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How This Chef Continues Cooking Large in Tight Quarters

klindsey — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 17:01:17 +0000

We are a few hours into the inaugural sail of the 2022 season aboard the Schooner Ladona, which traces the rocky coast of Maine for twenty-odd weekends a year, seeking adventure in the mist, fog, and harbors of Vacationland. On land, it may be a fine June morning, but at sea, we’ve encountered the truest of Maine awakenings: some wind (good for the sails), quite a bit of rain; the kind of weather that Mainers describe as “typical.”

My shipmates and I huddle in the galley as chef Anna Miller unearths from storage a trio of different birds, spatchcocked. Laying them out on the galley’s simple island, she seasons each bird and layers them on top of each other—turkey first: 18 pounds, followed by a layer of stuffing, followed by a four-pound duck, more stuffing, then a chicken roaster—ties them together into a round bundle, slicks the bundle with oil, and presents it for us to see, her masterpiece, the butt of a Thanksgiving joke come to life: the famous Schooner Ladona Turducken (find the recipe here).

Miller only serves the turducken on the first and last trips of the ’s season. “It’s kind of like word-of-mouth,” she says. “There are guests that call up and they’re like, ‘We want to come on the first or the last trip.’” The glorious, labor-intensive birds-in-bird, cooked in the kerosene-heated oven, is possible thanks to the planning and design of captain and co-owner J.R. Braugh who, in 2014, alongside a team including captain Noah Barnes, Jane Barrett Barnes, Simon Larsen, Sean Boyd, and Miller, helped spearhead the 100-year-old ship’s redesign, which included a complete gut of the galley.

Mugs ready for use in the galley (Photo: Hannah Selinger)

“Features in the galley like the lighting, fixtures, appliances, layout, soffit design, and range-hood were contributions I made,” Braugh says. “The settees, tables, and counter storage considerations were done as a team. A plurality of existing passenger schooners inspired the design and ergonomics we hoped to achieve in Ladona’s galley, keeping our signature chef, Anna, in mind the whole time.”

The Schooner Ladona, which was originally commissioned by American industrialist Homer Loring in 1922, holds 17 guests—fewer than some of her neighboring vessels, which can accommodate up to 40—packed in like happy sardines. Originally built as a sailing yacht, the Ladona was named as a tribute to Loring’s grandfather, who had a ship with the same name.

Over the course of a century, the Ladona went through multiple incarnations—and names. In the late 1960s, someone identified the Ladona, which, by then, had been converted into a fishing boat, as a former sailboat. She was later restored and her name was changed to the Joseph W. Hawkins. Later, the ship was renamed again to the Nathaniel Bowditch, a tribute to the famous American mathematician and military ocean navigator.

By 2014, the boat had fallen on hard times. Tied up in Rockland, Maine, the Ladona was deemed unfit to sail with a revoked certificate of inspection from the Coast Guard before Noah Barnes had the idea to rescue her. Braugh was, he himself says, “a willing co-conspirator, once Noah’s idea and financial strategy were conceived.” Braugh summoned his experiences at sea as he began thinking about a redesign and, importantly, about what kind of galley would be ideal for clientele.

The Ladona, mid-renovations (Photo: Courtesy J.R. Braugh)

The result is a 196-square-foot galley that is both large enough to cook a massive turducken and seat the boat’s guests for the breakfast Miller cooks to order between seven and nine. A banquette is situated against the back walls with benches facing a built-in table, so guests can eat as Miller cooks, chats, and preps later meals, all in a space that does not impede the flow. The benches also hide dry storage, so it’s not unusual to be asked, mid-meal, to stand up for a moment so that someone can grab this or that.

Braugh and Miller worked together prior to the Ladona on a series of boats that were useful testing grounds—the Mercantile, Grace Bailey, Stephen Taber, and Roseway, often referred to as the green boats because they have green hulls. “They may not have a ton of creature comforts, in the way we aspire to,” Braugh says, “but the galleys had a nice layout.” This included a counter separating the chef’s workspace from the passengers’ space. “It gave them a little defensive barrier, and it portioned off a place that they could kind of call their own.” That idea, Braugh says, was translated to the Ladona.

