ILLUSION

Classic boats do not necessarily spring from auspicious beginnings. As the boatbuilder Norman C. Blanchard of Seattle stated in his memoir, Knee-Deep in Shavings, one day in 1933 a group of Sunday strollers stopped into his Lake Union boatworks to ponder the 23' Star-class sailboats the shop had been building. Nice little boats, the browsers sniffed, but for that lofty price—$750—they would expect a cabin. This was in the doldrums of the Great Depression, and for comparison, a new Ford V8 coupe could be bought for as little $500. The strollers drifted off. Blanchard’s father and business partner, Norman J. Blanchard, thought for a few moments and said, “Dammit, let’s build a cheap sailboat with a cabin on it.”

And that’s what they did—though the modifier “cheap” needs to be taken apart and inspected from several angles.

Throughout the first six decades of the 20th century, Seattle’s vigorous boatbuilding industry, clustered in a ring around Lake Union in the heart of the city, cranked out several wooden production boats that have become treasured for both their practicality and surprising beauty—and durability (see “The Dream Boats of Seattle,” WB No. 277). It was an era when “cheap” had a different resonance than it does today: boats such as these wouldn’t be around nearly a century later if they had been built expediently and flimsily.