A piece of Nova Scotia history

Eighty-five-year-old Tancook schooner ocean-ready after refit

Turns out the retired surgeon and the seasoned Indian Point wooden boat builder make a fine team.

So much so that Bill Lutwick, owner of Lutwick’s Boat Building and Repair in Indian Point, has plans to hire Lorne Leahey come the winter season.

For nearly two years the pair have painstakingly rebuilt Leahey’s 85- year- old Tancook schooner, from rub bar to keel bottom. Built by one of the original Tancook boat- building families, Amasonia is one of the oldest of its kind in these parts. The historic vessel needed some serious TLC when Leahey turned to the man he calls Lunenburg County’s heir apparent wooden boat builder.

“I learned a huge amount working with Bill, especially the extraordinary craftsmanship that goes into restoring a vessel like this,” said Leahy, who purchased the schooner 30 years ago.

“Working with the wood, you see how it comes alive, watching it bend into shape, and slowly you see the vessel take on its original form.

“They’re not making many new Tancook schooners anymore and the skills that it took to make the boat were highly honed and becoming a little less so, except for people like Bill and the team he’s working with.”

Lutwick was happy to have Leahey on board, forming a foursome that took to restoring the boat to its glory days. Though Tancook schooners, with their trademark spoon bow, formed the backbone of Nova Scotia’s inshore fisheries during the early 1900s, this one built by Harold Mason was designed more as a pleasure vessel.

“I was excited about the project from Day 1,” said Lutwick, a boat builder since 1978.

“I love the look of the boat, the shape, the design, just a beautiful boat.

“I think it’s a piece of Nova Scotia history, like the Bluenose. Why do we restore the Bluenose? Because it’s a piece of heritage. These little boats were all fishing boats; they were basically the heartbeat of the Maritimes at one time.

“Having Lorne on board was fantastic. He likes a challenge and thinking outside the box. He’s coming back to work with us next winter and we’re really looking forward to it.”

The old-style galvanized and iron fastenings holding the vessel’s planks and keel together needed replacing. The entire hull was refashioned with white pine as well as longleaf yellow pine planking, reclaimed from a forgotten Yarmouth cotton mill.

“We cut the keel out and replaced that, and then we put the stern post in and the tail feather,” said Lutwick. “But the existing frames were in perfect shape. Basically, it was a whole structural renewal; the interior backbone of the boat is all new.”