Recent News and Events

Welcome to some of the new Concordia owners.  

Westray was recently purchased by Juan Corradi.  Westray is currently in Cataumet, but will hail from Newport, RI this summer.

Savu was aquired by Dan and Robin Smith of Isleboro, ME.  They have renamed her Eagle.

Abaco was purchased by Donald and Cheryl Lippoth some time in early 2011 and will hail out of Great Island, ME.  This is only the second family to own Abaco.  She was badly burned in a fire last June and we are all looking forward to her return to the fleet.

Westray

Juan Corradi and Christina Spellman sold their Swan 38 Pirate after 21 years and 50,000 miles of ocean sailing.  Their last sail on board Pirate was a 1,500 NM cruise of all four Nordic countries: Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, in the company of the new owner.  The cruise started  in North Finland.  After crossing over to the High Coast of Sweden and descending toward the Stockholm archipelago, they crossed over along the Gotha Canal, went up the Western Swedish Coast to Norway, and then descended towards Denmark, where they waited for the yacht to be transported by a ship to the Mediterranean. 

In March 2011 they purchased Concordia yawl Westray, built in 1960 at Abeking and Rassmussen. (Hull 79)  They plan to do more ocean sailing on board her.  The yawl is a veteran of trans-Atlantic and Bermuda runs.  The search for a suitable Concordia took them all fall and winter, visiting boats and yards from Padanaram, Massachusetts to Horseshoe Cove in Maine, to Greenwich in Connecticut, Lake Champlain in Vermont, and finally to Cataumet, Massachusetts. They examined seven boats (with the expert help of Paul Haley) and found in Westray a yawl that was strong, intact in structure, and a proven blue-water vessel.  She has been well kept by successive owners, and as close to her original features as possible.

Here is a picture of Westray under sail in 1960, as she appears in the archives of the Rosenfeld Collection as submitted by the owners:

15 Foot Concordia Yawl Model on Display at 

New Bedford Whaling Museum

Press Release From The New Bedford Whaling Museum:

Whaling Museum exhibits world's largest model of Concordia Yawl

The world's largest scale model of a Concordia Yawl, a boat celebrated in yachting circles as one of the most successful and long-lived wooden racer/cruisers ever built, is on exhibit in the New Bedford Whaling Museum's Jacobs Family Gallery, free to the public.

The one-third scale model was built by Tom Borges, a local artist, sculptor and ship's carpenter, in his New Bedford studio over the course of seven years. Beginning early in 2003, Borges constructed the model from scratch using Concordia plans together with his own meticulous drawings and measurements, taken at the Concordia Boatyard in South Dartmouth.

In announcing the special exhibit, James Russell, museum president, said, "The Whaling Museum is famous as the home of the world's largest ship model, Lagoda, so it is fitting that the world's largest model of an equally famous and locally built boat, the Concordia Yawl, also be displayed here."

With the mast stepped the boat stands 22 feet tall (keel to masthead) in its custom cradle. With miniature bronze fittings and its 200-pound lead keel, the hull measures 15 feet, 2 inches long; its beam is 44 inches.

The metal and bronze fittings were handmade in a multistep process by cutting the major elements on a table saw, TIG welding components together, then grinding, filing and polishing. To fabricate cylindrical parts, Borges utilized a metal lathe in the mechanical department of Burr Brothers Boatyard in Marion, where he works as a ship's carpenter during the spring and summer months. Most of the progress on the model took place in the off-season, he said.

By his reckoning, Borges has worked in the repair and carpentry department at Burr Brothers for the past 13 or 14 years, and never as a boat builder. A Mattapoisett native and 1995 graduate of UMass Dartmouth, Borges studied fine arts, majoring in sculpture. His Cove Street studio, located deep within the former Berkshire-Hathaway Mill complex, is as remarkable as the Concordia model. The walls and floors are papered with myriad works of Borges' art. Numerous portraits and figure studies in charcoal and Conté crayon cover the periphery of a studio crammed with sculpture, paintings, and countless objects of natural study and nautical interest. Heaps of books on fine art lie stacked about on the floor and serve as much for reference as they do for tables to hold palettes, brushes and tools.

"I've always been interested in models," Borges said, pointing to a glass case containing his first attempt, a flawless scale model of a Brownell Bass Boat, which he also built from scratch in 2003.

With his first model completed, Borges decided he wanted to build something bigger, and just big enough to actually sail. This required the model be constructed with all working parts. "In theory, all the parts are meant to work," Borges said. A snug pilot seat built into the model's miniature cabin at the bottom of the companionway allows for the model to be skippered by a set of controls from below decks, with a head-and-shoulders view of the exterior. Two jammers on the starboard side control the main and jib sheets. The single portside jammer controls the mizzen sheet. A lever and cable on the starboard side controls the tiller.

Smiling, the reticent artist added, "I would consider myself far from a sailor; I know how to sail but I wouldn't call myself a sailor. I've always liked boats and I like to build things." None of his models have ever been made on commission. "I get an idea in my head and I just keep going; I make them and they end up staying here," he said.

As the Concordia model began to dominate his small studio, Borges wondered what it might be worth. He contacted a ship model dealer in Marblehead, who responded that he could not appraise a model as large as this one, but referred the artist to several experts on large ship models as well as on Concordia history, including Llewellyn Howland III, a trustee of the Old Dartmouth Historical Society (ODHS) and Whaling Museum. A writer and historian, Howland reviewed photos of the model, then called Borges and contacted Russell, Whaling Museum president. Russell, former head of the International Yacht Restoration Society (IRYS), visited Borges' studio with John Garfield, ODHS chair, and Calvin Siegal, Museum Advisory Committee chair.

"We were blown away by the remarkable workmanship and level of detail. We determined that this extraordinary work should be made available for the public to see," Russell said.

Transport of the model to the whaling museum was provided courtesy of N.C. Hudon, Inc., a family-owned and operated company based in New Bedford, providing crane hoisting and rigging services for more than 60 years.

The model debuted as part of the museum's festive spring fundraiser, "Bermuda Shorts & Knobbly Knees," March 12, and will be on public display for the next several weeks.

The museum is located at 18 Johnny Cake Hill, New Bedford. Photos of the model's installation can be viewed at www.flickr.com/photos/nbwm.