A REPLICA A RESURRECTION and A ZOMBIE

REPLICA Alice Wragg

is Canadian built boat using wood and epoxy to produce a 40 ft gaff cutter which owes much to the Bristol Channel Pilot cutters. The UK owners hail from Bristol and she is sitting next to me in the boatyard in Carriacou getting some minor woodwork done.

RESURRECTION Alongside her is a very similar boat

but this one was built on the beach in Petite Martinique.

Beauty was built in 2008 by Baldwin “Balo” DeRoche for Jeff Stevens, owner and captain of the 65-foot Windward schooner Jambalaya, built by Alwyn Enoe & Sons at Windward, Carriacou. The new 48-foot six-inch wooden sloop is similar in design to the 40-foot sloop Balo built for Jeff last January, but before Savvy was launched, her purpose and destiny changed. She was purchased by a prominent businessman to promote his new marina development in Grenada, presenting a well-timed opportunity for Stevens and DeRoche to make some innovative changes to the new vessel’s design.

“She’s going to be a green boat,” says Jeff, who is wearing a shirt the same shade of blue as the top stripe on Beauty’s two-toned blue hull. “Not green the colour, it’s bad luck to paint a boat green,” he explains with reverence, “We’re using green technology.” She has a an electric motor some serious storage cells plus a water driven charging system as well as solar.

Douglas Pyle chronicled what he thought was a dying art in 1981, when he published Clean, Sweet Wind, visiting the same islands and families whose descendants have somehow managed to keep the tradition alive with little outside assistance. But the ancient art of traditional wooden boat building has been resurrected!

ZOMBIE Dead but not yet buried. In a corner is this sad sight.

At first sight she seems all there and might be saveabale however there are holes in the deck and cockpit suggesting that water will have been getting inside so I guess the interior will be rotting.

Finally here is mine looking quite spiffy

and waiting to be splashed. I was expecting to be back in this Monday but the boatyard is on Island Time so it will be tomorrow. Probably maybe hopefully!