News of our featured sailboat was heard all the way across Barnegat Bay!
The Connection Magazines’ Bernards-Ridge June edition features a sailboat painting by artist Mark Hunter.
So?
One of the owners of the sailboat, Christel, called our office to inform us that the sailboat named Spy adorning our June cover belongs to her. Christel and Gary Stewart along with some others own this rare beauty, one of 13 still racing on the bay.
How coincidental!
So we called the artist who told us he visits Barnegat Bay often to look at the sailboats, draw sketches and then paint them. This particular boat caught his attention as it is a limited edition A Cat from the 1920s. These A Cats were “Painstakingly constructed of cedar, ash, fir and spruce, A Cats take nearly 5,000 man-hours to build.” “We love it,” says Gary Stewart, “but also we see ourselves as caretakers of this tradition.”
https://njmonthly.com/articles/historic-jersey/sailing-survivors-ancient-a-cats-boats/
Read the history of A Cats here: http://bit.ly/2Kf9cQx
Highlights
1). The boats were all built by hand at boatbuilding shops along the Jersey Shore.
2). Sailboat racing was first enjoyed by Dutch aristocrats in the 17th century, and the sport has retained its upper-crust associations, for obvious reasons. A new A Cat, for example, costs more than $200,000 to build.
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/19/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/20Rsailing.html
3). In Christel words, “ it is like floating antique furniture.”
Some information is gleaned from: