Category: Beaton’s

Here are a few pics from the last few weeks showing progress on several fronts. There’s been precious little Sjogin work as business and home needs soak up my boat time. My Annual Meeting is tomorrow in NY so with that out of the way you should be seeing more slow sailing pics. And finish work on the tiller. And replacing the smoke head and deck iron. And so it goes.

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All done outside except for railings and rockers while the interior work continues. Here’s hoping for showers this Summer!

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Here’s Paul getting ready to caulk the seams on Myth. Beautiful job. She will (keep your fingers crossed) be on display at Mystic for the Catboat show the weekend of July 14th. She may be at the WoodenBoat Show the weekend before as well. (As we will.)

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Here’s the Silent Maid, looking Beaton Fresh. De Rouville’s did the spar work, adding 3 feet to the mast and lengthening the gaff and boom. She now sports 1,100 square feet of sail. That’s almost two A-Cat sails!

New hatches, steering gear work and a whole lot more was done this winter. No engine for her trip to Mystic and a couple of races against Kathleen. Barnegat will make a fine towboat.

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Maid Service ready for another season of….well, Maid service.

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Fine view from the new office. That’s Cat’s Whiskers in front of the wood shop getting ready for another season.

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Here’s Tom holding another Black Jack model. You can’t see it here, but the strakes were hand carved by Jeff Reid. Finestkind.

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Another candidate for a Beaton’s restoration. This little gem showed up a few weeks ago.

Sjogin pics soon.

A comment from a new reader prompted a walk down memory lane.  Jim S recently commented on the Beaton’s page about growing up at Beaton’s and what it meant to him. Here’s the text of his comment:

“I grew up summering at Beaton’s Boat Yard. I bought my first sailboat, a Snipe, from three school teacher’s who sailed it from Beaton’s for several season’s. I had a friend, John Callahan, who introduced me to Beaton’s. He sailed the Snipe, then purchased a G sloop. We had many fabulous sails from Beaton’s over several year’s. We were given a lightning owned by Mr. Beaton on one occasion in Mid December. We sailed on the calmest bay with a light breeze that day. It was surreal. Not a single other boat on the bay that day as far as I could see. There were very old boats rotting in the weeds which we played skipper on for hours and admired the old brass fittings and large wooden cleats and pulleys. A lot has changed since I last saw Beaton’s 35 or 40 years ago, but I still get the same warm feeling when I saw it again today. Please don’t change it. And thank you for being a part of my growing up.”

While I didn’t find Beaton’s until my mid 30’s, my sons Jeffrey and David had experiences similar to Jim’s.  Many a time I’d go looking for them after a days labor on Caprice, our 24′ Crosby tabloid cruiser, and find them on an abandoned boat in the back row, happily pretending to be guiding the wreck on some imaginary voyage.

There’s less of that today, but the spirit of Beaton’s continues.  Thanks for the walk down memory lane Jim.

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There’s been a few changes in the years since you were here Jim. The major one is the building of the new office/store complete with showers. This is the view from the building’s second floor of the wood shop and Bay looking much like they did years ago.

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And here it is. Give it a few years and it will blend right in.

Any more Beaton’s stories out there readers?

Here you go Peter:

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Here it is all glued up with Tom remembering the dark old days when we basically made a pair of 50′ gutters. Hard, splintery work with a gouge and hollowing plane.

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Here are some off cuts from the last spar.

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And here’s a neat Old Town runabout in for fresh varnish on the hull.

That was pretty quick using the iPad. All the pics are from the iPhone and accessible through iCloud here on the….well, thanks Steve, it all works fine.