“There’s a lot of winging it,” says Jack Elstner about the boatbuilding project he’s conducting in his Kent Island garage. “You have to be creative and figure out stuff as you go.” Such skills aren’t necessarily part of the 18-year-old senior’s high school curriculum, but you can tell by the smile on his face that he’s enjoying not having a textbook or manual for this labor of love.
In the fall of 2015, Jack found the boat—a 35-year-old, 20.5-foot, cross-planked Vansant deadrise skiff—in a Wye River Plantation barn. As a lifelong Chesapeake water rat, paddler, angler, and crabber, he was intrigued. He inquired about the boat’s status from the owner and was granted permission to have her. The next steps were hauling the boat out of the barn, vacuuming and powerwashing her, and moving her to storage. Once Jack’s family moved into their new home in Stevensville in November, he, his father John, and his brother Ben got to work.
Building a sturdy dolly to easily move the boat in and out of the garage came first. Scraping paint off the old boat has been the most time consuming part thus far. Jack and the Elstner team have replaced rotted wood in the transom, port side bow, and gunwales and rails.
On the subject of “faking it until he makes it,” Jack gives an example of trying to screw boards together only to realize that they are uneven and need to be sanded to make them fit together. He’s gotten very comfortable using a power sander… and a blow torch and a variety of paints and putties. “We haven’t done anything too stupid yet,” he says.
His brother and father haven’t been the only ones to assist Jack in his endeavor. After he discussed it with Jennifer Kuhn, boatyard program manager at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, she generously drove to the winter storage spot to see the boat and give advice.
He’s also taken on the year-long restoration project as part of the Severn School’s Fellows program, which offers students a chance to gain experience outside the classroom. Other students have built a tiny house and a drone, and one recorded an album. Jack will present his boat restoration experiences to the student body and Severn community at the end of the year. The Fellows program will help him with some of his expenses as well.
On the cloudy spring day when I visited, Jack and crew were discussing priming the boat and then flipping her to work on the bottom. They weren’t exactly sure how they were going to flip this one-ton boat, but they seemed oddly calm and confident as they contemplated block-and-tackle systems and nearby trees and their golden retriever puppy Marley sniffed around the yard.
Upon completion, Jack will christen his skiff the Odyssey—but not just because of the interesting journey. “This whole project is a memorial for my Latin teacher,” he says. Longtime Severn School teacher Dr. Tom Heslin was killed in a cycling accident three years ago. “He was the heart of the school. He had all these health issues (diabetes, organ transplants, heart surgery), but he would get up early every morning and ride his bike… He had a big influence on me. He taught me how to be a decent man and human being. I’ve wanted to do something for the past three years, so with this project, I’ve been able to do that.”
Jack plans to have a plaque mounted on the deadrise that reads “monumentum aere perennius,” (“a monument more lasting than bronze”) from the Roman poet Horace’s “Book of Odes.”
Before heading off to William and Mary for college next fall, Jack plans to crab and cruise on the Odyssey and perhaps donate her to a worthy cause next year. He’s currently seeking a deeply discounted trailer and engine. If you have ideas for him, email
[email protected].
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