Rebirth of the Privateer Lynx will recreate history of War of 1812 era

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The best way to understand our naval history is to sail on through it.

That’s what Woodson Woods believes. The 69-year-old California businessman is having a 122-foot-long, 98-ton replica of an 1812-vintage schooner built at Rockport Marine in Rockport. The vessel is modeled after an actual ship, which played a part in the War of 1812. When it slides into Rockport Harbor on July 28, the Lynx will set sail on a course that Woods hopes will reconnect children and adults with their nation’s past.

This month, with the launch date looming, a crew of 20 could be found crawling all over the schooner’s decks in the boatyard’s cavernous, wood-sided sheds. When asked if this is his largest building project to date, Rockport Marine owner Taylor Allen can’t help but let go a short burst of laughter before answering in the affirmative.

Allen estimates that more than 40,000 hours have gone into the boat, and Woods reveals that when it is completed, it will have cost about $2 million.

A temporary extension of the shop juts out toward the harbor to accommodate the vessel’s massive hull. Inside, the finish carpenters have to duck under the building’s beams to get to the passageways, hatch covers and final decking they are wrapping up.

A bird’s-eye maple panel is being installed here, a piece of exotic hardwood is being fitted to a door frame there, while down on the floor of the shop, the rough lumber is fed through a planer.

The ship is framed with 5-inch-by-6-inch laminated pine, 18 inches on center, and planked with angelica, a dense, tropical hardwood.

“It’s been a fun project,” Allen says. Rockport Marine specializes in wooden boat building, retrofitting and repair, and usually builds about two vessels a year. “It’s also been the most complete project we’ve had,” he adds, because everything – from the complex electrical systems to the 290-horsepower diesel engine – has been installed on-site.

Woods has been good to work for, Allen says, because “he knows we know what we’re doing.”

Woods arrived in Rockport last week from his home in California, and expects to stay the summer to oversee the final stages of the project.

Born in St. Louis, Woods joined the Naval Reserve after a year of college, was called to active duty because of the Korean War, and ended up serving in Hawaii. After returning to Missouri to help run his family’s farm after his father’s death, he was drawn back to Hawaii, and began working as a planner for a business that built hotels during the booming days on the eve of statehood.

In the mid-1960s, Woods launched Royal Hawaiian Air Service, opened a Land Rover dealership and began a guide service. Because he believed the island schools weren’t good, he relocated his family to Phoenix, where he started Aero Meridian, a business which restored antique aircraft. He also built a housing development around an airfield for flying enthusiasts.

After divorcing, he moved to Washington State, then remarried and moved to Newport Beach, Calif.

“I couldn’t retire,” he says. “I’d been dreaming about doing children’s education based on sail training, but I didn’t know how to do it.” In 1997, he came up with the idea of establishing a sail-based program similar to one which operates from Vancouver. In fact, Woods hired as educational consultant, someone who worked with the Canadian program.

For now, Woods Maritime is a private corporation, though Woods does not rule out turning it into a nonprofit later. The Lynx is the centerpiece of the program, though he lists several different ways the ship might be used.

The Lynx is closely modeled after the privateer Lynx, built in Maryland in 1812 and captured by the British in 1813. The Baltimore clipper was so impressive in its speed and design, it was renamed the Mosquidobit and taken into the Royal Navy where it served until 1820, based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Because the British reproduced the ship’s “lines” on paper, naval historians are able to re-create the design.

Privateers have an undeserved bad reputation, Woods believes. The vessels played a key role in the shaping of American history, a role, which most people – young and old – don’t understand, he says. Essentially, the government paid the owners of private vessels to capture enemy merchant ships and their cargoes as part of the war effort.

While some privateers failed to heed the “rules” of war and crossed the line to become pirate ships, most were focused on business, seizing and selling cargo for profit. They carried enough crew to seize and operate the vessels that were their prey.

Privateers were fast ships like coastal clippers. The sails were square-rigged, allowing the vessels to run “close to the wind” to escape the slower British war ships.

Because Baltimore became a hotbed of privateering, the British blockaded the port, forcing the Americans to use faster boats.

The contemporary Lynx was designed by noted naval architect Melbourne Smith. It measures 72 feet on the waterline, 76 feet on deck, and 122 feet from bowsprit to boom. When the two masts are set later this summer, they will tower 84 and 94 feet above the deck.

The vessel will include four, 6-pound cannons and four swivel guns. All will be operational.

The idea, Woods says, is for the Lynx to be a living history museum. The crew will wear period uniforms, and live as their counterparts did in 1812. The ship may sail from port to port, giving demonstrations and taking on students for day sails, or it may operate out of a fixed base, providing a more in-depth curriculum.

“The ship is sort of a backdrop for historical education,” he says.

Grade-school children may be the focus of the programs, Woods says. Even if they come aboard for a day trip, he wants them to dress in keeping with the era and do the same work that actual sailors would be asked to do.

The Lynx is licensed to carry 40 on a day sail, and six to eight overnight. The cabins are very comfortable looking – nothing like the sailors of 1812 would have had, Woods says – and there is even a gleaming, stainless-steel lined galley below decks.

For the next year, the clipper has a busy itinerary. After it is launched next month, the Rockport Marine crew will continue to finish the below-decks work. Then come sea trials along the Maine coast. In late September, the Lynx will leave Maine for Portsmouth, N.H., where it will be registered.

Woods said his family’s lineage traces back to a Capt. Ladd of Portsmouth, which is part of the reason the ship will be registered there.

In October, the ship will be in Baltimore to participate in the Great Schooner Race and visit the Naval Academy, then it will sail south, arriving in the British Virgin Islands in November. While there for the winter, it will take adults and children on charter day sails from area hotels.

Next spring, it will cruise south with six teens, who will be filmed living aboard for a TV documentary, then the Lynx will pass through the Panama Canal on its way to California.

Woods said the Orange County Council of Boy Scouts may contract with Woods Maritime for the Lynx to be based in southern California for a year. The vessel might also be used for corporate team building exercises for adults, he says.

Learn more about The Lynx at its Web site: www.privateerlynx.org.