"Wanderbird"

[Jim Walsh]

A short video shot in 1936. Enjoy!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WKS-bGcoZW4

[Joe Myerson]

Love the florid narration and the scratchy music! Thanks for posting, Jim.

[Paul Clayton]

Brings back memories of sailing aboard a friend's Colvin gaff-rigged schooner. Around the marina, we said there were sailboats, there were yachts - and then there was Kittyhawk, which we considered to be a small sailing ship. The big schooners are the link between the merchant ships of the days of sail and the little pleasure-boats we enjoy so much. Anyone get a chance to crew on a schooner, don't pass it up.

[John Stone]

That's a fantastic film.

OMG!!!! I bet today's safety Nazi's would have a conniption fit if they saw those kids climbing the rigging bare handed, standing on the bowsprit in plugging waves held on only by their firm grip, and playing nekkid in the scuppers with the Wanderbird heeling 35 degrees without harnesses and helmets and god knows what other safety devices for which these days we are accused of reckless endangerment if we are not firmly lashed to our boats at all times. And just how the heck did little Commodore Tomkins ever make it to old age having lived so recklessly? I bet his parents even let run with scissors. Oh the Horror!

We are so dorked up these days when it comes to have protection for everything conceivable thing that could go wrong.

Seriously, I think Warwick "Commodore" Thomkins is still alive and sailing. What a life he has lived and what a grand adventure they gave to themselves and their children. God bless 'em all.

[Jim Walsh]

I'm guessing a Colt Woodsman was being used for target practice although the first High Standards were available in 1932.

[Neil Gordon]

You're not a real sailor until you've made your own baggywrinkle.

[fmueller]

amazing to see those kids out on the bows like that !

When I was a boy (I think I was 9) my mom got hold of my grandpa's little mahogany double ender 8' skiff. At the beginning of the summer (on Nantucket) we turned her over on two horses and caulked the seams with oakam and compound, let it dry for a week, then threw on some bottom paint. Then put her back right side up up and filled with water to swell. Even so, she leaked like a sieve - so mom got a clorox jug and made me a bailer. I rowed that little craft all over the harbor, stopping to bail every 20 minutes or so.

I had a couple of seat cushions that would sort of float, and a small danforth and about 100 ft of line. I could get a pound of squid for 25 cents, and that was good to go with my rod and little Penn reel - would just grab an empty mooring or swing off my "hook" and fish for scup, sand sharks, and sea robbins.

Mom said, if you swamp, don't leave the boat because she will never sink (wood!), but I never did swamp. We kept her tied up at the foot of the launch dock where she would settle by about 1/3 and not take on more water. I just had to bail for about 10 minutes to get going. I rowed right out the channel one day on the outgoing tide, came back in at slack. Took her over to Cotue and beached her, I rowed up the creeks.

A different world of perceived risk. I was lucky and had that skiff for two summers. Only cost is the sun damaged skin I have now at age 64.