PASSION

wooden / sail / old boats

i love wooden boats. i don't really know why.

i can't explain why i enjoy scraping barnacles and bottom paint off soaked planks. i am not so sure why i like crawling on my hands and knees for days in a row to tape, sand and varnish a cap rail. hmmm, and the sneezing after sanding machine marks out of a brand new galley locker is not really pleasant either...

traditional craft, traditional ways of building, marlinspike seamanship, fishermen's wisdom, all that stuff is -- and always has been -- very attractive to me.

on my last trip to europe i took more pictures of half rotten wooden wrecks on azorean and irish beaches than of anything else...

i love sailing, it's the thing in the world that makes me happiest even if it sometimes is scary or cold or a chore. and in order to be happy and safe and look good, the boat must be in shape, and well maintained.

it hurts me to see a boat being neglected. and i love wood as a material, even though some saw dust makes me sneeze. wood is alive, it breathes and works, it is warm and beautiful.

I am especially interested in traditional, classic and historic craft. one of the reasons is the old fashioned workmanship, but also the tradition, the evolution of a craft according to use, locality and even ethnicity of the user. then, the changes that happened over time because society changed and leisure got introduced to a western life even if it wasn't rich. and even the rich people learned from the working ones as beautiful ocean-worthy "gentleman schooners" of the early 1900s show. it is fascinating and makes every boat a work of art catering to someones need instead of defining someones need with cookie-cutter plastic boats off an assembly line.

growing up on the rugged frisian coast in germany as daughter of a naval architect and avid sailor, sister of a merchant marine and navy engineer, i guess it's no wonder that i worked as a cabinetmaker on a shipyard, spent 7 years in artschool and now earn my living doing what i like best, sailing and working on boats.

i spent a year working for Spinnaker Sailing/Rendezvous Charters in SF as maintenance crew and did small repairs and brightwork on all company owned charter and school boats as well as 3rd party boats.

i volunteer in the small boat shop of the SF maritime museum on hyde street pier and worked as a hired project intern on all aspects of the construction of the chinese shrimp junk "Grace Quan" that launched in oct. 2003 in china camp, san rafael.

since then i can be found in the Arques Shipyard in Sausalito. I worked for over 2 years for Richardson Bay Boatworks, and am now on my own, sharing a shop with Custom Yacht Design's Jim Linderman. I spend my free time on my own project: Marita, or can be found drawing lines and coming up with boat design at the Arques School for Traditional Boatbuilding, or hanging out with the rest of the fine boatbuilding community over there. In case i'm not answering my phone, i might be out sailing, but the message should indicate if i'm off chasing adventures on one of our fabulous oceans or just enjoying a weekend at China Camp.

my claim to fame is the participation in a discovery channel reality tv show, where we designed and built a boat in 72 hrs and sailed it through the gate.

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