Other details include built-in wall shelving that holds Ball canning jars full of spices and other assorted mise-en-place; a freestanding slop sink that is the sole onboard “dishwasher” but does its duty well; and a kerosene stove tucked to the left as you enter the galley, behind captain Braugh’s makeshift barrier. Next to the stove, a refrigerator—large for a ship, but not quite full-sized—stores perishables. Written on the outside in dry-erase marker are the chef’s notes regarding the plans for the day or remaining charter. Miller points out wine storage for 70 bottles above the downstairs dining table, added on by Rockland cabinet-maker Sean Boyd a few years after the restoration.

Miller, who enrolls in two full-share CSAs every season for the boat, has the ability with the curated space to be relatively fearless. (When I ask her if there is anything that she would never attempt on this swaying kitchen of the sea, she stops to think a minute: “I’ll try just about anything, but I definitely know that I couldn’t pull off a soufflé for 17 people.”)

This fearlessness delivers delicious delights. On our final day, for lunch, seated at the long table in June’s brilliant Maine sunshine, we enjoy homemade Reuben sandwiches, still hot and joyously drippy, accompanied by crinkled-topped brownies. On our final night at sea, the smell of smoke erupts at the rear of the boat: charred steaks emerge, along with corn-on-the-cob, a warm bowl of seasoned potatoes, and, for dessert, tart and creamy slices of key lime pie.

Fine eating on the Ladona (Photo: Hannah Selinger)

But before those meals, there is this one, the burnished turducken, a feat both of culinary rigor and circumstance. Here, on our first cool evening, perfectly cooked, small space notwithstanding, Miller produces, from the depths, a cured duck pastrami, made in-house, alongside truffled deviled eggs, garnished with chive blossoms from her CSA, and local French breakfast radishes, smeared thick with butter and dipped in lardons. And then the bird, served with potatoes and the conviviality that one might expect at, well, Thanksgiving.

It’s hard to imagine, as twilight settles in, lights dance overhead, and the occasional seal noses up from the calm of Bucks, where we’ve anchored for the evening, that this bounty could have been created in a room smaller than my freshman dorm room.

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Summer Read: Testing Love on the Open Sea

mlarsen — Sat, 30 Jul 2022 13:00:06 +0000

Can a relationship survive a grand adventure? That was the big question hanging over two novice sailors as they set out on a voyage off the coast of New England. It all began when Claire Antoszewski had the idea to refurbish an old boat with her partner Will Grant, a man who is most comfortable on a horse. With dreams of a leisurely cruise, they got to work—and soon found themselves at the helm of the Lower Goose in high seas and nasty weather. Not surprisingly, they have different takes on what happened. In this episode of our Summer Read series, we hear both sides of the story and learn some lessons about how to carefully mix romance and risk.

This episode was brought to you by Costa Sunglasses, designed to help you make the most of your time on the water. Find the frame for your pursuit at .

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Donald Lawson Is Poised to Rip Up Sailing’s Record Books

syadron — Sat, 09 Jul 2022 11:00:18 +0000

On a rainy fall morning in 2005, Donald Lawson got a phone call from his sailing hero, Bruce Schwab, asking if he would be willing to drop everything and join him on a trip down the East Coast.

Lawson, then 23, had been honing his sailing skills for more than a decade, first at Baltimore’s Police Athletic League and then on the Chesapeake Bay in prestigious regattas like the Governor’s Cup. In these races, up to 20 boats are pitted against one another on courses that can reach 100 nautical miles in length. Lawson and his teammates had broken several speed records—and each time, Lawson was one of the only Black sailors.

In those days, there was no bigger figure in American sailing than Schwab, who in the previous three years had been the only American to compete in and finish two of the sport’s most hallowed planet-circling solo sailing races: the Around Alone and the Vendée Globe. Lawson had been bombarding Schwab with Myspace messages for months, asking for tips on how to race better and faster. Schwab had been helpful, but this was the first time he offered an invite to sail on his 60-foot yacht, Ocean Planet, the boat he had used on his circumnavigations.

Lawson’s dreams had already stretched beyond those Chesapeake regattas—he wanted to ring the globe, too, and he wanted to do it faster than anyone ever had. But he needed practice. Immediately, he hopped on a bus from Baltimore to Portland, Maine, where Schwab awaited. “It was an opportunity that I knew I had one chance to do,” says Lawson. “That’s part of the mentality you have to have, not coming from a wealthy family and being a Black guy in sailing—sometimes you only get one chance.”

