Schooner WILD GOOSE
WG History - ROBERT ALLAN II - RA II History
History of the WILD GOOSE
4/18/2009
Specifications:
Hull Plan (High Res GIF, 480 MB)
Sail Plan (High Res GIF, 271MB),
Built: 1929
LOA: 47’ 6”
LWL: 34’ 6”
Beam: 11.675’
Draft: 6’ 5”
Sail Area: 1742 Sq Ft
Displacement: 28,000
Power: Perkins Diesel, 4-108, 46 HP
RPM: Continuous: 3000, Intermittant 3600
Transmission: Hurth
Capacity: 16
Sleeps: 5
The original ownership of WILD GOOSE is in dispute. One version lists the first owner as Ward Robinson of Chicago. According to this story, Mr. Robinson took delivery and sailed her in and around Chicago during the summer of 1929. Mr. Robinson was quoted in advertisements in The Rudder, bragging that the WILD GOOSE was a very fast boat, and more than held her own against all comers. According to this version, Mr. Robinson fell on hard times in the fall of 1929, and subsequently sold the boat to a member of the Proctor family in 1930. A member of the Proctor family has suggested Mr. Robinson did not take original ownership of the boat, and that it was in fact delivered directly to his family in Harbor Springs, Michigan, by Captain Egan, who sailed her all the way from the Colby yard in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where she was built and launched.Leaving this matter for further research, suffice to say that WILD GOOSE spent the next sixty years in Harbor Springs under the ownership of a single family. We’ve met a number of sailors who recall sailing on WILD GOOSE during the 60’s and 70’s in Harbor Springs. And another dear friend, Dave Topping recalls seeing her for the first time as a teenager in the 1950’s and saying to himself, “one day I’m going to own that boat.”
One day in the late 80’s the owner took WILD GOOSE to the yard and requested to know what it would cost to completely repair and refurbish the vessel. After careful evaluation, the price came back “close to $50,000.” To the question, what would it cost (at that time) to replace her with a brand new boat of the same size, the answer came back: “Close to $50,000.” After pondering the matter for a few moments, the verdict came back: “Burn it.”This conversation was overheard, as it happened, by Tom Orr, a boatwright working for the yard. He approached the manager and asked permission to speak with the owner. He then asked the owner if in fact he planned to burn the boat, would he give it to him instead. He was told ‘no, he would not give it to him, but he would sell it to him for one dollar, and provide space in his private boathouse for him to rebuild it. Tom took the boat for that price, and over the next five years, very substantially rebuilt her. This included replacing the entire stern of the boat, re-framing and re-planking much of the hull, completely gutting and replacing the interior, rebuilding the engine, and replacing the cabin house. During those years, Dave Topping learned of the rebuilding effort, and joined Tom Orr in the later stages, providing both the design and some of the labor for the new interior layout.
Notwithstanding that Dave Topping at that time owned one of the largest wooden boats on the Great Lakes, the sixty three foot N Class sloop SERANADE, he decided he also needed a smaller “personal” boat like WILD GOOSE to complete his fleet. For a high school shop teacher and football coach, this was indeed a fine pair of vessels to have under his command. Never daunted, he managed the pair quite capably for the next six years, before selling SERENADE in 2000. The stories we could tell of Mr. Topping would certainly keep us up for a few days and nights, but for now let’s settle for the fact that he was named (how did he pull this off?) Lake Michigan Sailor of the Year in 1993.
Dave continued to cruise the WILD GOOSE around Lake Michigan from his base in St. Joe, where he kept her in the water year-round. Finally giving ground as he approached his seventieth birthday, he sold WILD GOOSE to two of the present members of the WILD GOOSE Club, and she came to Chicago for either the first or second time in May of 2006, seventy-seven years after first entering Lake Michigan waters.
With a twenty-seven foot main boom, WILD GOOSE does not have a backstay, but rather running backstays on either side to support the main mast. And when the wind doth blow, she can give you moments like the one depicted on our home page. We wonder how many times she has done that since 1929. More than anything else, she likes a good beam reach. In each of her first two years in Chicago, we took her back sixty miles on one tack to her winter quarters in St. Joe, the first time, the day after Thanksgiving! And we can honestly say that each year, we saved the best for last.
On our trips across the Lake, we sometimes are joined by little finches which come from God knows where, and seem happy to find a place to rest for a time. Each year, we venture a little further from Chicago, and some time in the next few years, we plan to return to her long time home in Harbor Springs to see who is left that may remember her.
We’ve had interesting adventures in her first three years in Chicago, more than once sailing her into her mooring in Montrose Harbor, without benefit of the “iron Jenny.”This past summer, we had a most exciting race against Matt Howard’s 1929 Alden Schooner ALLEGRO, getting the better of it this year, after losing to her by less than the length of her bowsprit last year! We were favored by superb skippering this year, one leg under the command of Toby Lindo’s daughter Mareva, and another under Captain Clem Majerus, who wasted no time rounding the Four Mile Crib (the only marker besides the finish line) within three feet of it. And we are happy to report that on her trip home to the Michigan side this Fall, she carved the lake at a brisk 9 knots as we chased the harvest moon towards Saugatuck from Milwaukee.
In the past two years, we’ve repaired or replaced three lodging knees, several deck beams and deck planks, parts of her covering board, the toe rail, and two topside planks. Undoubtedly, we will have an ongoing program of maintenance to be pursued with diligence and discipline. WILD GOOSE came to us with her own wooden dinghy, Chase. This name gave us slight pause as we were debating whether or not to purchase her. But only for a moment - we took the plunge and never looked back.
Home - WILD GOOSE - WG History - ROBERT ALLAN II - RA II History
Launch ROBERT ALLAN II
History of the ROBERT ALLAN II
11/17/2008
Specifications:
Built: 1936
LOA: 40'
Beam: 12’
Draft: 2’ 5”
Displacement: 16,000
Power: Chrysler Crown Gasoline
Top Speed: 17 Knots
Capacity: 14
Sleeps: 5According to Tom Leonard, the last President of the Grebe Yard in Chicago (which closed in 1994), the first owner of the boat now known as ROBERT ALLAN II, was Mrs. Grebe, daughter of Henry C. Grebe. The boat was launched in 1936, and named SCOTTIE. It’s possible she was built on spec and given to Mrs. Grebe when no buyer could be found, as it may have been difficult to keep the yard crew busy in those difficult Depression years.
The boat went through three other owners before being acquired in the 1940’s by Mr. Solomon Katz. He named her ROBERT ALLAN II after his two sons, Robert and Allan, it being the second boat so named. The Katz family owned the boat for almost forty years in Belmont Harbor. The history of the boat during these years is inseparable from the history of her paid captain, “Dutch,” who skippered and maintained the boat for the family until he died in 1983. When Solomon Katz died in 1973, he left instructions the boat was not to be sold until Dutch died, and his wishes were respected.
Both Allan and Robert have been aboard ROBERT ALLAN II over the past few years. From them, we learned interesting tales about the boat and about Dutch. It appears Dutch was a rebellious soul who ran away from home at an early age to join the German merchant marine. When Hitler nationalized the German merchant marine during the 1930’s, Dutch jumped ship in Spain and joined the Spanish merchant marine.And when Franco nationalized the Spanish merchant marine, Dutch once again jumped ship in New York City. Unfortunately he was arrested within forty-eight hours in a German bar. Facing deportation to Germany (and almost certain incarceration or execution), he was saved by the intervention of Mrs. Katz, who, learning of the plight of this German refugee, offered to take responsibility, and persuaded Mr. Katz he needed a professional to skipper and maintain his boat. This happened very near the time the US became a belligerent in WWII, and after the war started, Dutch was also obliged to enlist in order to avoid deportation. He did so, and being a native-born German, was sent to the Pacific theater, where he survived five landings against Japanese held islands.
After the war, Dutch assumed his duties as captain of the ROBERT ALLAN II, and quite a few who grew up in Belmont Harbor still remember him. In the later 1940’s, Dutch became one of the founders of a sea captain’s union, still in existence, which was notable for being the only union with primarily Republican members, and never going on strike. It was said their meetings were generally held in taverns.
During the early years of Katz ownership, the boat was powered by twin Packard engines. But sometime in the 1960’s, she was re-powered with twin Chrysler Crown six cylinder engines (125 horsepower each), and these venerable (rebuilt) gasoline engines drive the boat to this day.
