My first sail-making venture also involved torturing my mom’s sewing machine, and I think I eventually killed it.

When talking about building the Ardelle, two aspects of her construction stand out. First is that she was built with no paid help and the secon is that by weight, volume, or cost, she was built from about 90% recycled material. This is something we are striving to repeat with the Beal’s rehabilitation.

Trees really are wonderful, and amazing. It is a privilege to work with wood and my many friends who, like myself, share a passion for it.  

Twenty years ago when Tony Chaplik sold us our sawmill he told of an amazing phenomena he observed when milling wood. He said that when you start off with a pile of logs and cut all the useful timber out of it, somehow you end up with a pile of slab as big as the pile of logs you started with. Our experience with the mill has proven his observation to be correct. Moreover, we’ve found that it takes as much work to deal with the slab as it does to mill the wood.

For now however, I am pleased to announce that I got a letter from the Coast Guard Marine Safety Center stating that they reviewed my plans and approved the hull structure.

Throughout the fall I have been busy cutting a lot of pine for bulkheads and staging as well as small oak and locust logs for framing. I’ve been working my way through the log pile in order to get at some the larger oak logs we will use for the Beal’s backbone. A few weeks ago I reached one of the big logs I’ve spent the fall anticipating and on January 22nd we put a large white oak log on the mill from which we hoped to get a couple of sternposts for the Beal.

Last winter Mary Kay helped KD and I apply to the MCC for another Last winter Mary Kay helped KD and I apply to the MCC for another Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Grant. These grants are awarded to master artists to take on apprentices and teach them about traditional skills not offered in a typical academic setting. We were very grateful to find out that we had been awarded the grant in January. This time KD is named as my apprentice for the Sylvina W. Beal’s rehabilitation.

Here on the marsh at the edge of the Essex River, the ebb and flow of the tide is central to our life and work. While it is true that “time and tide wait for no man,” sometimes just when it seems the time is right, we are faced with the wrong tide. In those moments it is important to take a breath, reassess, and remember that there will be other tides and better times.

With the launch of the wooden schooner Ardelle, North Shore adds another jewel to its crown

A year after drawing claps and gasps of awe at the launching of his 2011 wooden schooner, the Ardelle, Essex’s Harold Burnham has sailed into a new hall of honors.