Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Easterly: A Confluence Of Masters


      Easterly  was arguably the finest yacht built by Seth Persson, which makes her one of the finest yachts of her size ever built. She was also one of his two favorites, for a variety of reasons that form the purpose and the lesson underlying this brief review. 

     Whenever one approaches an object of work that stands out, in detail and in whole, as of a special quality even when measured against the finest of contemporary examples, there is at first viewing an appreciation of the object, quite separate from the skills and labors behind its making. This is the hoped for, intended effect of every craftsman and builder; moments of awe and praise to reward the hours of labor and the years of practice that preceded. This posting will seek to break down the process, the thinking, the skills, experiences, and personalities which make the rare project such as Easterly a reality now past her fiftieth year. 

  
      (The following photograph of  Easterly by Wavelength Studios was taken during a race off of Newport, Rhode Island. Click on the file below, then on the tab that opens below that, to view this photograph.) 

     Any project of a relative magnitude requires the work and input of many hands. The expectation of exceptional quality and finish demands that the many hands posses a high degree of skill, lead by the eyes and experience of people with a rare talent for distinctive detail within the context of the larger whole.This is a culmination of many careers, many life's paths, set upon years earlier, meeting in a confluence of talents and experiences, opportunities and raw capability. To begin with the basic materials, blank paper and rough wood, metals and machinery, is a simple matter; but to end with the final product, constructed as desired and envisioned, is a complicated process. It begins with young people, young boys in this case, sketching sailboats on their notebooks while dreaming in class about the things they will build and the places they will go. But the people they will meet, the ones they will work with and for, is not in the vocabulary of the young, though this be as important to their future as any mechanical, or monetary, skill.

The Designers

     Easterly's story begins with her design. She was the second boat built to this particular design, the first having been built in 1947 and named Rascal. That a second boat of this design was desired by another owner more than ten years on is testament to the quality of the design as proven by extensive and satisfied experience. The designer was Sparkman and Stephens, at a time when there was a blend of artistry and burgeoning science at work in that office, which gave free rein to the designers on staff to retain the elements of classical grace and beauty that would slowly disappear from yacht design over the ensuing decades. Rascal's owner took this a measure beyond, specifying that not one line in his boats' design be a straight line. 

     This was purely for aesthetics, one assumes, though the question of whether water flows more efficiently around graceful curves or straight-sectioned hydrodynamic foils being unresolved, then and now. But the result is a design that is of a special and timeless appearance, her profile a single, proportional, delicate, powerful and purposeful line. Rascal was designed during the time of the CCA rule, which favored moderately long overhangs, wholesome displacement, and practical rigs. She was kept narrow, 10'8" of beam on 45 feet of length; and deep, 6'4". Her waterline length of 31 feet was in keeping with the proportions of the day.

     Rascal's cross sections also carry the elegance and grace of that era, slightly tumblehomed, fair and powerful lines carrying from rail to ballast keel. There is a balance present in such a design, compatible with comfortable sailing on open oceans, a point more important to sailing than all the dockside luxuries of modern boats. With a 7/8's sloop rig carrying 909 square feet of sail on a 64 foot mast, Rascal proved a fast and handy sailor for a yacht of her size.

     Sparkman and Stephens has been a unique organization in the annals of yacht design history; for, while most yacht design firms are built around the talents of their principle designer, S&S has since early on been a place where talented designers have gathered to combine their talents. In his autobiography, Olin Stephens paid tribute to the many hands who made up the design staff at S&S. The ability to attract such talent was directly linked to the ability of S&S to attract a well-to-do clientele; talent must be paid, and a steady stream of work is needed to maintain a working team. Amongst the field of talented designers on the S&S team was Al Mason, who was primarily responsible for producing Rascal's design.

     There is a tendency in reports such as this one, to breeze over the contributions of people such as Al Mason to projects such as Rascal, and the later Easterly; he worked for S&S, he produced the designs and drawings. But this is an examination of the people and the course of events that makes these projects possible, and so it is worth a little time to consider exactly what was entailed in the acquisition of skills to bring expression to the talents and interests of, in this case, Al Mason.

     He began at a young age, learning enough about boats to produce the design for the 60 foot schooner California when he was just 17 years old. His daughter Anita Mason, who worked with him in his private practice, has been compiling a book explaining how someone so young could be able to know enough to design such a vessel. Interest, is the answer, or passion, or any of those words which describe, just barely, the furthest edges of those pursuits that keep a mind happily occupied for sixty years while wanting more. 

