Building Our Dream Cruiser Once More Into the Breach
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Building Our Dream Cruiser Once More Into The Breach... Part 1 By Bob Bitchin The Decision: To Build a Dream No, I don’t mean acquaintances, as with many In the thirty-plus years I’ve been sailing I have people in the industry. We were friends. Every show, always had the dream of owning a Shannon. For which is about the only place we’d get together, we decades I have bought old, used and abused boats, fixed always tried to sneak away, down a little rum, and discuss them up, sailed them, lived on them and then sold them, the finer things in life... sailing. but the dream was always there. To build and own a And then I sold Lost Soul. brand new Shannon. I was walking back to my booth after the Sail A few years back I met Walter Schulz, designer, America meeting on Friday morning at the Annapolis owner and builder Sailboat Show. The of my dream boat, show wasn’t going and wouldn’t you The New Shannon to open for about know it, we hit it off "Bitchin" Global 52 20 minutes. I ran from the first time into Walter, my we met. The first old friend, on the time I saw Walter docks by his boat. was at the Annapolis He shook my hand Boat Show, around warmly, and we sat 1998 or ‘99. He was in the cockpit of there with a new the Shannon 47 that Shannon, looking for was there. buyers, and I went We talked aboard and sat below about how, in 2005, looking at what I he had a party at thought a real boat the Newport Boat should look like. Show celebrating his And then I sale of Shannon to a walked up on deck, couple who owned and there was Walter. an older Shannon. Not what you’d He was excited about expect for a man being able to start whose reputation was full time working on larger than life. He old, wooden boats, was wearing what his true passion. We most of the cruisers had some rum. We were wearing, khaki had lots of rum. We pants and a plaid were celebrating! shirt. Oh, and he had I didn’t see a tape measure on Walter for two years his belt. Now I ask after that. He was you, how many boat fixing boats, and builders are there I was working on who actually wear (and use!) a tape measure? He had Lost Soul. And then I sold Lost Soul, and here I was a scruffy black beard tinged with grey, and his hair was boatless in Annapolis, and Walter was back. I asked what long. He had a pipe clenched in his teeth, and he was happened, and I could see he didn’t want to talk about it. anything but yachtie. He was one of “us.” After a long pause he said that in June of 2004 he took I didn’t approach him. How could I? I was an a bad fall under a tractor trailer moving a boat rig. He ex-biker who had just started a silly little magazine for thought that the spill was a “sign” he should focus all his cruising sailors, and he was the designer and builder of attention on the two things that interested him most: yacht one of the boats that rich people bought. It took a couple design and classic wood boats. He had obtained three years before I approached him, but in a matter of minutes patents over the years on new, innovative hull designs, after I did, we were friends. including the Shoalsailer 35 and the 38 SRD powerboat 114 Latitudes & Attitudes www.seafaring.com design. Hydrodynamics and hull designs had become “And then you were going to ship it back to the a dominate force in his life. His other big passion was US?” he asked. Building Our Dream Cruiser restoring old, classic wood boats. So in August 2004, I nodded, and he looked off again. Once More Into The Breach... Part 1 on the thirtieth anniversary of starting Shannon, he sold “Okay,” he said. the name “Shannon” and the Shannon molds to some I looked at him. investors. They formed a new entity called Shannon “Okay, what?” I asked. Yachts, LLC, with the plan that Walter was going to “Okay, you and I will build a boat. I can’t remain involved in Shannon have you sailing around as a consultant. But, like in something other than a many business people who Shannon. It’s not right!” are successful in non-marine I stood there looking at related industries and who him. He stood there looking then buy into boat building, at me. Jody stood there the new owners of Shannon looking at both of us and were confident that they shaking her head. had all the answers. The “You guys are nuts!” she big problem is, they did not ventured. “We can’t afford to understand the questions. build a Shannon.” The results were typically But by then I was bad, and in June 2007 starting to see what Walter Walter had to step back in had in mind. The basic hull and buy Shannon back under and bulkheads weren’t THAT his old company name, expensive, and with my “Schulz Boat Company.” Walter delivering a new boat in 1981. connections in the industry He also realized during this and my advertisers, we just traumatic period that he really missed boat building, might be able to do it! and the real “sign” from his fall was to convince him The rest of the show, Walter and I kept walking that, after all was said and done, he was just an old back and forth between our booths. "How about we build boat builder at heart. the new Global 52?" he asked. We plotted, we planned, I commiserated with him. I knew he thought his and we worked through the show. dream was to “retire” gracefully, but his destiny was to By the end of the Annapolis Sailboat Show we were keep building and designing great sailing yachts. When both committed (or I guess I should say we should have he asked what Jody and I planned to do I was almost been committed!) to building the new Shannon “Bitchin” ashamed. We’d planned on flying to China to see if we Global 52. could find a hull someone had started, that we could get And so, for the next 12 months we will try to take cheap, and then try to have it shipped back to where we you through the gamut of what it is like to build a dream could try and finish it. It was all we could afford. from the ground up. He sat there looking at me like I’d just stepped on his pet cat! The Company: Schulz Boat Company “Why not build a Shannon?” he asked, incredulous Why a Shannon? Because it is the only boat that I would consider anything else. building company that carries the man’s name who “Walter,” I almost cried, “there is nothing more I designs, builds and lives his creation. Shannons have want on Earth, but I can’t earned an international afford it!” reputation for quality He stuck his pipe in The Shop at Schulz Boat construction and offshore his mouth and looked off Company in Bristol. integrity. Shannons into the distance. Jody and have logged over a I stood there like school million bluewater miles, children after being caught including an impressive doing something wrong. list of circumnavigations “How much do you and many transoceanic figure you would pay over passages, mostly by there for a hull, deck and husband and wife teams. bulkheads?" he asked. Every major harbor in the I cogitated for a world has been visited by minute, and then gave him a Shannon. Shannon’s the figure I’d kind of been boatbuilding experience is playing with. an unbroken, evolutionary www.seafaring.com Latitudes & Attitudes 115 This is the mold that the hull will be created with. chain, from the Shannon 38 #1 built back in 1975, to The other goal of the new design is to eliminate the present day. During every week since 1975, there work, especially winching and handling sails. As I am always has been a new Shannon being constructed under getting a little long of tooth (okay, so I am over 60!) we Walt Schulz’s personal direction. Even when he sold the are planning furling headsails using electric winches, and company to the investors, he was still looking out for the of course the Leisurefurl Boom furling system for the owners of the Shannons under construction. No company main that we’d put on Lost Soul. One person is able to building semi-custom yachts anywhere can demonstrate raise, reef, or lower both sails just by pressing a button. comparable passage-making records, a stable management Bow thrusters will also be specified. team and a consistent, A lot of people uncompromising standard of Inside the Schulz Boat go for displacement quality for over 30 years. Company shop, finishing trawlers for long As a hands-on up a new boat. distance cruising to President, Schulz oversees avoid the work and engineering and production the open cockpit effort at Shannon. Schulz has found on most sailboats. received numerous U.S. While the popularity of Patents for his design work. displacement trawlers According to Ferenc is understandable in Mate in The World’s Best the abstract, the reality Sailboats, “Walter Schulz is of total reliance on the last of a wonderful breed mechanical equipment - the complete boatbuilder.