Interview with the Herreshoff 12½ Team

Program Director Clark Poston held a roundtable this spring with the team of second-year students restoring the Herreshoff 12½ Hurrah.

From left to right: Max Petrushonis, Valen Coble, Andrew Furlong, Jason Baker, Keith Brown, Jeff Schuldheiss, Kenny Grauer.

CLARK POSTON: What do you like best about working on the Herreshoff 12½?

ANDREW FURLONG: I like her because she’s a little boat with all the bells and whistles. It’s worth the time to do it right.

JEFF SCHULDHEISS: As it’s coming together, you can see that it’s an elegant boat with an incredible level of finish.

JASON BAKER: The level of finish is really nice. There are a lot of challenges with a small boat with all her surfaces, so you have to blend it together and keep it nice.

KEITH BROWN: Jason has hit on something. For a boat of this size, it’s a precisely designed boat where everything is visible. There are very small tolerances, so things have to be dead-on. Working on Hurrah has really raised our level of craftsmanship.

MAX PETRUSHONIS: I like all the standard Herreshoff details that make the boat elegant.

CLARK: How does the daily work get divided up?

KENNY GRAUER: We all just volunteer ourselves.

MAX: I wanted to learn about mold making, so I volunteered for that.

JEFF: The year started out differently, but now everybody’s thinking ahead and figuring out how I can do this as my contribution.

JASON: The instructors are involved in certain things. Warren [Barker, second-year instructor] might nudge us toward something. And we just look at what’s on the list.

KEITH: With the major stuff like planking, we all wanted to have a hand in it. We’re a good mix. We’ve all had ownership from the beginning to the end.  

CLARK: How do you get involved with project management?

KEITH: With the bigger deadlines, we got more involved and became more proactive.

KENNY: Planking was a big deadline, but we didn’t initially see the pitfalls, so we’d fall off schedule. Now we have a checklist.

ANDREW: It’s better with a checklist. We’re able to manage things better.

CLARK: What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced on the restoration?

ANDREW: The fact that Warren knows so much about the 12½. I’ve had to raise myself to his level of craftsmanship.

JASON: It’s hard to pull it off from the construction plans. People who own a 12½ are so familiar with them. There are people who spend their lives researching the 12½.

KENNY: My biggest challenge was with the lofting and refairing the boat. It’s a small boat with a big boat design, which made it that much more difficult.

KEITH: This year, we needed to be able to think about things and plan them out. Like how what we do today affects what you plan to do later on. Making a small change now has big implications later.

CLARK: What have you learned about working together as a team?

KEITH: Because we need to meet a common goal, the level of responsibility to the rest of the team has been raised. There’s subtle peer pressure. It’s different to be in a group.

JASON: Before IYRS, I worked alone and had a hand in my projects from beginning to end. Now it’s a group process, and I’ve had to figure out how to work with a larger team.

MAX: How to subtly stay on top of the others. We keep each other motivated so we can keep the progress going.

JEFF: I learned that I need more patience.

CLARK: What skills did you learn in your first year that have been of most value this year?

JEFF: How to sharpen a tool. I’ve realized how much nicer it is to work with sharp tools.

MAX: Learning about good stock selection and knowing that this piece of wood should go on a boat vs. that piece that should never go near a boat.

KENNY: Seeing how wood dries out and how it acts in certain environments.

ANDREW: Having more patience. If you do something too quickly, it bites you in the butt.

JASON: I had a lot of the skills before I came to IYRS, but I’ve learned how to combine them with proper tool use. Now I use tools at a level of precision and usefulness that I didn’t before.

KEITH: Last year, I learned how to work with a team, to be efficient and to produce high quality. This year, I want to build my leadership skills.

CLARK: How has the experience helped to build your confidence?

MAX: Finishing the mast was big. I started with three pieces of wood and turned it into a mast. I hadn’t done a rounded spar before.

KENNY: I did the shutter plank in one day with all these guys breathing down my neck. Seeing the hardest plank going on in one day was big.

KEITH: The first attempt at the transom stumped me for a month. But I got through it. Now it’s another thing I’ve got in my back pocket.

CLARK: What has been the most rewarding experience during the project?

ANDREW: When the boat got green paint and varnish, suddenly we realized we had a boat.

KEITH: On June 6th (Graduation Day) when I put the tiller in my hand and pull in the sail. Then I’ll know that I was part of the team that built this boat.