By Rob Wilkinson
My brother John and I grew up on Mercer Island Washington, a paradise in the 1950s with gravel roads, cottages on Lake Washington and forests to play in. Our house was big by local standards but a tear down today. It featured a huge boat house with a shiny aluminum roof that pilots told us they used to guide their decent into Boeing Field.
My dad and a friend bought a Blanchard Senior Knockabout moored in front of our house that my brother and I learned to sail. My mom hated it when the boat tipped in the wind. She feared the boat would capsize – her babies lost at sea. My dad would offer reassurance while my mom nervously smoked one cigarette after another (Parliments I remember). These family events were short. My father was in denial that my mom would eventually love to sail. She never did.
As time passed my brother and I did learn to sail. We loved the way the Blanchard would tip and slice through the water sending spray over the deck. I understood at a very young age the raw partnership of taught sail and hull working together to drive the boat forward. I could feel the shutter in my chest with each wave. I would winch in the sheet and point high just to feel that thud again and again, the sails, alive and eager for more.
So when our father died the boat was sold. My brother John and I promised to keep it up but at 13 and 14 years of age in hindsight my mom wisely understood our limitations. But it was a loss for me. The little Blanchard cabin had become a place of solace to hide away from the sorrow of losing my dad and the suffering of my mom. For my brother it was his special connection – a passion they shared together .
The Blanchard name was ILLUSION, a fitting name for a boat that was only a passing moment in our long lives. Memories either very good or very bad tend to stick. Illusion was a good one.
More than a half century later my brother John retired from his job in Spokane WA. His retirement plans were music and sailing. He was an avid sailor. He kept a small sailboat on the beautiful Lake Coeur d’Alene. But the Blanchard was a memory that time could not erase. He asked if I would help him find a Blanchard to restore (maybe even the same boat we grew up with).
I had successfully integrated my boat building hobby with my career as photographer and I knew a few friends at boat yards in Seattle. My first stop was the historic Jensen Motorboat Company a short walk from our home in Seattle. As luck would have it piled high with shop debris was a derelict Blanchard Senior owned by Jensen boatwright David Willard.
David’s busy life left little time and space for restoring the Blanchard despite his good intentions. He welcomed John’s interest in restoring it. I’m sure Jensen Motorboat Company was happy to reclaim the space it occupied.
A deal was made. A custom trailer built. Soon the Blanchard was on its way over the cascade mountain range to Spokane where it lived in John and his wife Sheree’s garage. John spent hours that became days, months and eventually years planning the restoration. While I tend to launch on projects impulsively John enjoys working the problem in his head.
Sadly, John’s plans for the Blanchard restoration came to an abrupt end with his unfortunate diagnosis of a disabling neurological disorder. While coping with this bad news and an uncertain future, the hope of his restoration of the Blanchard was gone.
He struggled over the prospect of disposing unceremoniously this maritime treasure in a Spokane landfill. But open seams you could see through, a cabin that was disconnected and hanging, hardware removed and much of it missing, it was closer to firewood than boat. An hour with a Sawzall….well, that was an option.
But As a sailboat the Blanchard Senior Knockabout remains an iconic part of northwest history – a fact my brother well understood.
He called me with his concern and together we worked the problem seeking someone in the Spokane area that could restore it but without luck.
I briefly entertained taking this project on, but my small lot in Seattle was full-up with my own fleet of wooden boats. I worried of an intervention by family and friends if I did. In a rare moment of lucidity and good judgement I flashed on a plan to return the Blanchard to Seattle and have David Willard do the restoration. Remember David gave the boat to John six years earlier.
Jensen Motor boat company had recently gone out of business after nearly 100 years of service to the wooden boat community and David set up shop on his own. He agreed to take this project on despite the bottom up challenge of making it whole again. John agreed to the plan as well, more importantly to write the checks (many as it turns out).
The first problem to solve was finding an affordable place to work on it in a city where everything is expensive. (think Amazon and Microsoft headquarters plus Boeing in the same city!) David found that the Center for Wooden Boats had a spot for rent in its North lake Union yard at a reasonable price, in sight of the location where the Blanchard was built 70 years earlier. He jumped on it.
The Blanchard Sr. returned to Seattle over the same mountain range it had travelled six years earlier. But it’s new temporary home at the Center for Wooden Boats put it among its friends (Blanchard Juniors also undergoing restoration) and larger wooden sailboats it could only envy. The Center for Wooden Boats is a well- known treasure in Seattle. Naval architect, David Bergy and engineer Dave Erskine are two of the senior volunteers with decades of experience who provided their guidance and expertise in the Blanchard’s revival.
David Willard was the principal boatwright. His challenge was a story many faithful readers of Wooden Boat Magazine have heard before, a marathon effort over several years replacing ribs, planks, rigging, hardware, electrical system – the list goes on.
The physical toll was also evident in awkward, tight positions, splinters in hands, aching back, sore hands, climbing in and out of the boat (it would feel a million times) to make a single board fit just so. David was committed to both excellence and ibuprofen.
The rudder assembly, keel bunks, deck supports, deck, canvas, cabin corners, cockpit interior, gunnels, paint, varnish to name a few! In short it was a major overall. In the hindsight many in this business will say. “We could have built a new boat in the time it took to restore this one”. But these same folks are almost always glad they didn’t.
Meanwhile John (who could only visit the boat rarely but was supplied with photos showing its progress) carefully studied the details and offering his sharp insights when asked. My brother and David share a similar perfectionist trait. The end result is a magnificently restored Blanchard Senior Knockabout good for many decades to come.
There is therapy in memory when other functions fail us. My brother disease may have robbed him of some motor skills but not of his passion to save a small piece of northwest maritime history. The Blanchard is John’s happy place – those of us of a certain age understand this need quite well.
About to Launch 2023