Maritime Life and Traditions No. 5

Table of Contents JOEL WHITE AND HIS BOATS By Bill Mayher and Maynard Bray Two years after his untimely death we offer a portrait of one of the most admired and loved yacht designers of the late twentieth century. Joel White’s creations of timeless beauty, large and small, grace harbours all over the world, and many hundreds of amateur boatbuilders have turned dreams into reality with the guidance of his plans for boats like the Nutshell pram and the Shellback dinghy. THOUGHTS ON THE PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN By Joel White An extract from an article first published in 1987 in which Joel White revealed some of the aesthetic appreciation of his chosen trade and of his own preferences. MR GRATEHEAD'S LIFE-BOAT By Adrian Osler In the late 1700s a dramatic shipwreck in the Tyne estuary, Northeast England, led to the development of the first, purpose-built, shore-to-ship life-boat. Its original design and eventual production, however, were both surrounded by controversy and contradictory claims of authorship. IN SEARCH OF THE SANDEQ By Roger Michael Johnson In south Sulawesi, Indonesia, there are a number of primitive yet highly efficient working sailing craft that have developed in relative isolation, have survived the tests of time and encroaching western technologies, and are still used to the almost complete exclusion of more modern alternatives. Their days are perhaps numbered and yet their large sails and light construction offer images of rare beauty combined with impressive speeds and skillful working practices. ERIK RONNBERG AND HIS SHIP MODELS By Tom Cunliffe Erik Ronnberg’s models of nineteenth-and early-twentieth-century New England vessels are renowned for both their accuracy and their realism. His reputation has been gained through his uncompromising scholarship that looks beyond the artefacts of the past and seeks to understand the ways of protagonists. BENJAMIN MENDLOWITZ, MARINE PHOTOGRAPHER By Peter H Spectre. In the closing decades on this century, Benjamin Mendlowitz, based in Maine, USA, has gained a respected position among the world’s great photographers of classic craft. Like the subjects he chooses, his photographs are masterpieces of simple beauty; their very simplicity, however, belies the patient lengths to which the photographer will go to achieve the right image.