The first night Schwab and Lawson were on the water, a snowstorm hit as they steered into a freezing headwind. Most skippers wouldn’t have left port in those conditions, but Schwab wanted to take advantage of the storm’s winds, which could slingshot them south. Schwab loved speed, and it was clear that his new apprentice did, too. “The boat could sail perfectly fine under autopilot,” Schwab says. “But Donald was so thrilled to be there that he refused to come below, preferring to sit outside and drive the boat for hours, upwind, in the snow.”

Lawson in Oahu, Hawaii (Photo: Courtesy of Donald Lawson)

Now 40, Lawson is an accomplished sailor on the precipice of realizing his dream of sailing around the world. In the fall, he’ll begin , including an attempt to become the fastest person, and the first Black sailor, to complete a solo, nonstop circumnavigation of the globe. That goal follows in the wake of both Teddy Seymour and Bill Pinkney, the only other Black Americans to sail alone around the world (they stopped along the way). Meanwhile, Lawson was selected to lead the , the sport’s governing body. He also established the , a foundation that aims to bring people of color into the sport.

Lawson was raised in Woodlawn, a predominately Black, middle-class neighborhood in Baltimore County. His father was a Baptist preacher and an employee in NASA’s Office of Inspector General, and his mother was a computer technician and community counselor. In a family that prided itself on regimented goals—his younger brother and sister both joined the military—Lawson was an outlier with an itch for adventure. In 1990, when he was nine, his mother enrolled him in the Police Athletic League and drove him to his first field trip, on the Lady Maryland, a replica of a 19th-century schooner that hosts educational outings on Chesapeake Bay. As the ship got underway, Baltimore’s skyline dissolved off the stern. Ahead lay the wide mouth of the Patapsco River, and beyond that the Chesapeake. Lawson found the captain and asked him how far he could take this boat. Around the world if you wanted, he said.

“That’s part of the mentality you have to have, not coming from a wealthy family and being a Black guy in sailing—sometimes you only get one chance.”

Would it be that easy to escape? “When someone tells you there are people going around the world, and you can be one of them, that opens your mind to possibilities you never thought of before,” Lawson says. But with all the white faces on the boats in the harbor that day, it was easy to think sailing had no place for a Black kid from Baltimore. At the time, he didn’t know anything about Seymour, who’d in honor of Black History Month, departing from Frederiksted, Saint Croix, where an uprising in 1848 had led to the abolition of slavery in the then Danish territory. It would be another 17 years before he’d learn of Pinkney, to complete an around-the-world trip by way of the southern capes. Sailing, Pinkney wrote, was “about escape—escape from the bonds of conformity, racism, and lack of respect because of one’s background.” The sea, he continued, “has afforded me the chance to prove my potential when placed on a level playing field.”

In 1999, after graduating from high school, Lawson began working for the Downtown Sailing Center, where he became its first Black instructor. Teaching sailing to novices on various types of boats in the busy waters of the Inner Harbor allowed Lawson to get good fast. Soon he was being invited to join crews for races up and down the East Coast and in the Caribbean. It was at this point that he discovered the sport’s racist undercurrents. “You start experiencing people who aren’t familiar with you, and they’re not totally comfortable with you,” he says.

After the trip with Schwab in 2005, Lawson began thinking about breaking speed records on his own terms, and doing so beyond the confines of a race schedule. To pay the bills, he got his captain’s license at the Annapolis School of Seamanship, which allowed him to deliver ships for boat owners to different locations. That job provided him access to a multitude of boats and an opportunity on each delivery to break personal speed records.

Lawson’s new 60-foot trimaran (Photo: Courtesy of Donald Lawson)

In 2009, Lawson set out to find sponsorship that would allow him to acquire his own boat. This year it finally happened, in the form of a 60-foot trimaran, one of the world’s fastest sailing vessels. Starting in September, weather permitting, he’ll kick off a campaign to break 35 solo world records over ten years, beginning with a record attempt of the California-to-Hawaii transpacific route; in January 2024, he’ll attempt the solo nonstop circumnavigation. For the sailing class that Lawson’s journey will fit into, the current world record is 74 days. Lawson will attempt to do it in 70.

