[alberg30] Jules Hanson

[Scott Wallace]

From:	Scott Wallace <tristan at one.net>

Lee,

Thanks so much for the insights into Juls... A man at the Sheepshead Bay Yacht
Club said he remembered Juls, that he was a really good man, a craftsman-artist
with wood.  He mentioned the old workshop was used for school buses but never
described the boatshop...He told me that Juls and his wife enjoyed sailing my
old boat, TULLA.  I called the Norwegian Embassy to ask if the name TULLA had
any special signifcance and they said that it was a nickname for a small girl
like "Lassie" is in Scotland.  He said that he thought Juls had a couple of
children who put him in some kind of care facility for the last few years of his
life.  The craftsmanship was tremendous in TULLA.  I called the ISYRA
headquarters in Waukeegan, Illinois, and they told me that te old Star records
were in the Mystic Seaport Museum.  They sent me a listing of all past owners,
the son of one who send me an old colored photo of him and the third owner on
Long Island Sound...the boat was a beautiful varnished cedar.  He sent an older
photo of TULLA under sail at speed while in the old Federal Judge's hand on Lake
Keyuga, New York...I gave all of the photos and former owner info to the person
who bought her from me...

As much as I love the old wooden boats, newer fiberglass classics like the
Alberg 30 certainly give us more time for sailing

Thanks for the beautifully described memories of someone I would have really
enjoyed meeting

Scott

FINNUS505 at aol.com wrote:

> From: FINNUS505 at aol.com
>
> Hi  Scott,
> Oh boy, the memories are flowing now.
> I knew Jules Hanson.  When I was very little, a stop into his boatshop in
> Mill Basin in Brooklyn was a weekly pilgramage on Sat. morning on our way to
> our boatyard at the end of E 69th street to work on our own boats.
> He had an old fashioned boat shop, the kind you see in photos of Norway or
> Sweden.   In the far corner was a big old cast iron pot bellied stove, which
> warmed the place in winter, and was his heat source for his steam box.  The
> rough wood floor was covered in wood chips and shavings everywhere but for
> narrrow paths along his workbench and under the boat he was working on.  Rows
> of clamps hung from racks, and his tools were happhazardly strewn across the
> workbench that lined the one side of the shop.  Photos of Jules in the'20s
> hung from the walls, the Big Yachts of Long Island Sound of the time, when he
> was 'topman', the guy who stood on the cross trees of those huge gaff sloops
> and cutters, clearing halyards for the 'Swedish Steam" below on deck.
> Sawdust gathered on the lower pieces of the picture frames, making it look
> like the yachts were sailing through seas of pine and mahogony. He was
> building mostly champion Stars at the time- the mid 60's, but he built
> Lightnings and Penguins, too. As well as repairing boats. He had a small yard
> in front of the shop, filled with boats ready for shipment, or waiting for
> repairs.  what a place.  And what a carpenter.  You couldnt see his scarfs.
> I don't think he used screws. Everything was fitted and glued. And he was a
> gentleman in every sense of the word.
> There was one badly  mangled Star in his front yard that sat there for years.
>  She was his pride when built. He told the story over and over about how when
> she was weighed in the first time, she came in 'to the pound....to the
> pound!!!"  apparently downwind she was untouchable.  She won her share of LI
> championships, but then, one day she broke free from her trailer hitch on the
> highway, and a roadside barrier tore out her bow and side.  The owner brought
> her back to Jules, who knew even repaired, her weight or racing would never
> be the same, so there she sat. A little boy can fantasize about a boat like
> that, or obsess as the case may be, but, she sat there until someone in a
> boatyard across the street bought her, and did some rough repairs to get her
> sailing again. I dont think she ever raced again, but at least she got back
> into the water.  Jules had a stroke in the mid 70's, and that slowed him down
> significantly, and I think he passed away in the early 80's. The last time I
> drove by, the building was still there, but its being used as a school bus
> repair garage now, and the yard is filled with yellow school bus', not wooden
> boats.   I always felt priviledged to have known him.  He make a boom and
> hatches for my dad's P sloop in the early 70's. Flawless and beautiful.  One
> of his early Stars is in Mystic Seaport, in the small watercraft collection.
> Not many Brooklyn boats allowed in Connecticut, so you know it's special!!!
> Take care Scott,
> Lee
> Stargazer #255
>
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