Classic Boats Still Pay Their Keep By Chartering In Northwest Waters

The 127-foot schooner is pressed against a Lake Union pier by a bristling north wind: its sails furled, the wooden masts reaching more than 100 feet to snag low-flying clouds. The white hull and varnished wood show signs of use, but still dazzle.

The yacht, Zodiac, was launched in 1924 as a plaything of the rich. It's a vessel only a Bill Gates, a Paul Allen or Donald Trump could build in this decade.

Still, it and other fine classic motor and sailing yachts can be yours for a day - or a week.

More than a dozen such oldies are available for charter in ports from Seattle to Vancouver, B.C.

For most, upkeep is so costly that taking paying passengers is the only way they can stay afloat.

Some are expensive to rent: try $36,000 for a week of elegant luxury aboard Taconite, a 125-foot yacht Bill Boeing built for himself in 1930.

Others fit more modest budgets: an afternoon with snacks on Bentley, a 50-year-old 40-foot yacht for $150, for example. A 62-foot Seattle sailboat, Circe, built in 1932, will take 30 passengers on a half-day jaunt for about $700 (less than $25 each). The Zodiac will carry 20 on a weeklong trip for $2,000 a day, or $100 a day per passenger, meals included.

Work boats

Also on the charter market are old work boats and fishing vessels that have been converted to carry passengers in comfort.

One such vessel is Duen, which, after 30 years of fishing under sail out of Norway, now home ports in Victoria, B.C., and carries passengers on wilderness explorations in the Queen Charlotte Islands.

Parry and Union Jack, half-century-old tugboats based in Vancouver, B.C., explore British Columbia waters each summer with paying guests looking for fish and adventure.

Without charter revenues, many of the classics would long ago have rotted away. The expense of keeping a fine wooden yacht 70 years old is more than even most wealthy owners want to bear alone today. There are only a few splendid large old boats in Seattle - Blue Peter, Canim and Malibu among them - that are maintained by families without being offered for charter.

Charter fees help keep many of these historically important vessels healthy. Painting and varnishing are done at least annually and out-of-the-water overhauls are needed occasionally, all at frightful cost.

Most are subsidized by their owners, by foundations, by volunteers who haul on lines, spread varnish and help replace damaged planks and beams.

Not "love boat" cruising

Cruising aboard such classics hints at the life of those who built them and offers the thrill of going to sea to those who otherwise might never look into a sea breeze and catch salt spray in the face.

This is not "love boat" cruising. You can choose your fellow cruise guests by gathering family or friends for the trip on a chartered classic.

You may be able to take the wheel and learn to sail, plot a course and navigate. You may launch a dinghy and go fishing for dinner. You'll anchor in remote harbors with only the stars for company.

Probably the most famous of the old-timers available for day charter in the Seattle area is the Virginia V, the last steam-powered vessel in service on Puget Sound.

At present, the Virginia V is out of the charter business while the nonprofit Virginia V Foundation raises more than $600,000 for extensive repair to the wood hull. It may be back in service for its traditional Christmas season excursions with the holiday fleet. It charters for about $1,800 a day.

Zodiac builds a following

Meanwhile, a cult-like following has grown up in the wake of Bellingham-based Zodiac, a gaff-headed schooner built in 1924 as an ocean racer for the family of the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical company.

For 40 years, it was a "pilot" boat in San Francisco Bay. Such boats ferried pilots from shore to large vessels where the pilots would guide the ship safely between the port to the open sea.

After retirement, it was purchased by the Vessel Zodiac Corp. and rebuilt and refurbished for charter on Puget Sound and in the San Juan Islands. Its crew is volunteer - only the cook is paid.

Carl Mehrer, a Seattle businessman who purchased the vessel and led restoration efforts for the Vessel Zodiac Corp., believes old sailing ships go to museums to die. The only way to keep them alive is to work them, he says.

Under charter 150 days a year, Zodiac is the busiest of the big classics in the Northwest. Individuals and groups come back year after year. It's a hit with the Elderhostel crowd, and marriages, anniversaries and promotions have been celebrated on its decks of 4-inch North Carolina yellow pine.

Loyd Chamblin and his wife, Margery, first boarded Zodiac on an Elderhostel trip several years ago. Always looking for active trips, they enjoyed working on deck on a weeklong cruise. This year, for their 50th wedding anniversary, the Chamblins, of Laguna Hills, Calif., reserved the Zodiac and spent a week in mid-August with 20 family members cruising the San Juan Islands and visiting Victoria.

"They wouldn't let us climb the rigging, but they would let us help set the sails," Chamblin said. "We could take the helm - and the captain didn't seem worried.

"I have a love and a longing for sail. She was launched the same year I was and we both now creak and groan, but we still get the job done."

The Zodiac's 4,000-square-foot mainsail is hauled aloft on a 101-foot mast by muscle power. Asked how many people it takes to hoist the main, Mehrer laughed: "All we have," he said.

"The Zodiac is the best buy in charter around today," said Robey Banks of Ledger Marine Charters in Seattle, an agent representing most of the area's charter vessels.

Aboard Adventuress

Another popular old-timer on Puget Sound is the Adventuress, a 136-foot wood sailing schooner built in 1913 for a wealthy East Coast businessman who wanted to explore the Arctic by sea.