     Yacht design in the days of pencil and inking pen on vellum was a craft and trade of many skills; lines drawings were a combination of freehand drawing, drafting with battens and French curves, all done within constraints of various measured and mathematical restraints; overall dimensions, measurement rules, displacement, and Olin Stephens' favorite, the prismatic coefficient (a measure of the fineness of the largest cross-section in proportion to length). The artisan skills of drafting in curves, the three views coinciding not just in dimension, volume, and proportion, but in fair, efficient, attractive lines, is a special skill born of many hours over many years of solitary, trying practice. There are few who possess this skill, fewer who combine technique, technology, mathematics, and artistry as did a man of Al Mason's capability.

     To this is added the wooden structures of keel, stem, floortimbers and plates, frames, planking, bolts and fasteners, deck and cabin structures; and then, the interior, spars, rigging, hardware, engine, tanks. S&S was known for the extensive detail included in their designs, including all the hatches, doors, galley details. As lead designer on this project, Al Mason had to be more than simply knowledgeable about each of these, he had to be intimately and professionally knowledgeable. And, at S&S, he would have had the expert input and assistance of still more of the top designers and engineers then employed by S&S, which in the years following WWII numbered around 250.

     All of this work was done under two sets of watchful eyes, each with a view to bring the high standard of sought perfection to the last and smallest detail. The first, belonging to Olin Stephens himself, who would oversee and review every design as it progressed from concept and sketch to finished draft. Second would be Frank Campbell, client and owner of Rascal from first glimmer to final glean, who commissioned the design and construction of Rascal for cruising with his young family on and about Long Island Sound. 

     Somewhere along the course of the next decade, another set of eyes became enamored of the Rascal's design, and in an extended process for the vessel at the midst of this anthology, became client and owner.

The Client

     Richard Cooper was a man who understood the principle of trajectory. He was a director and officer of the Fafnir Bearing Company in New Britain, Connecticut, an industry critical to all things industrial,  from automobiles to airplanes, engines to lunar missions. Roller bearings are amongst the unseen miracles of modern societies, critical to the efficiency, reliability, and durability of our now assumptive everyday lives. 

     Fafnir employed 8,000 people between its' several, international factories, and produced some 200,000 bearings per day. As a man who shouldered his share of  the weight of considerable responsibility for the employees, customers, and shareholders of Fafnir Bearing, Rick Cooper was a man accustomed to, and successful at, considering the long range consequences  of his words and actions.

     And so, when presented with a question of any magnitude, Cooper would think a moment about the question, its implications and potentials ; then, he would form his response, carefully, and completely, in his mind, considering the trajectory over time, and the possible, positive or negative, consequences; and finally, he would voice his response, slowly, and with clear, concise words. Perhaps in our time this will seem too sluggish for the frenetic pace of the global economy; yet it was this very philosophy which built an industry like Fafnir Bearing, and led to the building of a yacht such as the Easterly.

     For the better part of ten years, Rick Cooper would stop in at the boatyard of Seth Persson to see the latest project and talk boats with Seth. He was an unpretentious figure, dressed rather casually, and Seth assumed he was a working man who liked boats. Seth was always open to conversing about boats with knowledgeable people, which Cooper was. These were the halcyon days in Seth's career, when he was building Carleton Mitchell's Finisterre and the Alden ketch Abigail, to name a few. There was much for Cooper to see, though perhaps not much time for the two men to talk.

     And then one day Rick Cooper stopped by the boatyard with a set of drawings for a 45 foot S&S sloop, and said that he would like Seth to build her for him. "You can't afford this," was Seth's response, aware of a working man's means. "Yes, I can," replied Cooper, aware of his own means.   In retrospect, Seth realized that he had spoken to Cooper while he was at his Fafnir office; Seth recognized the voice, but could not place it with the rather reserved man who on occasion visited his boatshop.

