Spaulding Wooden Boat Center facts for kids
The Spaulding Marine Center, once known as the Spaulding Wooden Boat Center, is located in Sausalito, California. It's like a living museum where you can step back in time. Here, skilled craftsmen and sailors used old-fashioned methods to build, sail, or row classic wooden boats on San Francisco Bay.
The center offers fun tours, classes, and special events. You can even go for sails on their collection of wooden boats. Experts, history buffs, experienced sailors, and volunteers work together to keep the center's amazing maritime history alive and share it with everyone.
The Spaulding Marine Center is a special non-profit group. This means it's set up to help the public and doesn't aim to make money.
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What the Spaulding Center Does
The Spaulding Marine Center has a clear goal. They want to fix up and use important, old wooden sailing boats again. They also work to keep their boatyard busy and useful. The center aims to be a place where people can gather to enjoy and learn about wooden boats. They also teach others about traditional boat building skills and values.
A Look Back: The Center's History
The Spaulding Marine Center was first built in 1951. It was called the Spaulding Boatworks. Myron Spaulding built it right on the Sausalito waterfront. Myron was a concert violinist, a famous sailor, and a talented yacht designer and builder.
In 2002, Myron Spaulding's wife, Gladys, left the Spaulding Boatworks as a special gift. She wanted it to become a non-profit, charitable organization and a living museum.
The Spaulding Boatworks is the oldest marina and boatyard on the historic Sausalito waterfront. It is also one of the last wooden boatyards left in the San Francisco Bay Area. It has stayed mostly the same and has been used continuously since it first opened.
Fun Activities and Learning Programs
The Spaulding Marine Center offers many programs. These are for both the general public and for serious students. You can learn about traditional wooden boat crafts, sailing skills, and enjoy fun maritime experiences.
Learning About Boats
The Spaulding Marine Center's education programs teach people about the history and craft of building and using wooden boats on San Francisco Bay. Since 2007, the Spaulding Marine Center has also been home to the Arques School of Traditional Boatbuilding. This school offers special training programs in wooden boat building and old-fashioned sailing skills.
Programs for Everyone
The Spaulding Marine Center is located on the Sausalito waterfront. In the future, it will offer many public programs. These will let people visit the historic boatyard and the waterfront. Programs will include classes, workshops, and events. Topics will range from traditional boatbuilding skills to keeping the Sausalito waterfront special.
Programs for Young People
The Spaulding Center supports programs for young people. These programs teach woodworking, boatbuilding, boat repair, and sailing. They are for youths who want to learn about and enjoy the ocean environment in Sausalito. In 2007, the Center had a woodworking program for young people from Marin City. In 2008, the Center worked with local groups. They introduced students aged 12 to 18 to 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. Students even wrote about their experiences on a blog called Boatbuilders' and Sailors' Blog.
The Arques School of Traditional Boatbuilding
The Arques School of Traditional Boatbuilding opened in June 1996. It is located in the Marinship District of Sausalito. Bob Darr founded the school. He is still the main instructor. The school is small, with only six students in its main program. It focuses on training new craftsmen who are skilled in building boats using old plank-on-frame methods. The school exists thanks to a gift from Donlon Arques, who planned for it before he passed away in 1993.
The Arques School programs at Spaulding Marine Center have two main goals. First, they train new boat builders. These builders learn old methods and become great helpers for wooden boats. Second, they let the public experience traditional sailing. They do this by keeping a fleet of classic wooden boats ready for public programs on the water.
Fixing Up Classic Boats
The Spaulding Marine Center will keep fixing and taking care of important San Francisco Bay wooden boats. They will also share the skills and ideas that went into designing, building, and using them. The 32-foot (9.8 m) gaff-rigged sloop Freda is the first big project for the Spaulding Center. She is the oldest active sailing yacht on the west coast.
Freda, the Oldest Yacht
Freda was built in 1885 in Belvedere, California. A saloon keeper named Harry Cookson built her. Freda is famous for her simple beauty. She has been called both the "Common Man’s Yacht" and the "Matriarch of San Francisco Bay." One of the first leaders of the Corinthian Yacht Club in Tiburon, California owned her. Harold Sommer, who was captain of the last wooden tugboat on San Francisco Bay, carefully fixed her up in the 1950s. After that, Freda became a regular in local Master Mariner fleet regattas (boat races). However, she has suffered from many years of wear and tear since then.
Freda was originally built with rock elm frames, Douglas fir decks, black elm and fir hanging knees, fir planks, and lignum vitae deadeyes. She shows the amazing creativity of San Francisco Bay wooden boat builders.
You can find a website all about Freda and her restoration here: Freda, Matriarch of the Bay.
Boat Collection
The Spaulding Marine Center will have a fleet of fixed-up or newly built wooden sailboats and rowboats. Students at the Center and the public can use these boats. The 34-foot gaff rigged sailboat, Polaris, is currently available for sails with a skipper. She is a carvel-built (fir planks joined edge to edge on oak ribs) pumpkinseed sloop. She was built on San Francisco Bay in 1906. Once Freda is fixed, she will also be available for sails on San Francisco Bay. Some boats built by the Arques School of Traditional Boatbuilding will also be available.
Find Out More
- Spaulding Wooden Boat Center
See Also
- Myron Spaulding
- Sailboat design and manufacturing
- Boat building
- Sausalito
- Marinship
- Center for Wooden Boats, in Seattle, Washington
