New boats, fast boats and rebuilt boats MBH&H Publisher John J. Hanson goes on a road trip
For some spring, begins when the peas are planted; for this boat guy, it begins with the visits to the boatyards to see what fruit the long winter has produced. My recent trip to Newport, Rhode Island was more than bountiful.
Peter van Lancker, president of Hunt Yachts, had invited me, to go for a boat ride aboard the new Hunt 32cc, Hunt’s interpretation of a luxury, outboard powered center console. As I set out from Camden, headed to Rhode Island, the sun came out and the mercury rose — perfect weather for a road trip.
My first stop was at Kittery Yacht Yard to see what projects they been up to this long cold winter. Plenty. Yard owner Tom Allen met me for a quick tour between customers. The first bay we entered contained a beautifully finished Holland 32, which was getting the final touches on a multi-layered refit. It was a stunning boat, simple but excellent in its execution. The name of the boat is August West , which confirmed for me that the owner has great taste in music, as well as boats (West is a character in a Grateful Dead song). Work on the Wilbur next to the Holland was not quite as far along, but it, too, will be launched later this spring. Both boats are examples of how it is possible to get a really great product when refitting well-built older designed hulls. The boatbuilder’s art shines in projects like these.
(Tom Allen, right, and employee Marshall Farnham at Kittery Point Yacht Yard in front of August West. Photo by John Hanson)
Tom had to run to the yard’s other location and he handed me off to his partner, George Patten. I first met George forty years ago when he was working out of a shop behind his house. He was then, and is now, a consummate boatbuilder. We went off to inspect the wooden William Garden-designed schooner that George has been building over the last several winters.
(George Patten showing off the schooner he has built. photo by john Hanson)
On the way, we stopped to admire the work being done to strip the bottom of a Carroll Lowell-designed lobster boat that George had built way back in the day in that shop behind the house. It still looked good.
(Working on an old wooden Carroll Lowell designed boat. Photo by John Hanson)
After a lovely lunch at the Ceres Street Bakery in beautiful downtown Portsmouth, N.H., I blasted through mid-day Boston in record time and reached Newport in time to check out the Volvo Ocean Racing Village at Fort Adams. The Volvo Ocean Race is a 39,000-mile, eleven-stop race for high performance 65-foot sailing machines. The race has been designed as a multi-media experience for race fans around the world. The villages, which are recreated at every stop along the route, are the “in person” part of a competition that otherwise takes place over the horizon at sea. When we got to Fort Adams, there was a buzz of people, but no boats. The wind had died and the leaders were still at sea, doing just a knot and a half. After a quick tour, I decided I couldn’t wait until midnight or later for the first boat to arrive.
The next stop was Hunt. I’ve had a Ray Hunt designed powerboat for more than thirty years. It is a terrific boat and I am a fan. My visit began with a christening party for a beautiful new Hunt 25, the yacht Clueless. This design is a little bit bigger than my boat, and a lot more elegant. I hope to see a lot of this new boat, as it is will be based in Penobscot Bay, where I also use my boat.
Then came the main event. The new Hunt 32cc is a beautifully crafted take on today's most popular style, the center console boat. The Hunt design group took their signature hull design concepts and married the hull with a deck and cockpit layout that was the product of much collaboration with owners, dealers and industry experts. The results are terrific.
Our crew was Roe O'Brien, Peter van Lancker, and Gretchen Thor representing the builders, and myself. Our destination was Fort Adams and the Volvo Ocean Race Village. It was a beautiful day, calm almost August in feeling. As we went under the bridge we saw that a bright pink sailboat just creeping into the finish — the women's boat SCA arriving in port. The 32 is capable of close to 50 knots and we sped across the harbor in no time.
(Team SCA arriving in Newport. Photo by John Hanson)
Many in the crowd on the docks at Fort Adams were dressed in pink to match the boat and sporting pink umbrellas; all were ecstatic. The Village had come alive with people, music, and the boats.
This had proven to be much more than just a test ride on a new boat, it had become one of the nicest days on the water I’ve experienced in a while. The spectator fleet was almost as interesting as the race boats. There were classic cruisers, sailboats, multihull, even a very early Hunt design that made Peter happy. For others in the fleet, we were the boat to watch, a brand new design with perhaps 30 hours on it.
(This photo by Billy Black shows the Hunt 32cc checking out the Volvo boats)
At both the shops I visited on this trip, Kittery Point Yacht Yard and Hunt Yachts, I was struck by these builders’ enthusiasm for their work. Tom Allen and George Patten at Kittery Point, and Peter van Lancker at Hunt, are deeply passionate about what they do and the boats they build or rebuild. While their business may be about boats, it was obvious that really, their lives are about boats. It is this passion, and the passion exhibited at the Volvo Village, that makes life along the waterfront so appealing to me.