“Sailing teaches certain things—good planning and prioritization skills, problem-solving, self-reliance, resilience, high-level understanding of physics, math, and hydro- and aerodynamics,” says Rich Jepsen, vice president of U.S. Sailing. “With tens of thousands of ocean miles under his belt, Donald has all that in abundance.”

In the meantime, Lawson is helping break barriers onshore. After the murder of George Floyd in 2020, U.S. Sailing formed a task force to educate community sailing groups around the country about the importance of cultivating sailors of all racial and economic backgrounds. Lawson was one of the first people Jepsen thought of for the initiative, along with Debora Abrams-Wright, Quemuel Arroyo, Lou Sandoval, and Karen Harris. “I wish I could tell you that U.S. Sailing, out of wisdom or generosity, started the task force on its own,” says Jepsen. But it was volunteer leaders in community sailing organizations who pushed the national governing body to act.

Lawson hopes that any Black kid who sets foot on a sailboat will have role models they recognize to show them the way. “I’m happy to say that, probably in the next five or ten years, you will be seeing more of me out there,” he says. “And who knows? Maybe they’ll be inspired to come along and break my records.”

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This One Is for All the Boat Lovers

hchildress — Sat, 18 Sep 2021 11:30:00 +0000

Produced by , We Love Boats is an ode to anyone passionate about their vessel, and about the various waterscapes—and the ways spent enjoying them—that make such outings a dream.

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The Real Survival Story Behind ‘Adrift’

lwhelan — Thu, 07 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

On October 12, 1983, Tami Oldham Ashcraft and her fiancé, Richard Sharp, found themselves in the path of Hurricane Raymond as they sailed a 44-foot yacht across the Pacific Ocean. The experienced sailors were delivering the luxury boat Hazana from Tahiti’s Papeete Harbor to San Diego on what was supposed to be a routine passage. Instead, the Category 4 storm whipped up violent waves and catastrophic winds that eventually capsized the small craft. In the ensuing chaos, Ashcraft suffered a serious head injury that rendered her unconscious for 27 hours. When she awoke, Sharp was gone.

Alone at sea and awash with grief and shock, Ashcraft mustered the courage to guide the battered Hazana toward the nearest landfall—1,500 miles away, in Hilo, Hawaii. She worked furiously to rig the one remaining sail and a partial spinnaker pole to gain steerage for the boat. Since the electronics were shot in the flooded vessel, Ashcraft had to rely on a sextant and a watch to navigate across the open ocean. “I ran the risk of being off the latitude of Hawaii, so that was always really heavy on my mind,” she says. “If I did not get to Hawaii, I would die.”

Despite scarce rations and serious injuries, Ashcraft made it to Hilo Harbor 41 days later. Nearly a decade after, she began writing a memoir, Red Sky in Mourning, which, after she self-published it, was released by a Hachette imprint in 2002. (Dey Street recently reissued the book under the title ). Among the book’s admirers were screenwriters Aaron and Jordan Kandell. They turned it into a screenplay that became Adrift, a $35 million film adaptation of her story. The movie, directed by Baltasar Kormákur (Everest, The Deep) and starring Shailene Woodley as Ashcraft and Sam Claflin as Sharp, hits theaters this month.

We spoke with Ashcraft about what it was really like to endure those days at sea, her reaction to the film, and the surprising way she began healing from her ordeal.

On How She Learned the Skills to Prepare Her for Survival at Sea: “It was hands-on, just by what I call ‘jumping off the continent.’ I learned first on my dad’s Hobie Cat and then during my first Pacific crossing in 1979. I was always interested in plotting the course on the chart and seeing where we were. I wasn’t a master navigator by any means, but I enjoyed it. Once it became a life-and-death situation, I got real good, real quick.”

On Finding Hope During the Darkest Moments: “First of all, having that half of a spinnaker pole. I still had one little sail left, even though all the other sails went overboard. Once I got that up and I had steerage, I could actually move the boat. Then all these little things started being put in place. Finding that I had a quarter of a tank of water, that was a huge turning point. Finding my watch in the bilge so that I could find out exactly where I was on the chart instead of just sailing by latitude. There were a lot of little things that kept me going.”