     Richard Cooper was indeed a man of means, owning an extensive property on the Connecticut River at Ely's Ferry in Old Lyme. He sold this property, and donated 112 acres of vital waterfront property to a land trust to be conserved in perpetuity. He then bought and improved a home with dock inside Hamburg Cove, a well known hurricane-haven on the Connecticut River. Here, he would dock the Easterly, and a 42 foot Dyer powerboat named Southerly. In the first decades following the war, these were substantial yachts, as America was then a nation with a strong middle class where wealth was more evenly distributed than in the decades before or since.

     The contract for Easterly's construction was simple, and had no set price or delivery date. This was a matter of trust and confidence, each knowing the other would deliver what was promised and required of them. With such constraints and the inherent compromises removed, it was possible to proceed with a working theme to build a boat where every detail was "as nice as it could be," the exact words every craftsman longs to hear.


The Boatbuilders

        Everything about building boats from drawings begins with full scale lofting and layout, of which Seth Persson was a true and prolific master.This was due in part to a natural talent and aptitude for "seeing" how to work in complex shapes; and, to the unique and organic educational process which Seth underwent. Through circumstances of family, location, era, and environment, and through intentional self-initiative mixed with fortuitous opportunity, Seth was able at a very young age to gain both the knowledge and experience needed to understand and produce the objects of his life's work to the level of his fond aspirations. 

     The interest in boats stemmed from his father, Frans, who after some ten years "before the mast" came ashore in New York. There, in his leisure time, Frans built a number of boats for himself and later his family. Seth began his boating life as an infant on board  a 22 foot motor launch Frans designed and built, followed by a youth spent sailing on the 28 foot yawl Valhalla. This was all good experience and introduction to the intricacies and insights of boats and sailing, and Seth was set on a course early on to work on boats throughout his lifetime.

     This process began in earnest when Seth dropped out of public school at the age of fourteen. He enrolled in an International Correspondence Course to earn his high school diploma, while designing and building his first boat, a 12 foot gaff rigged sloop. Once he had completed his basic education requirements, he moved on to a very thorough and well taught ICS course in ships drafting. This included an extensive course of study of three-dimensional layout and development, plus all of the drafting and inking skills required for the trade. 

     At seventeen years of age, Seth took another important step forward in his education and training when he went to work for the Consolidated Shipbuilding Company on City Island, New york. This was in 1925, when the Consolidated was still building yachts up to 150 feet in length; it may be argued that this was the finest builder of fine and advanced motor yachts then operating in America. There were between 2000 and 2500 men working for Consolidated at that time, many of them Germans who were highly skilled and had come to America after the war seeking a better life. During the years of the Roaring 20's, an interested craftsman could not have found a better life than this.

     Seth arrived at Consolidated just as the last formal apprenticeships were coming to a close, and so his was an informal learning experience while there. This was perhaps one of the more fortuitous opportunities of his life to that point, as he was an energetic and impatient youth with more knowledge than most people his age. His time there was spent working in the shop that built boats up to 50 feet in length, primarily bright-finished motorboats of exceptional quality,

     Seth encountered some of the major mentors of his life during the 2-1/2 years he worked at Consolidated, including a German boat builder named Tommy Brodersen, who taught Seth many of the finer points of wooden boat building. Jack Kraft, lead foreman at the shop, recognized Seth's abilities and after six months or so, had Seth doing the same work as the other men in the shop. A Norwegian named Ole Olafsen taught Seth the value of thinking through one's work while saving time with careful layout.

     During this time Seth designed and built a 17 foot sloop for his own use, finishing it out to the same yacht standards he was learning at the Consolidated. The plans, and a photograph of the 17 year old boat builder sailing his creation, appeared in Motor Boating magazine. By age nineteen, Seth was ready to start his own boatshop. 

     His first shop was built on pilings over a salt marsh. There Seth designed and built a number of motor and sail boats, establishing a solid reputation in both fields. When the Great Depression closed in, Seth had to close down his shop, and went to work for the Jakobson and Peterson shipyard as chief mould loftsman. Seth was at twenty-three years of age quite young to be taking on a job of such importance, but his educational path had prepared him well for the work. He lofted the last wooden and first steel tugboats built at the Jakobson yard.

     Another, valuable, completely informal and organic source of learning for Seth came from visiting a multitude of shops and foundries with his father during his formative years. Always interested, he picked up many insights to not just the basics, but the finer and often rarely known, aspects of many trades. He especially gained a wealth of knowledge about metal casting, which would play a major part in his pattern making over the years to come.

