Andy McCutcheon100 Years of Wooden Glory - Foreword
September 6th 2007 08:23
Forward
In the spring of 1964, the harsh Canadian winter released its frozen grip on the foreshores of Kempenfelt Bay, as the ice that had been thick enough to drive a vehicle on only 3 weeks earlier retreated into the open waters of Lake Simcoe. To the local residents of Barrie Ontario it is known as “the day the ice goes out” and in 1964, it happened on April 14th the day I was born.
To the rural farming communities that are resident along the shores of Lake Simcoe, the day the ice goes out signifies a rite of spring and in many ways a sense of renewal. It marks the end of winter’s solstice characterized by shortened days, long cold winter nights and endless shoveling of snow-filled driveways and gives way to warmer gentler memories of summers passed.
For those whose cottages dot the shores of the thousands of tiny freshwater lakes abundant in Ontario’s near north, spring is celebrated a little later in the season alongside designation of the Queen’s birthday on May the 24th. The opening of summer holiday homes again for the first time follows a lengthy hibernation and is almost ritualistic. It is a time when friends and families gather to share the workload and reacquaint themselves with summer frivolity.
For me personally, the end of winter oddly enough, was relegated to the third week of January. It’s characteristically the coldest week of the year in Canada, but was always somehow overshadowed by the opening of the Toronto International Boat Show.
I can remember from a very tender age, accompanying my father almost every year in a pilgrimage to the grounds of the Canadian National Exhibition, located on the shores of Lake Ontario near downtown Toronto.
The prevailing winds that howled through the exhibition buildings from the northwest and across the lake brought frozen smiles to the thousands of boating enthusiasts in the ticket lineup. Despite the adverse conditions, their perseverance was rewarded by anticipation of seeing the shiny new models of boats each year - and a glimpse of summer.
I can say with a degree of certainty however, that those trips to the boat show during my impressionable years while a contributing factor, were not wholly responsible for my overwhelming passion for the craftsmanship and designs found during the era known as the golden age of boating. It went deeper.
Perhaps my earliest childhood memory of wooden boats surrounded an invitation aboard a family friend’s mahogany cruiser for dinner at Big Bay Point on the north shore of Kempenfelt Bay. I can recall clearly three things from that day firstly, their boat was a gleaming example of polished brass and varnished mahogany, we had corn for dinner and lastly, a later incident that involved jumping on an upstairs bed in their farm house, with a hard candy in my mouth, nearly caused me to choke to death.
Due to work commitments and my father’s blossoming teaching career, we moved away from that rural community on the shores of Lake Simcoe where I had been born and raised, to settle outside the city nearly an hour or so drive away.
My father was a cabinetmaker by trade, but before I was born he envisaged a brighter future in teaching the skills rather than employing them and took the opportunity to get off the tools for what turned out to be a rewarding career as a high school teacher.
He was a master of the art and science of woodworking and could fashion anything you could imagine out of wood. While the artistic virtues of working with wood appealed to my inherent creativity, the mathematical wherewithal needed to excel at it bored me to tears and pretty much guaranteed that I wouldn’t be pursuing a career as a carpenter.
Fortunately, succession in our family skips a generation and as my father aspired to be an educator like my great grandfather, my inspirations came largely from my grandfather.
Born in 1895, my grandfather had lived the best years of his life during the golden age of boating, between the two world wars. His first hand accounts of his experiences with tough men through tough times and his keen interest in mahogany boats brought life to the annals of history. Hearing about his life in the 1920’s and 30’s and being able to identify with them not only as stories, but because they involved real people, added an element of romance to the allure of wooden boats.
They were hard times that made paupers out of princes and millionaires out of ordinary men, yet despite all that, they were also times that were dominated by style, flamboyance and monumental human achievement.
Perhaps this is where my passion began? The romanticism of mahogany boats had somehow been juxtaposed with the attainment of monumental human achievement and doing so with enviable flair, inspiring me to be different in a world drowning in mediocrity.
As time went on I never lost sight of that ideal.
Shortly after my 17th birthday my grandfather passed away and from that moment onwards, I suppose I equated the glorious memories of those boats with the idolized memories I had formed of him while he was still alive.
During my teenaged years, summers spent in the Muskoka Lakes region at a friend’s cottage provided ample opportunities to see the many legends of the golden age of boating. Muskoka was one of the primary wooden boat manufacturing regions at the turn of the century and as such, wealthy custodians of the area’s rich local maritime history spend endless hours – and dollars maintaining family heirlooms in pristine, museum quality condition.
