Down to the sea in skiffs Century-old tradition revived on Little Cranberry Island

The barn on Little Cranberry Island where classes were held for the first time this summer is only a few years old. The three siblings who started the new program are still in their 20s. And the pupils who took part learned how to do things they had never before done in their young lives.

But despite the relatively young age of almost everyone and everything directly involved, what Amanda, Brendan and Geoff Ravenhill and their fledgling Islesford Boatworks program accomplished this summer really isn’t new at all. In fact, it has helped breathe life into a local tradition that dates back more than 100 years and, in recent history, was being forgotten.

The program’s 40 or so participants built from scratch a 12-foot-long wooden rowboat, or dory, over several weeks this summer. Some of the pupils, who ranged in age from 8 to 14 years old, attended for only one day, but some came back week after week.

The last time wooden rowboats were built on Islesford, the name of the community on Little Cranberry Island, was decades ago, according to boat builders on Mount Desert Island.

Ralph Stanley, a renowned wooden boat builder in Southwest Harbor, estimates that former Islesford resident Arthur “Chummy” Spurling may have built more than 100 wooden rowboats before he died in 1975 at age 102. A rowboat Spurling built in 1947, which Stanley called Spurling’s “best-looking boat,” is being reproduced by Stanley and his son Richard Stanley.

Besides Spurling, other MDI area boat builders produced wooden rowboats, mostly in the early 20th century. Andrew Haynes of Manset, Dud Bracy of neighboring Great Cranberry Island, and Herm Farley and Fred Thurston, both of Bernard, were among them, according to Stanley.

“It was a popular thing to go rowing,” Stanley said, pointing out that motorboats and recreational kayaks were not around 100 years ago. “You see a lot of photographs with men rowing and ladies with their parasols sitting in the boat.”

Stanley, who in 1999 was recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts for his boat building accomplishments, noted that the skills his predecessors possessed have largely disappeared. He has met with the Ravenhills about their program and said he supports what they are doing.

“I think we’re the only ones [around Mount Desert Island] building wooden boats anymore,” he said. “I think it’s a worthwhile thing to do.”

Jarvis Newman of Southwest Harbor, who has been building boats commercially since the mid-1960s, builds fiberglass versions of one of Spurling’s rowboats. Though building wooden boats is uncommon, he noted, they are still in relative demand and fetch thousands od dollars.

“It was always called a Spurling tender,” he said of Chummy’s creations. “I think he built those for $50 to $75 a boat. It’s a superb design.”

The Ravenhill siblings did not copy one of Spurling’s designs, but they are familiar with his legacy and of the broader wooden boat building tradition in the area.

When Brendan, 27, was working last year in New York City for Rocking The Boat, a wooden rowboat building program for inner-city teens in the Bronx, he approached his brother and sister about starting a similar program in their Islesford barn. He admired what the Bronx school was doing, but thought it could be done more effectively in a smaller setting where rowboats were commonplace.

According to Brendan, he already knew of Spurling and his boats, one of which had been kept in relatively good shape in the basement of local lobster fisherman Jack Merrill. Merrill gave the Ravenhills the boat when he heard about their program and the craft floated when they put it in the water for the first time in 30 years.

Geoff, 29, and Amanda, 23, were quick to embrace their brother’s idea of a summer boat building school for children, they said during a recent interview on the porch of their Islesford summer home. Their father, Philip, an arts curator at the Smithsonian Institution who died of a heart attack in 1997, had taught them basic woodworking skills and instilled them with the confidence and patience needed to take on creative projects they had never tackled before, such as the barn they built four years ago.

“He didn’t teach us how to build a barn,” Geoff said. “He gave us the courage to do it.”

After the Ravenhills spread word about their plans, several island residents got behind the idea and wrote to the Island Institute in Rockland. They convinced the nonprofit organization to sponsor the siblings’ startup program, which enabled the trio to get grants from the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation, Maine Community Foundation, donated materials from EBS, and other contributions.

A suggested weekly tuition of $75 for each student, proceeds from the sale of Islesford Boatworks merchandise, and other donations from the community also have helped cover the program’s expenses.

Using the barn they had built in 2002 and the tools they had stocked it with for their own use, they launched the program with their first class in June.

The rowboat that was borne of the group effort was launched the last Sunday of August, when the program ended for the year. More than 100 people watched and cheered as children who helped build the boat and the Ravenhills, all dressed in pirate garb, pushed the finished dory into the harbor off Sand Beach and took turns maneuvering it along the shore.

The seasonal program will come back to life next summer and may be adjusted to include adults and to run for a shorter period, the siblings said. With the support they have received from the community, the enthusiasm they have seen in their students, and the personal satisfaction they have felt teaching wooden boat building to a new generation, they do not see an end to what they have started.

At the same time, they do not want to get in over their heads. Building the program itself from scratch was not easy, and they aren’t out to give themselves a greater workload than they already have.

“We’re just going to take it one summer at a time,” Brendan said.

More information about the program is available on the Internet at islesfordboatworks.org. Bill Trotter can be reached at 667-9397 and btrotter@bangordailynews.net.