     Meanwhile, Seth and his father were building the small boatyard in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, where he established his boat building business and reputation. He had been working the boatyard for 25 years, and was by then fifty-two years of age, when Rick Cooper placed the order for the sloop which would become the Easterly. Seth was at the pinnacle of his working life, with his shop firmly established and his best crew in place and available. 

     A project of the scale and complexity of an Easterly entails many thousand of highly skilled working hours to complete. Having the best people on hand to do the work to the standard and in the style of the master builder is an essential and often emotional interactive experience. This can range from the immensely frustrating to the uplifting of enlightenment, depending on how the personalities and perspectives intermix. On the Easterly project, Seth was extremely fortunate to have an assembled crew of men with whom he had worked extensively and well over the course of numerous previous projects. 

     Tollef Tollefsen had worked with Seth for some five years by the time the Easterly project came along. Born in Norway, Tolley was a fine craftsman capable of turning out the best work. He was especially responsible for building the spars for Seth's boats. Joining Tolley was Ed Dempsey, a solid and hardworking boat builder with a complete range of skills. Seth was also able to bring one of his favorite master craftsmen, named Charlie Pratt, on board. Seth had met Charlie while building gliders during the war, and quickly came to appreciate his woodworking talents. The two men were also quite congenial and shared a working relationship based on mutual respect and complementary skill, which made for a particularly enjoyable working relationship that Seth would recall fondly for the rest of his days.

     Some new hands also signed on during this project (Seth also built a small motorboat, and hauled, stored, and repaired about 25 boats alongside the Easterly's construction). Most notable was Charley Howard, who joined the crew as painter during the final press to finish Easterly. Charley proceeded to "kick everyone off the boat" so he could do a proper job of the varnish work; Seth, who had certainly seen his share of bright work, would later say that he didn't recognize the interior of the boat for the high quality of Charley's varnish work. Charley stayed on and was renowned for his finish work at the Persson yard for the next 20 years.  In addition, the Greaves brothers, Tom and Harry, moved from their native Ireland to join the crew near the close of the project.

     Each of the men who worked on Easterly's construction had been working in the trade for many years prior to joining Seth's crew; they possessed the skills, patience, perseverance, and temperament so critical to working as a cohesive and productive team. In a shop and on a project such as this (be it a sculpture, mural, building, boat, etc.) there is a lead master craftsman whose role is to posses and convey a certain vision of the finished project at each step of the process to a crew of workers fully capable of producing each finished piece. The lead person must be able to see both the whole and the parts, and know how each step in the process will add to the last and prepare for the next. To be able to do this with a gathered crew of workers capable of sharing the vision while patiently producing the pieces in the process is a rare and necessary gift if one is to produce a work of the caliber and complexity of an Easterly. The time spent on this project is also telling; Easterly required eighteen months to complete, partly due to the competing workload, but mostly because of the hours that go into such a project. Here is the double-edge of time experienced by all craftspeople in a world of economic realities; to on the one hand maintain a high level of focus for eighteen months, and on the other, to produce such a piece of work in only eighteen months.

     

The Project

          Every one of Seth Persson's boat building projects concluded with a thorough cleaning of the boatshop. All the shavings, planer chips, scrap wood, and general debris would be swept up and taken away, the blocking and staging stowed. Tools that had somehow disappeared somehow reappeared, and everything returned again to its proper place and condition. This was a time to sharpen tools and oil the machinery. It was also time to paint the mould loft floor.

     Painting the mould loft floor is a transitional moment, done with thorough preparation and serious intent, as the first act of the last project is coated over with white paint to make way for the opening act of the new; all the challenges of that once fresh beginning, now a success, the end product having sailed away, the stage is set  anew. In this instance it was the lofting for the 45 foot Rhodes sloop Hi Q II that was forever painted from present view, making way for Easterly's lines to be lofted.

     Lofting a boat simply means to reproduce the primary drawings to  full size. This is the secret and science of handcrafted boat building, as it allows the three-dimensional hull to be accurately drawn and developed in two dimensions first, with all of the major structural and interior components also drawn full size. In lofting the lines of a boat, a level of accuracy of 1/16th of an inch is maintained (boats traditionally are built within 1/8th of an inch). Each of the three views must be drawn both fair and correspondingly accurate at each of the intersecting points.

