❖ BOATS WE KNEW ❖ WINDENTIDE ❖ by L.W. "Corkey" North

Chet North, Deer Harbor, Orcas Island.
Caulking his WINDENTIDE.

"The WINDENTIDE had been developing in Dad’s mind for years. When I joined the Navy, he set about gathering lumber and parts for her. I doubt I cost that much to keep, since they had taught me from very young, if there was something desired, it was up to me to get it, and so – bed-sheet sails, old boats, and vintage cars were my proud possessions.

      But the time had arrived for Dad to have a toy or two. He had built boats for other people for years and had tired of the hassle with people that really couldn’t afford the boat they wanted and somehow it became Dad’s responsibility to get them their desire.

      My uncle had done well fishing summers off the Washington coast for salmon and Dad had made a few trips out with him. So the WINDENTIDE now had an excuse for being built. For three years, Mother as much as Dad, worked at earning some income while scrounging for equipment and laboring on the boat; early, late, and weekends until an extreme tide at daylight the two of them launched that big hull into the morning sun.

      This was the summer of 1953 and I was in Korea, waiting out my last few months in the Navy. The photographs I received did little to sooth my homesickness. She was a trim thirty-nine feet and needed me, I could feel it."

 Thank you to L.W. North for sharing the above photograph and text.