In the 1970s, admirers of the beautiful Johan Anker keelboat Dragon, the classy 30 Square Metre Boat, the Swiss Lacustre or the Folkboat had a problem. A wooden boat needs a lot of attention, time and skilled craftsmanship. And it is expensive 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 approach in his father’s Brooklin Boatyard. He built a wooden replica of the GRP series manufactured Swede 55.
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. Occasionally, it is just one letter making the difference between heaven and hell. 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. In 1960, he set up his enterprise in a former fish canning factory, repairing fishing boats. Soon, his 13-year-old son Steve was 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. In 1984, he contacted the naval architect Knud Reimers. With advice from Reimers and his father, Steve White revised the plans for building the boat in wood.
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 reasonable costs. Wood sealed with epoxy resin is almost as easy to care for as fibreglass-reinforced plastic.
Vortex at her berth in the mid nineties in Center Harbour/Brooklin – Photo Swedesail
The Brooklin Boatyard had already built numerous small boats with West System resin from the Gougeon brothers. Now, 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 built and 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 White, to pay attention to the weight of the boat, which is possible thanks to the moulded construction without the two additional inner GRP 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. Steve 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). Further, the lead is hung a little lower under the fin.
Instead of the all-round aluminium foot rail joining the hull and deck of GRP boats, White raises the side of the boat a little higher. And he visually stretches the cabin structure by omitting the Reimers-typical step. The windows are sitting 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, costs, and 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.
Mahogany cabin on sand coloured deck – Photo Swedesail
After seven thousand man-hours, the new Swede 55 was rigged in Center Harbor in 1990. Vortex became a much-noticed ambassador for the yard, supported by the article in the Wooden Boat magazine, 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 center for teaching traditional and modern wooden boat building, offer aesthetes an alternative to mass-produced products. Beyond the reasons described, wooden boats represent a special way of life here. 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 more sociable Steve in Brooklin, and rowed through Center Harbor to see Vortex and take the photos shown here.
The start of numerous custom yachts
White sails Vortex to the Caribbean and back, including an enduring test in brutal conditions in the Gulf Stream of the North Atlantic. Since then, White has been confident that the molded epoxy resin construction is strong.
Over the decades, a fleet of beautiful boats followed in the Spirit of Tradition manner, combining elegant lines with a modern underwater hull and an easy to care for construction.
Vortex in the nineties in Brooklin – Photo Swedesail
Photo on top by Brooklin Boatyard: Boat builder Steve White at the helm of Vortex in Penobscot Bay. Updated May 5, 25. → Subscribe to the free newsletter and you won’t miss future articles.