     Lofting the structure of a wooden boat requires laying out keel timbers, frames, floortimbers, planking, and deck structure. The rabbet which allows a structural connection of the planking to the backbone is also developed; the curved transom must also be developed as a flat surface first, which Seth would do using a method of unknown origin but with particularly effective results.  

     From the lofting, templates are made, accurate and fair with pertinent information and layout lines right on the templates.This is in many ways the entire purpose of lofting, the taking of scale drawings to the full-scale reality of finished boats. Templates are in effect information transference systems, an accurate and eminently useful means to move between the two-dimensional and into the three-dimensional parts which when assembled equal a complete and proper boat.

     The selection and use of materials in any project is of critical importance to the longevity and service of a vessel; understanding  not just which materials are best, but also the physical characteristics, strengths, and limitations of materials is essential. Generations of building wooden boats resulted in a solid working and engineering grasp of which woods and metals to incorporate for various purposes, and the best way to utilize them. As is usually the case, the best way to build anything is also the most labor intensive way, the specifics of which will be addressed as this discussion of Easterly's construction progresses.

     Seth used a unique method for bending and setting up the steam bent white oak frames for his boats. This required lofting each frame onto a 12 ft. by 12 ft. scrieve board; each frame was then individually bent, using a steel strap with tight end blocks to compression bend the frames. Compression bending oak (which should always be white oak, for strength and rot-resistance reasons) literally means that the frame is compressed on the inside of the curve as it is bent. For example, a 2" by 2" piece, 48" long and bent to a sharp curve, still measured 48" on the outside curve but was  42" on the inside curve when finished. This is an example of how knowing how to work with a material can add tremendously to the working strength of that material. Once cooled, the frames were beveled inside and out using a scale (which Seth learned  in New York) which allows bevels to be taken directly from the frame lofting, and transferred to a corresponding scale set up on the bandsaw.  The same scale is used for beveling oak floortimbers. 
     
     Once beveled, the frames were hand planed to a fair line, requiring a good "eye" and much skill with a hand plane. This brings up a point of craftsmanship when building a vessel such as Easterly; these frames were always planed and finished absolutely fair and clean, with the same sweeping curves and complete lack of any bumps, hard spots, or flats such as is the standard when designing and lofting such a boat. Here, the craftsmen's skill and eye were tested, as Seth quietly insisted that each frame meet his considerable standard of absolute fairness. This, too, is one of the secrets of fine boatbuilding, unseen, unsuspected, and to the uninitiated perhaps a seemingly unimportant detail which in fact will go far in determining the quality of the finished product, first because all fine and good works are built in steps and stages of equal care and conscious quality, and second because a fine product requires a dedication to and attitude of perfection in every detail from first to last.

     But, this must be accomplished within the realm of effective and efficient work, which will produce value commensurate with cost. To turn out the highest quality work more quickly than most can produce even rudimentary work is the mark and the joy of all craftsmen. It is a point which must be taken by each new generation of craftsman; careful, even perfect, work does not translate to fussing endlessly with each piece. A master craftsman sees the finished piece before the first cut is made, and works quickly, directly, and efficiently to complete the finished piece.

     Seth's method was to assemble the finished frames and floor timbers, working from the scrieve board to within the 1/8th inch tolerance. The frames were then set up and fastened to the keel structure, with ribbands added to bring everything into final fairness. From there, the planking commenced, with an inner layer of cedar and outer layer of Honduras Mahogany, set in shellac. The inner layer of planking was fastened to the outer layer for added strength. Cedar is used for the inner planking because of it's rot resistance quality, and light weight; this is always the first choice for planking that is of thin dimension. Mahogany, from Central America, with fine and tight grain, is stable and strong, ideal for planking. Seth kept his planking as narrow as practicable, to minimize the shrinking and swelling which is inevitable in planked wooden boats.

     Seth was renowned for his planking skill, even in his days back in Brooklyn; which in traditional boat building is amongst the most challenging skills of all. Planks must fit the curve of the frames, the bevels between the planks, and be proportioned in width to the length of each frame. A good job of planking results in the seams being tight  along their entire length, which, besides requiring accurate beveling, calls once again for perfectly fair lines.

