In the 1970s, admirers of the Dragon, 30 square metre boats, Lacustre or the Folkboat had a problem. Wooden boats were a lot of work and unaffordable to build new. That’s why they have been built in plastic ever since. At the end of the 1980s, Steve White took the opposite step in Brooklin Boatyard. He built the GRP series boat Swede 55 out of wood.

The village of Brooklin, not to be confused with Brooklyn/New York, is located in the northeastern US state of Maine, a five-hour drive from Boston. The winters here are snowy, the summers pleasantly cool. The waters of Penobscot Bay are an idyllic archipelago with numerous islands and a tidal range of four meters. In 1954, Joel White (1930-97) started working as a lobster fisherman at Brooklin’s Center Harbor and in 1960 he set up his boat building company in a former fish canning factory, repairing fishing boats. His 13-year-old son Steve was soon helping out in the business. In the 1980s, the junior became aware of the Swede 55 through an article in issue 6 of Nautical Quarterly, and in late 1984 he contacted Swede 55 designer Knud Reimers. With advice from Reimers and his father, he revised the plans for building the wooden boat.

Swede 55 as a cold moulded epoxy resin construction

After experiments with race boats and ice sailing sleds, a new boat building technique became popular: form-bonded construction. Here, several layers of thin veneers are glued crosswise, vertically and lengthways with epoxy resin to form a light and stable boat body. The process is interesting because it enables high-quality custom-made products at a reasonable cost. Wood sealed with epoxy resin is almost as easy to care for as fibreglass-reinforced plastic.

The Brooklin Boatyard has already built several small boats with West System resin from the Gougeon brothers. The new Swede 55 is a clever step into the future of the small, constantly growing winter storage business, with repairs and the construction of individually beautiful boats outside the mainstream. Vortex is intended to show whether the construction method is suitable for the production of larger individual constructions.

What Steve White does differently

Reimers recommends that White pay attention to the weight of the boat, which is possible thanks to the moulded construction without the two additional plastic inner shells of the Fisksätra series production. Bulkheads with foam core and the functionally simple construction without a pilot’s berth and navigation corner, as well as the rattan-covered doors of the clothes lockers, cupboards, and swallow’s nests all contribute to this. Steven White solves some topics on this boat in a typically American way and in the tradition of his father, simpler and more straightforward. The construction method requires a keel construction without a bilge (and storage space). The lead is hung a little lower under the fin.

Instead of the all-round aluminium skirting board that joins the hull and deck of GRP boats, White raises the side of the boat a little higher. He visually stretches the cabin structure and omits the Reimers-typical step. The windows are frameless on the sides of the mahogany boat. The wooden construction requires a different form of coaming between the front structure and the aft cabin. For practical reasons (weight, cost, maintenance effort), Vortex does not have a teak deck. The weight saved on the hull and deck thanks to the wooden construction allows for 295 kg more ballast. The deck matches the colour of the beige-painted aluminium mast.

After seven thousand man-hours, the new Swede 55 was rigged in Center Harbor in 1990. Vortex became a much-noticed ambassador for the shipyard, which was helped by the article in the Wooden Boat magazine, which is read by wooden boat enthusiasts around the world. The products of the Brooklin Boatyard and the magazine, which is also based in the town, as well as the training centre for teaching traditional and modern wooden boat building, offer aesthetes an alternative to mass-produced products. Wooden boats are a way of life here, beyond the reasons described. With Vortex, Steve White also shows that he can walk in his father’s shoes and continue the fortunes of the Brooklin Boatyard. During two visits, I got to know the introverted Joel White, the sociable Steve in Brooklin, and rowed through Center Harbor to Vortex.

The start of numerous custom-made products

White sails Vortex to the Caribbean and back, including endurance tests in brutal conditions in the Gulf Stream of the North Atlantic. Since then, White has been confident that the moulded epoxy resin construction will hold.

Over the decades, a fleet of beautiful boats followed in the Spirit of Tradition manner, which offers elegant lines, a modern underwater hull and an easy-care construction.

Werft Baujahr	Brooklin Boatyard 1988-90
Länge über Alles	16,15 m
Länge Wasserlinie	12,47 m
Breite	3 m
Tiefgang	≈ 2,10 m
Verdrängung	8.165 kg
Ballast	3.719 kg (+ 295 kg)
Segelfläche	74,3 m2
Motor	27 PS Diesel

Photo on top: Boat builder Steve White at the helm of his Vortex in Penobscot Bay – Photo Brooklin Boatyard

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