When Dutch died in 1983, ROBERT ALLAN II was sold to new owners, and the boat ended up on its cradle in the vast warehouse of Action Marine, where she languished for eight long years.
On the last day of the boating season in 1994, three friends happened to gather on the wall of Montrose Harbor just as another man approached along the promenade. He said the Grebe yard (closing that year) was still open to anyone wishing to look at the boats left in the yard which had failed to meet the minimum bid at auction. We agreed to go have a look, which we did the next day. Seeing nothing very tempting, we finished our stroll around Grebe’s, and another member of the group, Cleon (Klingon) Statton, mentioned there was an interesting power boat over at Action Marine, and should we not waste a little more time and go have a look? When the tarp was removed from ROBERT ALLAN II, and we saw her for the first time, it was basically down hill from that point - we were hooked. A group of five ended up buying the boat in March 1995, intending to launch her as soon as we could, but prepared for an extensive restoration. Our concentration became more focused when we received a notice from Action Marine a week later stating the yard was closing for good on the last day of May. So we had 75 days to finish the job.
We put in a tremendous effort, and overcame many obstacles, foreseen and unforeseen - the last of which was perhaps the scariest. Action was obviously in trouble, and the watchword seemed to be “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and if it is broke, don’t fix it.” As we were being pulled to the crane at six o’clock on May 31, 1995, the travel lift broke, and the boat dropped about a foot. We could see a considerable dent where the aft starboard side pad had punched into the hull. But on inspection, it appeared the boat was sound, and no frames were broken. So with the help of a man who was building a steel boat in the yard (he had welding equipment handy) we promptly repaired the travel lift, and proceeded to the crane. Down she went into the water, and to our amazement, the water came in - but slowly, and we knew we would be able to float the next morning.
A mighty party was held that night on the after deck. We will never forget Dietmar Solm, one of the original group who purchased the boat, after a few rounds, delivering himself of the profoundly insightful toast “to boats, they’re better than women!” No doubt, in his condition, he had overlooked the fact that the person sitting to his immediate left was our dear friend, Adele Arlitt. With the rest of us more or less holding our breath, Adele delivered an even more profound insight: “And they’re better than men too!”
A high point of the initial restoration was removal of the original four cylinder gasoline 1.5KW generator, for which we had no particular need. In thinking what to do with this useless scrap iron, Dan Snyder called Kohler (the original manufacturer) to see if they might want it. It turned out they did, in anticipation of the 75th anniversary of the Company. They wanted it so badly they were willing to trade us even up for a brand new three cylinder diesel generator. The subsequent disposal of this windfall helped defray some considerable expense over the next few years.
That was the beginning of an extraordinary run of fun (and scary) times, during which we have twice undertaken major rebuilding efforts including reconstructing the main cabin, the foredeck, sistering forty frames, replacing more than a dozen butt blocks, repairing or replacing twenty planks, and this past year, replacing the stem.Another high point was filming the WTTW Channel 11 documentary Chicago by Boat in 2005. ROBERT ALLAN II was the vessel from which all river scenes were filmed, and to this day, the disk remains one of the most popular fund-raising gifts for the station.
We’ve had many memorable cruises on ROBERT ALLAN II, the first being a trip in July of 1995 to a point off Wilmette Harbor where the schooner Fame was rescued from the bottom, after she foundered at midnight while under sail. We were happy to be able to assist the owners that day, and happy to see Fame with us again for quite a few years after that unfortunate event.
We will never forget cruising with the family of one of our members, one of whom noted that in the 1930’s, after running away from home, he had slept for several weeks under the Michigan Avenue bridge, under which we had just passed. A high point was also escorting the African Queen from the old Crowley yard down the main branch of the Chicago River to Montrose Harbor for the Heritage Wooden Boat festival. Seeing the city from the river at twilight cannot be done by sail and it is always a highlight of our summers to take new friends and members up and down the river on a summer night.
With the re-launching of ROBERT ALLAN II in August of 2008, we completed the most demanding and difficult rebuilding effort yet. And with a bit of luck and plenty of hard work, we look forward to the possibility of viewing the 2016 Olympic Games in Chicago from the same waters into which she was launched eighty years before.Home - WILD GOOSE - WG History - ROBERT ALLAN II - RA II History
