For Sale

Home Port: Quartermaster Harbor, Vashon Island
Year Built: 1967
Owner: Michael Murray
Designer: L. Francis Herreshoff
Design: Modified H28
Maggie Jane is a strongly built, strip planked H28 ketch design, extensively rebuilt and sailed out of Quartermaster Harbor on Vashon Island. Her dimensions are LOD 29.5’, LOA 33’, Beam 8.75’, Draft 3.67’ with a displacement estimated at 10,000 lbs. She is ketch rigged with a raised doghouse and an added bowsprit for lighter NW winds. Sails include a main, mizzen, genoa, jib, and light air drifter. She is powered with a 2020 Tohatsu High Thrust 6 HP outboard replacing the original 4cyl gas Gray Marine inboard. A 2 cyl Universal 5411 diesel is available for a future install.
Maggie was home built in the mid-sixties by a talented shipwright in Grand Haven, MI and cruised the Great Lakes extensively throughout the seventies. Like many who loved the iconic H28 design, it was a bit small for a growing family and the builder modified her original plan for more cruising capacity to a design by an unconfirmed Japanese marine architect to a design similar to the Offshore 30 and Cheoy Lee Bermuda 30 designs with an extended hull length from 28’ to 29.5’, and a raised dog house and extended cabin. After finding her way out to Puget Sound, the bowsprit and 7/8 rig was added to improve light air performance for PNW waters. She was constructed with 1” mahogany strip planking, edge glued and fastened every 3” with vertical, staggered bronze shank nails. Frames are 2” white oak, bronze fastened.
Maggie Jane was originally christened as the Margory Jane, named after the builder’s wife and, later, renamed Captain Pierce by a subsequent, Midwest owner, retaining that name until I took on the project of restoring her in 2008. We believe she was brought out to the Pacific Northwest in the early eighties by a US Navy Commander, a naval doctor, stationed in the Northwest. I have been contacted by two other owner/families of her but a clear picture of her ownership in the Northwest for the past thirty years is still a mystery.
Major renovations:
Major work included replacing the cabin sides of the house, a redesigning and rebuilding a new cockpit, deck replacement and fiberglass/epoxy sheathing where required, rebuilding the transom, rudder and bowsprit, replacing hull planking as required at the sheer, renovating masts and booms, replacing all standing and running rigging, completely redesigning and replacing the entire interior with a full galley, dinette, wood stove, gimbaled Shipmate propane stove, a convertible main cabin double berth, new cushions, new ceiling boards and flooring, new wiring/panels and water systems.
My goal throughout this reconstruction was to repair, replace, renovate and update Maggie Jane, as needed, but keep the vessel and all systems as original, and simple as possible in the spirit of the original 1942 Herreshoff design. Cruising aboard her today truly feels like being in a time capsule from that earlier era.
Early in the project I was contacted by a fellow in the Midwest. It turned out that David Egger was the son of the original builder/owner and had located me through his correspondence with 48 Degrees North Magazine. We struck up a long, 10-year email friendship with me, periodically, providing his family with updates over the long restoration. This reconnection culminated in the Egger family joining us, as our guests, for the inaugural sail of the newly rechristened Maggie Jane (the new name gives homage to David’s mother, Margory Jane, for whom the boat was originally named).
It was an emotional sail on Quartermaster Harbor that day in August 2015 where two families, previously unknown to each other and living thousands of miles apart, came together to celebrate the rebirth of a boat after 50 years. David published an article on his search for, and subsequent finding, of his dad’s boat in 48 Degrees North in June 2020.

A Boat: Lost and Found June 2020 edition of 48 Degrees North Magazine

I am, regrettably, ready to hand off Maggie Jane to a new, responsible caretaker, if only because I still have too many boats and projects and, frankly, have too little time. See you out on the water!

Mike
(206) 713-6577