     There are many approaches to this work, but Seth added an approach of his own, which he called his "planking rack." This was essentially a series of cross pieces which held battens long enough to lay out a full length strake of planking, mounted on a hinged base. A full length spiling was taken from the boat, and the battens set to the shape that developed. Planks could then be laid out from the battens while maintaining a full-length fairness, which greatly improves the quality of the finished work and reduces the time needed to complete it. This was largely due to the consistently fair lines the planking rack resulted in, combined with Seth's always sharp eye and skill with his aluminum jack plane. Seth could produce one full strake of planking per day, and keep two men working at final fitting and fastening the planks as he made them. This method of spiling and laying out planking generally allowed three strakes of planking to be produced from a single spiling.

     Sailboats of this era typically incorporated metal, either cast or welded, into their construction and rigging hardware. During his years in New York, Seth had learned a great deal about both pattern making and foundry work; he had a natural artistic gift, enhanced by time spent in figure drawing classes; and, he had a good sense and knowledge of the engineering imperatives incorporated in the shapes of metal structures. Seth would make the patterns or templates for cast or welded bronze or monel pieces in his evenings and on the weekends

     The results of this work continues to function as intended, most visibly in the deck hardware, the chocks and cleats, stanchion hardware and stem fittings. Seth had his own, unique design for chocks which were particularly easy on both the eyes and the docklines. But every owner of a Seth Persson boat is quick to pull the floorboards and show visitors the bronze or monel floorplates with their natural, flowing, fair lines, and the functional tabs that are carefully filleted and blend  into the whole of the piece, tabs that hold tanks or engine beds while adding strength to the whole part and vessel.

     The beauty of all these pieces goes back to an earlier observation, that we recognize aesthetic  beauty for logical reasons; what we recognize as beautiful, graceful, or simply "right" is a recollection by our non-logical, right-brain of past observations of objects that are in fact highly refined for purely structural purposes. Fair and well proportioned parts distribute working loads and so add strength and extended life to the part. When this knowledge and philosophy is carried throughout an entire project, the result is a work of great beauty and elegance as a whole and in all its parts, which will as a result serve it's useful purpose for many years.

      This point was expressed by the observation of Easterly's present owner, who noted that a complex weldment near the transom, hidden from plain view, still carried the artist's mark of graceful, delicate lines; but this is not surprising in an object of practical purpose expressed with such elegance as is Easterly, for just as angel's wings may enchant us with their visible and delicate grace, their true majesty lies in their perfectly proportioned supporting structure, seen by none but their Creator.

     Connecting hull to deck is always a crucial and often under built part of a boat's construction. Given a degree of free rein, Seth and his crew laminated a heavier than typical sheer clamp that provided both the ample connecting points needed to secure deckbeams to frames, and so hull to deck; and, to add stiffness and stability to the Easterly's hull. Fifty years later she maintains her graceful sheerline, in large part due to the added strength of this structural member.

     Easterly's deck is of sprung teak, with the planks kept narrow enough to minimize the shrinkage and resulting open seams of teak decks made with wider deck planks. Where the cabin joins the deck, a rabbeted piece was made; the cabin trunk was then also rabbeted, forming a half-lap joint where deck and cabin meet. This required a high level of accuracy when building the cabin trunk, which was built seperate from the boat.

     Seth always had a particular fondness for dovetails as a structural joint; traditionally, many boats and ships would have cabins that were dovetailed together. But those were fairly simple, box-like cabins, and Easterly's cabin was far from simple. Besides being curved, it is steeply angled for aesthetic reasons; and, there is a dog house at the aft end. All of which makes the dovetailed corners of Easterly's cabin all the more interesting as a piece of  workmanship. Seth of course did all of the careful layout of dimensions, angles, and dovetails; and while he was eminently capable of cutting and fitting the dovetails himself, he had Charlie Pratt cut these dovetails.

     The coamings, too, are dovetailed, the corners made from heavy teak and carved into tight curves, connected to their main parts with end-dovetails. These are examples of workmanship that always catch the eye of people who encounter the Easterly, though they are details done in this manner because Seth felt this was the best way to build a cabin or coamings; cabin cornerposts are notorious for leaking and rotting, coamings joined with scarfs tend to split and come apart. This is evidenced by the fact that Seth also dovetailed the sides of his cockpit wells, which are not objects placed on open display.

     The dorade boxes and other such pieces are, of course, dovetailed as well; with one on the foredeck angled and rounded for appearance and, one assumes, to avoid snagging the random sheet or dockline.

