04/09/2025
I’ve been posting on this page a lot. For those who don’t know, this group is run by two individuals. Myself, Ben DeLong, and John Conway. We are two questionably sane individuals who have a passion for big old wooden catboats. When we formed this group a few years ago, I don’t think we thought that this would take off like it has. We hoped it would, but never really thought it would take off.
When John approached me to form this group, I thought two things, “is this real?” and “there’s really others out there who are as obsessed as I am about these old boats?”. I couldn’t agree fast enough.
The goal of this organization has always been to find the old boats. In particular, we wanted to find the old D Class racers, that’s what drew us to Suspect so much. But as we dug in, there were more and more big old boats that were not necessarily racers that needed love. So the goal became to document and whenever possible, save and restore historically significant large wooden catboats. Now the beauty of this goal is that we can save more than one.
As most people know, one wooden boat is enough work to keep someone busy for a lifetime. I say most because there are a few exceptions to that principle (ie. Bob Luckraft, someone who is so passionate about wooden boats, his yard is filled with them). But with the current size of our organization, we realize that we need to put these boats back into the community once they are fixed up. There’s a couple reasons for this. First, we can give another family the opportunity to make memories with these historic boats and who knows, maybe another catboat adventure novel will come of it. But second, it gives us the chance to bring in some revenue to hopefully restore another boat.
I know you have all been following my latest campaign trail to bring Buckrammer back to New England. That will be happening later this month. And none of that could happen without the generosity of our followers and folks who believe in our purpose. This is a grassroots organization. We are not corporate sponsored. We don’t have partnerships with any major companies or banks. It’s all because of you. You share our posts, you donate your resources, and you donate your money to our cause. The best advertising is word of mouth.
Suspect is our first restoration. The boat has been put through its paces and trial run to Edgartown and back. It’s been on numerous cruises out of Westport with John taking out people who donated to the project. Now she is available to own. We are asking $15k, but in all honesty, we will take any reasonable offer. We want someone who will enjoy her and make memories with her. She is a tight boat. Doesn’t need any seam work. She will need annual maintenance, but we have done the major work to get her to reliable condition.