It's now owned by Sound Experience, a nonprofit Port Townsend-based group that emphasizes protection of Puget Sound.

Jenell DeMatteo, executive director of Sound Experience, said the on-board staff discusses the sound and its problems. Marine life is brought aboard for passengers to study. The staff emphasizes "that we can make a difference through teamwork, either in dealing with environmental problems or hoisting sail," she said.

The Adventuress carries school children and adults on day trips March through October. It's available for weeklong trips and recently carried several Elderhostel groups on overnight San Juans cruises.

The Adventuress is licensed to carry 45 passengers on day sails for about $25 each. It can carry up to 25 persons on overnight sails; cost is about $65 a day for youngsters and $100 for adults. Meals are included. Gallant Lady

With the Virginia V out of service, Gallant Lady of Vashon Island is the oldest motor yacht in the local charter business. A 65-foot, single engine boat, it was built in Tacoma in 1940.

Every summer, a group of teachers from Hillsboro, Ore., charters Gallant Lady to celebrate the end of the school year.

Age makes the ship better, said Ron Crissman, a junior high school counselor. "Once you go aboard, it's a different atmosphere, with all that wood. There is something from the past you cling to and relax with."

This year, 20 teachers paid $2,800 for three nights of cruising in the San Juans, or $140 each. They brought food and cooked their meals. The owners, Dick and Lynn Cannon of Vashon Island, will provide full service for $1,500 a day.

The Cannons have owned Gallant Lady since 1985 and cruise from La Conner in the summer. During the winter it is moored at Vashon, and the Cannons offer bunk and breakfast for $45 a night.

Olympus

A stunning classic on the Seattle charter market is Olympus, a gleaming white and varnished-teak, 97-foot motor yacht built in 1929 for the president of the New York Stock Exchange.

Now owned by John VanderBeek of Bellevue, it charters for $28,000 a week. It carries 12 passengers and a crew of four. It makes Lake Washington excursions for $300 an hour, with a four-hour minimum charge.

Olympus was appropriated by the Army for patrol duties in World War II. After the war, the state of Washington bought it from the government for $15,000 and it became the state yacht for Gov. Mon Walgren.

Walgren and his Democratic cronies played poker aboard the yacht and probably stunk it up with cigars and cigarette smoke. President Truman once rode it from Bremerton to Seattle. Walgren's Republican successor quickly sold the yacht and it has been privately owned since.

With fresh white paint and gleaming teak and mahogany, "her look is exactly the way it was when she came out of dry dock - she's all original (except for her engines and operating systems)," VanderBeek said.

"She has quite a nice ride. You can put down a glass of wine and leave it." That's a small point, but important on a yacht that may roll in heavy seas and send unsecured glassware flying.

While VanderBeek, a Bellevue businessman, keeps the financial aspects of owning Olympus to himself, it's obvious that charter income only helps pay the high cost of maintaining her in top shape.

"She takes constant care," VanderBeek said. "Today, there are seven people working on the boat - doing varnishing, maintenance and engine work."

Supporting themselves

Still, some of the old yachts support themselves.

Inge Morris of Vancouver, B.C., operates Elfin, an 83-foot motor yacht, as a for-profit business.

Elfin was built in 1942 as a U.S. Coast Guard cutter. It was a rescue boat in June, 1944, when Allied troops landed at Normandy. A picture of the cutter crashing through heavy seas off the French coast hangs in Elfin's salon.

Retired from the military in the late 1950s, it was refitted as a yacht. Morris bought it in 1990 after helping a friend bring it up the Pacific Coast from California.

Elfin carries 50 passengers on day cruises and 10 or 12 overnight. Day trips cost $300 (Cdn.) an hour. Seven days and nights cost up to $13,500 (U.S.), depending on the number of passengers.

The queen of the region's classic charter fleet is the elegant Taconite, the 125-foot motor yacht Bill Boeing had built at his Vancouver, B.C., ship-and-aircraft production plant.

Owned by Gordon Levett of Vancouver for nine years, it is operated primarily as a business. Its white paint sparkles and teak trim glows from many coats of varnish. Its crew makes the rounds daily, polishing brass fittings and mopping dew from her railings while tending to the wishes of passengers lounging on deck.

"She has a subtle elegance," Levett said. "The dining room is as original as the last day Boeing had dinner aboard," he said.

Boeing named her Taconite for the low-grade iron ore deposits he owned in the Mesabi Range of Minnesota and which provided the family fortune. The Boeing family owned Taconite until 1977.

Taconite carries eight guests on overnight cruises and a crew of six. Despite the week's charter fee of $36,000 it was booked through the summer, Levett said. Most of the passengers are Americans; many are repeat customers who love the luxury and style of the old yacht.

Charter cruising is about to end, with fall and winter approaching. For next season's cruising, it's not too early to begin talking up the idea of chartering a classic with family and friends.

While the classic yachts soon will return to their moorings and boathouses, their crews of volunteers and professional shipwrights will spend the winter making them as perfect as possible for those seeking to cruise with history next year. Bob Lane, a retired Seattle Times reporter, has cruised Puget Sound, British Columbia and Alaska waters more than 20 years. He holds a Coast Guard Masters license for inland waters. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Sailing by the rules. Know what the Coast Guard says before chartering. Page K 8.