On One Surprisingly Emotional Moment From Adrift: “The one scene that kind of really threw me is when Shailene is leaning over the side, putting the duct tape on the hull. Just seeing her alone, with no land in sight, with that wrecked boat—oh my gosh, it just brought me right back. It was just so surreal. It was like, God, that was me. I just wept.”

Shailene Woodley plays Tami Oldham Ashcraft, who spent 41 days at sea in a wrecked yacht. (Courtesy of STXfilms)

On What She Thought About During Her 41 Days at Sea: “I thought about Richard all the time. I thought about our life together, I thought about my family. Your mind just races and runs around. I would think, ‘Have I completed the things I wanted to do in my life?’ Then there’s the whole shout out to the universe: ‘If I live, I promise I won’t ever do this or that or whatever!’ I mean, you’re just making promises to the universe. It’s very humbling, and it really puts you in your place.”

On Dealing with Grief and Survival at the Same Time: “I had to talk to myself and tell myself, ‘I have to quit crying.’ I had to quit crying because I was losing so much water, and I didn’t have a lot of water. A lot of the grief was really muted, really shoved back because of the survival and having to keep pushing forward. It really wasn’t until I was back on land, and I could relax and not have to worry about dying, that the grief started surfacing. It was really, really difficult.”

On What People Should Know About Richard Sharp: “He had a very good sense of humor, and people were drawn to him. He was a people person. I’m a little bit more reserved, so we made a good couple in that way. He was very well read, he was a pretty smart guy, and he was an adventurer. That’s what drew us together: quenching our adventurous spirit. Being a sailor, it’s hard to find a compatible relationship with someone. I mean, when you’re sailing with someone, you’re with them 24/7. He was just a very genuine, beautiful person.”

On What She Did After Surviving: “I just kept myself distracted and kept moving forward. I went back to sea for many years. I think it was cathartic for me to get back to sea, to get back to what I loved to do. That was kind of my therapy, I guess. My first trip was about six months of sailing through Fiji’s islands on a crew. After we got in a little bit of a gale, the owner of the boat goes, ‘You’re not afraid, are you?’ I said ‘Afraid? I’ve seen the worst! I’m not afraid of this. This is nothing compared to what I just experienced.’”

On What She Hopes Viewers Take Away from Adrift: “I’m just very pleased that it’s being told at a time when there’s such an empowerment of women. Like Balt [Baltasar Kormákur] says, it’s always these survival stories of man against wolves or man against the sea. I think it’s a time to show some of the strengths that women have, that they can overcome all kinds of obstacles in their lives. I’m hoping the movie shows that no matter what’s thrown your way, you just gotta dig deep. If you can just hang on, get through it, be strong, and have perseverance, then on the other end you’re gonna come out of it OK.”

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Krystle Wright Captures the Magic of the Ocean

uchrobak — Mon, 12 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Capturing life above, below, and on the ocean

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Biking in Lemmenjoki National Park

mbreton — Fri, 15 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

From filmmaker ��Ի� , follows mountain biker and sailor during a late autumn cruise in northern Finland. The dedicated captain and his boat, the Sanibonani, set a course for Lapland to explore Lemmenjoki National Park—by bike.

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Proof Greenland Is Best Seen By Boat

mbreton — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Photographer spent this past July cruising along the icy fjords of Greenland aboard Russian sailboat, the Rusarc Aurora. Alongside fellow photographers, and , he documented their encounters with whales and the never-ending sun.

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The Fastest Athletes on the Planet

mficken — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Everybody loves a superlative, and “fastest” is perhaps the most coveted of them all. Athletes from many different disciplines have been trying to best one another in this competition for years. In September, Kyle Wester , clocking at 89.41 miles per hour. How's that compare to the fastest speeds in other sports? Let's see.

