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ANYONE
WHO SAYS THEY DON'T make 'em like they used to should have been
at Burnham's Shipyard in Essex, Massachusetts, to watch the launching
of the wooden schooner Isabella. When eleventh-generation
boatbuilder Harold Burnham pulled the last jack from her starboard
side, the 38-foot boat just sat there defying gravity and the
skids that had been greased to coax her into the Essex River.
But the, nothing about building Isabella happened in haste.
Work
on the 18-ton traditional wooden vessel started about a year ago
with a pile of white oak and locust logs cut from Massachusetts
forests. All the timbers were milled on the site, Burnham said,
and the more precisely cut planking was done at a friend's lumber
yard.
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| "For
a mid-sized boat she's heavy." Burnham
said. "She's not a boat at all, she's a small ship." Indeed,
Isabella checks in at just under 1,00o pounds per foot, and
that's before the owners outfitted her. The only fiberglass is on
the deck; the hull is all plank and caulk, which should last some
25 years without repairs, according to Fran Cleary, one of a crew
of 10 Burnham employees who worked through a rough winter to piece
Isabella together. |
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| "I
kept looking at all the plastic boats, and none of them worked for
me," he said moments after Isabella was successfully
eased into the water. "But I love wood and carpentry, and I
didn't want a boat I couldn't love. Now as I look at her, I know
I was right. No plastic boat can give that feeling." Tim
Wacker |
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What does
all this wood and work cost? Burnham won't say, other than that Isabella
cost about the same as fiberglass boats of similar size. Owner William
Greene was also mum on the price, but didn't refute Burnham's estimate.
Owning a wooden boat like Isabella is about more than money,
he added.
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