Places

Of wood and water

by Anne Esslinger
Eamonn Doorly and wife Charlotte Riley
Eamonn Doorly is a wooden-boat builder who brings his work home. His wife, Charlotte Riley is an avid sailor and adventurer. From their home on St. Margaret’s Bay, this couple sails, teaches on tall ships, hikes through Europe and builds their own furniture

How best to preserve Nova Scotia’s shipbuilding heritage? One way is to restore her historic vessels, and Eamonn Doorly is doing just that. As resident wooden-boat builder at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, Doorly spends his weekdays in the museum boatshed. His latest project was Valkyrie, an “S” Class sloop, which was donated to the museum in 2002 by the Murphy family. Valkyrie is one of six vessels of the same class built in 1945-46 by David Stevens, a legendary boat builder from Second Peninsula, Lunenburg County. Stevens, originally a farmer with a junior-high education, was asked at the time to design and build a group of day-sailers. He went on to complete around 70 exceptional boats in his lifetime, one of these being the schooner Atlantica, which was constructed at the Maritime Pavilion at Expo ’67.

The nine-metre sloop had previously been entirely disassembled, but Doorly rebuilt her as close to the original specifications as possible. He replaced all of her oak ribs and most of her planking. About 60 per cent of the original work was retained, and the boat now looks brand new. She was launched in August of last year, to much fanfare and before a crowd of 200 at her birthplace, Second Peninsula Beach. Doorly then skippered Valkyrie to Mahone Bay as part of their annual Wooden Boat Festival. Later that month he sailed the sloop to Halifax, and she is now on permanent exhibit at the museum.

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Doorly enthuses about the beauty of Stevens’ boats: “Working on a Stevens’ boat is wonderful, because it’s like learning from a master. He took suggestions from the six original consignees and adapted them all to his design. And because they’re designed so well, his boats are easy for one or two people to handle. They’re ‘flattering’ boats, because they make one seem like an expert sailor.”

Doorly knows whereof he speaks, as his wife, Charlotte Riley, has for the past 10 years, owned one of the six original Stevens’ sloops. Weekends find the couple sailing Stardust out into St. Margaret’s Bay from her mooring at Hubbards.

“Stardust sails so well a motor becomes redundant. She has no trouble navigating the harbour without one,” says Riley.

Doorly and Riley commute to their jobs in Halifax from their home in Queensland, a bright, blue clapboard built in 1912. The house,perched high on a hill, overlooks the broad expanse of St. Margaret’s Bay. Large windows, bare of draperies, flood the rooms with light. The house retains its original, wide spruce floors, and most of the furniture has been made by Doorly, a skilled cabinetmaker. The dining table and benches, a built-in daybed and desk, an intricate inlaid games table and a replica of a Titanic deck chair are all his handiwork. So too are the frames and headboards of the three upstairs beds. He likes quarter-sawn oak, the same wood he uses for shipbuilding. He says a friend sets aside wood “with so much depth, you can see forever! Such wood will never warp, and always retains its shape.”

Restoring Nova Scotia’s historic vessels
The couple met in Kennebunkport, Me., at a launching party after Doorly’s graduation from boat-building school. Three years later they were married in Halifax. Doorly had earlier emigrated from Ireland with his parents and siblings. He took a degree in geography from Western University, but his heart was always in building boats. Riley grew up in Halifax, and graduated in education from Dalhousie. Specializing in Spanish and French, she has been head of the language department at the Sacred Heart School of Halifax for the past 15 years. Following graduation she spent a semester at Aix-en-Provence in southern France. She now spends long periods of time in Mexico and Spain, and again this summer she’s spending a month in Mexico. Most years Riley attends international education conferences in USA and Europe. In May, she attended another such conference in New York City. A devoted teacher, she takes her classes on winter camping expeditions, ski trips and on learning tours as far a field as Italy.

When the Tall Ships came to Halifax in 2000, Riley volunteered as liaison to the Chilean training ship Gloria. After it was revealed the vessel was previously used to dispose of Chilean dissidents, she changed her plans and was instead attached to the Polish barquentine Dar Mlodziezy. Invited to go along on the trans-Atlantic leg of the trip, she spent six weeks of her summer vacation aboard ship, paying her way by giving lessons in English and Spanish. Her students came from the 100 Polish merchant marine cadets on board. As part of their first or second year training they were taking a long sea voyage. Also along for the experience were 10 Canadian sea cadets, and they, too, took advantage of the language lessons. Riley’s classroom featured a fold-down blackboard, whose design became apparent on rough-weather days! The vessel took three weeks for the sea voyage to Schveningen, a Dutch port near The Hague, and a further 10 days via the Ijmuiden Canal to Amsterdam. Riley made the return trip to Nova Scotia by air. When the Tall Ships make a return visit to Halifax later this month, Riley will again act as liaison to one of the vessels.

One summer, Riley completed a solo hike of 250 kilometers along part of the ancient Pilgrims’ Way, which lies in southern France. She and Doorly, then seeking an adventure they could have together, decided to complete the remainder of the trail by hiking the Spanish section. Their destination was the famous Shrine of Santiago de Compostela, which legend has it, contains the bones of the apostle Saint James. Riley had decided “since so many thousands (perhaps millions) of people have traversed the ‘Way’ over the centuries, there must be something of value in it.” By way of training, they took long hikes every free weekend. Then, setting aside six weeks of summer holidays, they began their journey at Roncesvalles, Spain, across the border from France. The pair hiked in all weathers across terrain ranging from slippery, wet mountain paths to hot, dry plains. Each day they averaged 35 kilometers. Nights were spent either in hostels or inexpensive hotels in both isolated villages and big cities.

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The main problem facing long-distance hikers is sore feet, but Doorly and Riley kept theirs in good condition by wearing two pairs of socks, a thin pair under a thick one. And no matter how tired they were at the end of the day, husband and wife took turns massaging each other’s feet! The final day of their 1,000-kilometer trek they hiked the remaining 52 kilometers, arriving exhausted but triumphant at the cathedral shrine of Santiago. The symbol of Saint James is the scallop shell, and having finished the long trail the pair are now authorized to display that coveted badge.

Doorly’s present task at the Museum of the Atlantic is another historic boat restoration. This time it’s Whim, a C-class sloop. The “C” class originated in Chester in the 1930s, when a group of yachtsmen approached Reuben Heisler to design a new class of cruising yacht. Whim was one of the first craft of the series to be built. Commissioned in 1937 by Mrs. Alberta Pew, the following year she was winner of the Chester Bay Challenge.

Whim has been donated to the museum by Mrs. Alberta Baker, a descendant of the Pew family. Work on the sloop will be ongoing until the summer of 2010, when the museum is committed to her relaunch. Now out of the water and safely in the boatshed where, at a length of 37 feet and a corresponding depth, she’s a tight fit! Doorly is now at work lofting the lines of the yacht in preparation for the long task of restoration.

What lies ahead for this intrepid couple in the years to come? There’ll be sailing and hiking in their future for sure. And no matter what adventures lie in wait, you may be certain they’ll be up for the challenge. •


Originally published in the Summer 2007 issue of Lifestyle Nova Scotia Magazine.