(Mark Ficken)

��첹�ٱ��ǲ��:��2016

Top Speed: 89.41

Record Holder: Kyle Wester

Downhill Skis (Women): 2016

Top Speed: 153.4

Record Holder: Valentina Greggio

Downhill Skis (Men): 2016

Top Speed: 158.4

Record Holder: Ivan Origone

Bike (Gravity): 1998

Top Speed: 64.02

Record Holder: Dwight Garland

Bike (with Vehicle Slipsteam, Men): 1995

Top Speed: 166.94

Record Holder: Fred Rompelberg

Bike (with Vehicle Slipsteam, Women): 2016

Top Speed: 147

Record Holder: Denise Mueller

Bike (on Dirt): 2002

Top Speed: 107

Record Holder: Eric Barone

Boat (Hydroplane): 1997

Top Speed: 317.58

Record Holder: Ken Warby

Boat (Sail): 2012

Top Speed: 59.37 (knots)

Record Holder: Paul Larsen

��ܲ�:��2009

Top Speed: 27.8

Record Holder: Usain Bolt

��ܲ��:��2001

Top Speed: 86.6

Record Holder: Tony Benshoots

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Meet the Boatbuilders Doing the Dirty Work That Makes Sailing Beautiful

lwhelan — Fri, 16 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

“Haven’t had an ad in the paper since before I was born,” says Christian Langendal of his family’s boatbuilding and restoration company, with a tinge of pride. “All word of mouth.”

Christian, 35, was literally born into the business. He’s the youngest in a lineage of boat lovers and repairers who run the business his father started and that bears his name, . Anders, Christian, and his brother, Erik, 39, work at the shop on a quiet gravel road off Carpenter Street in Greenport, New York. It’s a unique dichotomy for the family—boating as sport and vocation, the latter often wearing on the former like a tear in a sail. Especially during these summer months, when the workload is heavy, the shadows are long, and the phone calls for business are frequent. “It’s almost overwhelming at times,” Christian says.

Maybe without realizing it, he’s touched on the single most important fact of this business: it’s consistently hard, dirty work. Boating, and sailing in particular, often has a clean façade, replete with bleached white polos and Dockers and martinis spilling into Nantucket Sound. What’s often underappreciated is how the boat itself materializes in the first place: the small Langendal team sacrifices summer days to serve others’ pleasure, all with a smile. Sometimes Christian has to call off dinner plans with his fiancée because he gets a call to repair a Doughdish that’s set to race off Shelter Island the next day. “I always cringe when I hear the phone ring on Fridays,” he says.

August, when I visit, is slower than June and July, but just barely. For the four-person operation that comprises the 57-year-old business, it’s never quite slow enough. Anders and Erik have traveled to Sweden for the week, leaving Christian and their sole nonfamily employee, Maria, here to watch the shop. Anders and Erik’s sojourn is a yearly trip to pay respect to the boathouse Kungsörs, which inspired Anders to build his business.

Christian Langendal works on a boat. (Randee Daddona)

Anders was born in Sweden and, in his teens, wanted to be an officer on a merchant ship. After a broken arm delayed his career, he started working on wooden boats upon the suggestion of his uncle. He became an apprentice under Oscar Schelin, owner of Kungsörs, and developed into a skilled carpenter seemingly overnight. When one of the boats he worked on won a prestigious award in 1965, Anders emigrated to Greenport, where his sponsor lived and . During World War II, Greenport employed close to 6,000 workers who were rapidly producing minesweepers—small naval warships used to evade mines planted in seas.

Anders started out as a third-class carpenter and quickly climbed the ranks to the chagrin of many older guys who had taken years to earn their spots. Andy the Swede, as locals called him, would eventually build the last boat ever started from scratch and completed in this current boatyard. “��á��ǲԴǲ�, that’s the boat’s name,” Christian says, pulling a dusty picture from an overcrowded shelf in his office. Today, the Anders Langendal crew fixes up wooden and fiberglass boats of all kinds, from small, one-design, sailing-fleet Etchells to 12.5-foot Doughdishes to larger, more intensive work on signature models.

The 7,000-square-foot Fleetwing building from which they operate sits in a marina alongside several other repair and storage buildings. Boats and parts and cranes and trailers stretch across the property as far as the eye can see. Inside the Fleetwing is the Langendal’s “office,” with a desk, couch, and computer, but it also serves as a workshop, with tools, benches, and a skiff peeking out from the back, temporarily sidelined because its owner has discontinued work on it. A couple steps down from the office is the building’s main hub, crowded with various tool benches, table saws, wood, and, of course, boats.

In general, building and repairing boats is a measure-twice, cut-once type of job.

