After 89 Years, Still Going Strong

Some sailors have a soft spot for old wooden classics. Cap’n Thaddeous Blanchard of San Diego counts himself among them. While most boaters would be horrified at the prospect of replanking an 85-ft double-ender like Cloudia, Thaddeous has taken the challenge in stride.

After recently buying this 1920 Colin Archer, he realized that finding the necessary vertical-grain planks would be one of the greatest challenges he’d face while refurbishing her. No worries. He bought a semi truck and set out on a mission: scrounging for appropriate wood all the way from Alaska to Eugene, OR. "I managed to get 7,000 board feet of Alaskan yellow cedar to redo the entire hull one last time," he reports. "You don’t want to know how much it cost for the lumber and the fastenings, but I have helped the economy more than the government, that’s for certain."

With any luck, Cloudia will soon be chartering out of San Diego, and Thaddeous is determined to enter her in the 2010 Baja Ha-Ha rally. Look for more on this ambitious project in the upcoming edition of Latitude 38.