- Marinship
- Center for Wooden Boats, in Seattle, Washington