��ϳԹ�� the building and across the harbor is Shelter Island, where Christian lives on a houseboat with his fiancée and her kid during the summer months, and where his parents met at a local dive bar, the Dory, many moons ago. Every day, Christian takes his small motorboat to work and docks it next to the building. This is part of the circadian rhythm of these maritime guys. Repetition day in and out.

Patience is the key to Anders Langendal’s success, Christian tells me. In general, building and repairing boats is a measure-twice, cut-once type of job.

“Biggest thing we’re learning is that if you want to find an employee that can replace you, you gotta pay them a lot of money,” Christian admits. It’s self-congratulatory but also self-motivational to be irreplaceable, and perhaps is why he’s taking online naval architectural classes at night. (His brother, Erik, is already a professional civil engineer.) “If you have good employees, you keep them. You take good care of them,” he says. Christian knows other shipyards have trouble keeping good workers or replicating the good ones they have.

(Randee Daddona)

Enter Maria Carranza, 32, the second nonfamily employee to work for Anders Langendal. (The first was a male carpenter who has since left.) If it’s strange that the family has hired someone from the outside, it’s even stranger that she’s a woman, not a common hire in the boatbuilding and repairing industry. But Carranza is focused and resilient, a natural choice for the job. “Women are taking over the world while men drink beer and watch TV,” Christian says, which makes Carranza laugh.

She’s the resident boat sander and varnisher, an exhaustive skill she learned from Christian himself, even though, he admits, she’s much better at it now than he is. Much like everything else in this shipyard, varnishing is about persistence: prepping and cleaning, applying multiple layers of varnish, looking out for bare spots in the wood, constantly rechecking to make sure the consistency is just right.

Watching Carranza work does not relay the quality of detail that’s required. She works assiduously but effortlessly, often while listening to her iPod (she doesn’t like the reggae music the “guys” blare from the portable radio, she says) or while talking on her phone. Today, she’s putting the final coat of varnish on a Doughdish that Christian will paint the next day. They’ll drop it in the water the following day.

“They look a fraction of the size when they’re in water,” Christian says, seeing my awestruck expression as we walk among the boats inside. He leads us past the woodworking part of the shop, lined on both sides by white oak, a common wood for structural work, and to the middle, where several boats are propped up, like centerpieces in a naval gallery. There’s Valkeryie, a 35-foot boat designed by Jon Anchor in Norway in 1917, given to them in its current shape, for which they have major plans. There’s Kings, a King cruiser built in 1957 that hasn’t been in the water for several years. Then there’s his brother Erik’s boat, Anders’ piercing blue boat, and Christian’s folk boat that he compares to the “Volkswagen Beetle—inexpensive to buy and fun to sail.”

But these are just the boats the family owns; many more pass through the shop weekly.

Theirs is a full-service yard, which means they don’t just work on wooden boats but offer services of all kinds, from electrical to mechanical to routine maintenance. It’s what keeps the Langendals afloat. Their clients range from the exorbitantly wealthy, including a former NFL president, to the everyman sailor. All kinds come to Greenport with boats in tow; it’s a popular summer destination as well as a staple of maritime culture.

Carranza works on a boat. (Randee Daddona)

Christian sees all of that changing, though. “Greenport isn’t what is used to be. When the hardware store became a pet shop, it really pissed me off,” he says. “Unfortunately, our yard is getting a lot of heat from the village. People come here for the summers and are giving the yard a hard time since it’s the largest waterfront property in this town.” He talks about how tourists drive onto the premises and assume they can take a self-guided tour during the workday.

It’s no surprise. The property is full of fascinating relics of the seafaring life: the rust-colored prewar buildings, the rows of used and deserted boats, the marina where Ted, the local oysterman, harvests, and the neighboring building that is the largest indoor boat storage building on Long Island. Inside? None other than a boat built on the Langendals’ favorite shipyard in Sweden, Kungsörs, where it all started for Anders.

Back inside the Fleetwing building, Christian replaces the spars on a boat’s mast while Carranza varnishes the Doughdish. Christian takes his time investigating the spars, explaining that these little pins are the make-or-break difference between a sail working or not working. I ask if family members check each other’s work, like issuing a joint Langendal stamp of approval.

“If I do 99 percent of the boat and Erik just launches it, he’ll still go through everything I’ve done,” he says. “It’s good to do this—I do it, too—but it’s just funny.”

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