     All of Easterly's deck structures are made of teak, for the durability inherent in that species of wood.

     When Seth would describe the work he did and expected of his crew, he would often pinch his thumb and forefinger together to demonstrate exactly how tight a joint should be, a gesture repeated decades later by such men as Tolley Tollefsen when recounting the experience of working for Seth. This is apparent in the tight hook scarf joints of Easterly's teak caprails, which maintain their fit because they were so tightly fitted in the first place. But this standard was carried throughout the construction of Easterly, whether the piece was on constant display or never seen again. This is a matter of structural integrity, which is ultimately a question of commercial integrity, since the client for such a vessel is making a considerable investment in the expectation that the resulting boat will be in uninterrupted use for many decades to come. Tight fits where they are never seen is vital to constructing a plank on frame wooden boat that fulfills this purpose.

     Charlie Pratt did much of the interior joinerwork, with it's many small drawers, lockers, and trimworks. Harry Greaves and Ed Dempsey also worked on the interior, earning the rare compliment from the normally reticent Seth. At Rick Cooper's direction (and using a potion of his devising) Charlie Howard bleached the mahogony bulkheads to a blonde finish, and applied the varnished finish that awed even the, as ever, reticent Seth. Master craftsman are not particularly forthcoming with feel-good compliments. Tollef, meanwhile, built the Sitka Spruce spars, while Seth made the hardware and fittings.

     Seth adopted as his personal trademark the seven-spoke steering wheel. Adopted is perhaps the wrong word, since he was probably the first to make a seven spoke wheel (traditionally, wooden steering wheels have six or eight spokes). Besides being unique, there is something especially pleasing to the non-symmetry of a seven spoke wheel; and, accurately laying out seven spokes within 360 degrees makes for an interesting challenge in one's evening hours. Seth of course made his own hub patterns (and wheelnut patterns), and made the spokes by eye from a master spoke, the design of which was unique to each wheel he made. He also made seperate, three-layered laminations of alternating colored woods to form rings that were then "let" into the main rim, to cover the screws that held the wheel together with a touch of artistry instead of the usual wooden plugs. A ring of the same description also marked the king spoke, which is at top dead center when the rudder is centered.

     Some years later, Cooper had Seth do an inlay of the name Easterly around the top of her steering wheels rim. This was done in the same alternating woods as the inlays and kingspoke ring, a project which took many evenings of intense concentration to complete. Seth never put any plaques or other marks on his boats to identify himself as the builder, except when specifically requested by a client; his intent was that the seven-spoke steering wheels would be his calling card, so to speak. However, as happened with virtually all of Seth's clients, Rick Cooper was so fond  of this unique and special piece of workmanship that he kept it when Easterly found new ownership.   

     Easterly was painted gloss black for her first decade or so, something Seth refused to do for any other client. But Easterly, low slung and sleek to start with, was the one boat that needed to be black, her delicate beauty given a slightly ominous edge that served her image well. Later owners have painted her white, which in fact is better for a wooden boat, but Cooper wanted to make an impression, and he succeeded. She was the last boat launched out of Seth Persson's original, wooden boatshop; the next boat, and the shop, were lost in the fire of 1964. And while Seth rebuilt, and built more wooden boats in his new shop, more than shop and tools were lost in that fire; a piece of Seth's soul and spirit never recovered,  casting an ever present shadow on the remaining days of his life.

     Easterly was launched in 1961, and for her first decade was sailed, cruised, and raced by Rick Cooper along the New England coast. When his beloved wife Debbie passed, some of his desire for the boat passed with her, and Easterly moved on to new ownership; which Cooper regretted once his grief had subsided. But Easterly has excelled and prospered under her now three subsequent owners, this number itself unusual given her now fifty years of existence. Over these years she has been sailed repeatedly between the Caribbean and Martha's  Vineyard, to Maine, Iceland (multiple times), and extensively along the New England coast. She stands as arguably the finest creation of a master boatbuilder and his best crew, working from a proven design by a firm at it's prime, for a client who knew what he wanted but also knew to allow the best talent available to have the freedom to do the best work they were capable of. Most important, though, is that for all her grace and attention to detail, Easterly has for fifty years fulfilled what has become the operating adage of the Persson legacy and mission: that a good boat is one that gets used often.