Shortly after leaving school, I joined the military and was posted to Vancouver Island living on the shores of Canada’s most westerly point.
Victoria, the capital city, was a quaint town that abridged the mainland city of Vancouver amidst a chain of panoramic gulf islands in Canada’s pacific-northwest.
Like many coastal communities during the pre-war period, much of their history and development can be traced to the commissioning of many a boat’s construction and the “iron men” who built them.
During the first week of September each year for as long as anyone could remember, the inner harbour of Victoria was host to one of the largest sanctioned gatherings of antique and classic boats in the world and boats from as far away as New Zealand would participate.
I was literally like a kid in a candy shop and the classic boat shows proved an excellent opportunity for me to gain knowledge and expand the horizons of my passion for wooden boats. There were hundreds of boats there of every size, shape and description, but interestingly enough, no two were alike. I took from there a renewed sense of fervor and an appreciation for the unique quality, charm and historical significance of each vessel and the individuality and kindred spirit of the people who owned them.
I eventually left Victoria and the military behind - but never the memory of those glorious vessels alongside those who had conceived them.
As the pendulum of my working life returned to a point of equilibrium, the increased pressure time and financial commitments, involved in growing a young family, allowed realism to rule my indentured idealism.
I had come full circle and returned to the town I had grown up in that was located only a few kilometers away from where my parents lived.
My father, who had recently retired from teaching, had been exploring ways of busying himself, alongside generating alternate sources of income whilst oscillating beneath the “golden parachute” of his teacher’s pension.
After much research and deliberation, he had come up with several plausible ideas, one of which included boat building.
Each time I would visit the house there seemed to be more and more books, drafting instruments, sketches, lofted lines and a plan to build a 1:4 working scale model in the garage. These were exciting times.
In an effort to give my fathers new found enthusiasm some needed direction, I convinced him to take the lines from a 1940’s Greavette Streamliner, one of the sexiest mahogany boats ever built and replicate it using cold moulded technology.
Shortly after partially constructing the scale modeled version of the Streamliner, my mother was diagnosed with brain cancer and died several months later, four days after my birthday. In many respects the dream of completing that boat died along with her, as we all moved on with our lives and my father occupied his time with other pursuits.
I was involved in the boat business at the time working for a sailboat manufacturer called C.S. Yachts and while they built beautiful fiberglass sailboats, they somehow paled in comparison to the glory of the mahogany runabouts I had imprinted fond memories of from my youth. Nonetheless I viewed the exercise as a means to an end allowing me to be within several degrees of separation from my first love – those regal wooden boats.
Many years would pass before my keen interest in wooden boats would redevelop and my move to Australia was all the impetus that was needed to rekindle the flame of desire.
Boating in Australia is a way of life and the proliferation of Kauri built vessels brought forth a renewed sense of interest. It seemed however, that the majority of the boats for sale here were either timed out fishing trawlers or painted bay cruisers, none of which to me represented the wooden glory I recalled, that showcased highly polished brass, sculpted leather seats and gleaming varnish.
Settling on the Gold Coast, I was on the fringe of the largest boat building precinct in the southern hemisphere and with the help of a mate who worked for Riviera at the time, my first job in Australia landed me in the capable hands of Paul Wrench on the doorsteps of Azzura Yachts at the Gold Coast City Marina.
Not only was Azzura one of the most respected boat builders in Australia, but they also constructed classically styled vessels using the latest advances in boat building technology.
The arduous work of fairing the hull and superstructure of Azzura’s first 100’ motor-yacht “Oscar” was somehow numbed by the overwhelming sense of achievement in crafting a modern masterpiece for someone who obviously shared a similar passion for the extraordinary.
My experience at Azzura Yachts provided me with an opportunity to become acutely aware of other builders like Azzura, who appeared to have one foot in the past and another in the future.
While technology it seems is always moving forward in response to the needs of the market, the designs of boats built during the golden age of boating remain timeless in the face of every new generation, who use improvements in technology as a means of preserving their endearing qualities.
This book honours both the early pioneers and the modern purveyors of tradition who carry the torch of true style, character and quality to future generations.
It is my hope that through the development of this book, you too will nurture a passion for these uniquely crafted reminders of our past, allowing their memory in some small way to live on through generations of your family as they have in mine.
“We do not own these vessels they own us. I hold a high regard for the artisans of these craft, the way they created them and their ideals. My life's passion is to maintain the regal splendor of these vessels, vessels of a bygone era. Naturally, to be charged as a caretaker of our nautical history is the most gratifying of life's ambition I could imagine."
Andy McCutcheon, 100 Years of Wooden Glory. Copyright 2006
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