The Mystic Seaport Museum of
America and the Sea provided a wonderful venue for our
April 12 – 15 Symposium. The word that was used in the
program was “Grace”and there is no better place to
explore that gracefulness , and all there is about the
vintage boating pastime than Mystic Seaport in quaint
Mystic, Connecticut. There is much to be learned at the
seaport museum and we were given an opportunity to take
in as much as we could absorb in 3 days.
We were allowed to tour the
“Sheds” where there are 500 plus boats in storage that
will probably be there forever. All types and all sizes
were represented. We were toured through the archives
and photo lab areas along with finding stuff that we
were looking for. I found original plans from a life
boat that my great , great Uncle built for the lifeboat
service in the 1800’s. There will be a copy arriving
soon to grace my office wall.
This was an unbelievable event
for us boaters. Could have not asked for any more.
Attending an official quarterly meeting of ACBS was an
educational experience and I learned quickly why they
get so much done. They are organized and do it right.
Friday morning session accomplished all that they had on
their agenda and then some.
Afternoon sessions included a
“Behind the Scenes at Mystic Seaport where we did the
tour of collections and research. A building of one
acre houses all of their collections and it was a treat
to just browse through this wonderful place.
Tony Mollica of the Gar Wood
Society presented his talk on the Heritage of Early
Recreational Motor Boating and the industrialists that
headed up this era. Gar Wood was quite a guy along with
his family.
The evening session included a
talk by Mary Anne Stets of Mystic Seaport who heads up
the Collections and Business Development at the
Seaport. She presented slides on the collections of the
Rosenfelds that includes over 800,000 images. We did
not see all of them!!!
ACBS provided the forum for the
first ever Marque Club Summit where all heads of the
various boat clubs around the country were gathered on a
panel to discuss what they could do for ACBS and what
ACBS could do for them. It concluded with membership
growth. You will hear more on this as time goes on. It
was a special treat to visit with each acquaintance that
I have known but never met before. We all had a lot to
share and it was a very busy time. Chairman and ACBS
Director Mike Gresham tackled this job and provided us
with a master directory as it stands right now of the
clubs in existence and pledged to further this project
and it has been noted that ACBS will devote space in the
Rudder magazine for more of this in the future. We all
have archives and information on our particular boat of
choice.
We got down to the nuts and
bolts of boating with sessions on Varnish and everything
inside of it with Jim Murdock. The Science of Wood and
how it reacts to the elements with Don Danenberg and
Bringing Old Iron to Life The ABC’s of Vintage Marine
Engines with Dan Acierno. Boyd Mefferd presented on
some of the 1,000 boats that he has dealt with over time
and Chris Smith presented on his Reflections on a life
with Chris- Craft. What it was like to work with his
father and grandfather and his humorous experiences at
Algonac and Holland Michigan plants.
Key note speaker Terry Fiest
from Mt. Dora show fame and now President of the
Chris-Craft Antique Boat Club told us about his life
around boats and his youth in Montana.
My wife, Anne, and I enjoyed
meeting a lot of the ACBS folks that will be coming to
New Hampshire to participate with us at our July boat
show as they will be holding their quarterly Board of
Directors meeting at Margate in Laconia at the same
time. We are all invited to attend their Friday morning
session on July 27th @ 8:00 AM and I hope
a lot of you will make an effort to attend. It will be
a great experience to see how our parent organization
works and they want to meet you.
Plan on a busy and fun time in
July at our events.
Hal Sanderson
