"The past actually happened but history is only what someone wrote down." A. Whitney Brown.

About Us

My photo
San Juan Archipelago, Washington State, United States
A society formed in 2009 for the purpose of collecting, preserving, celebrating, and disseminating the maritime history of the San Juan Islands and northern Puget Sound area. Check this log for tales from out-of-print publications as well as from members and friends. There are circa 750, often long entries, on a broad range of maritime topics; there are search aids at the bottom of the log. Please ask for permission to use any photo posted on this site. Thank you.

10 January 2011

❖ BOATS WE KNEW ❖ WINDENTIDE ❖ by L.W. "Corkey" North


Chet North, Deer Harbor, Orcas Island.
Caulking his WINDENTIDE.

"The WINDENTIDE had been developing in Dad’s mind for years. When I joined the Navy, he set about gathering lumber and parts for her. I doubt I cost that much to keep, since they had taught me from very young, if there was something desired, it was up to me to get it, and so – bed-sheet sails, old boats, and vintage cars were my proud possessions.
      But the time had arrived for Dad to have a toy or two. He had built boats for other people for years and had tired of the hassle with people that really couldn’t afford the boat they wanted and somehow it became Dad’s responsibility to get them their desire.
      My uncle had done well fishing summers off the Washington coast for salmon and Dad had made a few trips out with him. So the WINDENTIDE now had an excuse for being built. For three years, Mother as much as Dad, worked at earning some income while scrounging for equipment and laboring on the boat; early, late, and weekends until an extreme tide at daylight the two of them launched that big hull into the morning sun.
      This was the summer of 1953 and I was in Korea, waiting out my last few months in the Navy. The photographs I received did little to sooth my homesickness. She was a trim thirty-nine feet and needed me, I could feel it."
 Thank you to L.W. North for sharing the above photograph and text.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Archived Log Entries