The schooner Pacific Grace, background, dwarfs the 30-foot schooner Talisker of Skye near Victoria, B.C. Photo by Mark Kaarremaa
Story by Deborah Bach at Three Sheets Northwest
The man knew exactly what type of boat he wanted.
He approached with plans in hand, asking Dale Nordlund to build him a 30-foot schooner.
“He said, I’ve always wanted a schooner and I’m getting old,” Nordlund recalled.
So Nordlund and his partner built the scaled-down schooner, outfitting it down to the dishes as the man, Eugene Woodward, requested. The boat was launched in 1969 in Sidney, B.C., and Woodward sailed it until his death about 20 years later.
Woodward’s wife donated the boat to a nonprofit sailing organization, which had it for a while before it was sold to a group of Northwest sailors. Now named Talisker of Skye, the schooner will be at this weekend’s Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival for the first time and Nordlund will be going down to see it.
“I have to go see it,” said Nordlund, who lives in Port Townsend and two years ago received the Wooden Boat Foundation’s lifetime achievement award.