First published in Sea Magazine, February 2005
By Shelly Randall
Ernie Baird meets me at the Nordland Country
Store, not far from his home on rural Marrowstone
Island and within sight of Mystery Bay, where his
boat bobs at her winter mooring.
As we order treats to go with our coffee, he jokes
with the owner about being able to guarantee that the huge slice of coffee cake on his plate
is “low-fat.”
“Aging is interesting,” he says with a chuckle as we settle into two wooden chairs near the
potbellied stove in the back of the store. “It requires a little effort. Kind of like maintaining an
older boat.”
Baird should know. Although at 57 he appears perfectly watertight, this fall he retired from 25
years in the wooden boat repair and restoration business – the last 16 as owner of Baird
Boat Co., the little shop in the Port of Port Townsend Shipyard that lured vessels away from
famed Seattle, San Francisco, and Vancouver yards.
Finding his sea legs
When I asked Baird how he came to boating, he revealed that he didn’t step aboard a boat
until he got a job as a “wiper” in the engine room of a Sealand container ship between
semesters at the University of Chicago. Coming ashore at the shipping line’s headquarters in
Seattle was Baird’s introduction to the west coast.
In his late 20s, Baird bounced around the country working odd construction jobs. He realized
how much he missed the sea when he came to Port Townsend, Wash., in 1977 to visit a
friend and felt like he’d “come home.”
That same year he attended the second Wooden Boat Festival in that town and became
physically overwhelmed by the beauty of the collected craft and the longing to have a hand in
their creation and continuance.
“I literally couldn’t talk for two hours,” he recalls. “I could not form a sentence after having
walked the festival docks.”
Baird was 30 years old, tongue-tied for once in his life, and had finally found his vocation.
Becoming a boatbuilder
Port Townsend Boat Works hired him for his carpentry skills. As he puts it, “I spent a year
trying to make up for the fact that I had gone from being the foreman on construction crews to
being the dumbest guy in the boatyard. So I worked really, really hard.”
But it wasn’t long before he had a revelation.
“I realized repair work would teach me bits and pieces about boatbuilding, but I’d really never
understand the logic until I built a boat,” explains Baird.
His “apprentice project” was the Grace B., a 26-foot open wooden ketch modeled on a Maine
working vessel. While still employed at the Boat Works, Baird assembled “Gracie” in a friend’s
barn. Four years of work culminated in launch day on July 4, 1985.
“At the point she hit the water, Gracie had repaid me in full,” he says, “because she had
developed in me the skills of a boatbuilder.”
A decade into his career as a shipwright, Baird decided to strike out on his own, founding
Baird Boat Co. in 1988.
By many measures of success the company shone. It earned loyal customers among the rich
and famous – Neil Young and Peter Fonda, the historic – Lady Washington and the 1913
schooner Adventuress, and the elite – M/V Olympus, the flagship of the Seattle Yacht Club.
But Baird is just as proud to measure his company’s success by its impact on the lives of his
seven employees.
Five of them were married during their employment, he reports. The seven built or bought
nine new houses, produced 11 babies, and built or purchased five boats of their own.
“Ernie always maintained integrity toward his employees, our customers, and the work we
did,” asserts Tom Foley, Baird’s office manager and one of six employees who have taken
over the business, renaming it Haven Boatworks.
“A first-rate job was a given. That’s what kept us going.” And will in the future, no doubt.
More time to cruise
Twenty years after Gracie’s launching, Baird is still sailing her. Now that he’s retired, he plans
to sail her more, revisiting favorite anchorages at Pillar Point, Neah Bay, and Saltspring Island.
And although he has fond memories of extended cruises with his wife and daughter – “One of
the ways in which I’m unduly blessed is that I’m married to a woman who is both beautiful and
willing to go camping in an open boat” – wife Randy Pendergrass has long had her heart set
on a bigger motor vessel.
So a few years ago Baird purchased the hull of a Norwegian tender with her wish in mind. He
just discovered it’s rotted beyond repair, but he’s determined to salvage her.
“I’ll loft her lines and rebuild her,” Baird says without a trace of consternation, then looses a
booming laugh, knowing this time the joke is on him.
“Baird Boat Co. is about to do to me what it’s done to so many other people,” he chortles. “It
puts a hook in your heart and then tears your wallet apart.”
To obtain reprint rights for this article, contact author Shelly Randall.
By Shelly Randall
Ernie Baird meets me at the Nordland Country
Store, not far from his home on rural Marrowstone
Island and within sight of Mystery Bay, where his
boat bobs at her winter mooring.
As we order treats to go with our coffee, he jokes
with the owner about being able to guarantee that the huge slice of coffee cake on his plate
is “low-fat.”
“Aging is interesting,” he says with a chuckle as we settle into two wooden chairs near the
potbellied stove in the back of the store. “It requires a little effort. Kind of like maintaining an
older boat.”
Baird should know. Although at 57 he appears perfectly watertight, this fall he retired from 25
years in the wooden boat repair and restoration business – the last 16 as owner of Baird
Boat Co., the little shop in the Port of Port Townsend Shipyard that lured vessels away from
famed Seattle, San Francisco, and Vancouver yards.
Finding his sea legs
When I asked Baird how he came to boating, he revealed that he didn’t step aboard a boat
until he got a job as a “wiper” in the engine room of a Sealand container ship between
semesters at the University of Chicago. Coming ashore at the shipping line’s headquarters in
Seattle was Baird’s introduction to the west coast.
In his late 20s, Baird bounced around the country working odd construction jobs. He realized
how much he missed the sea when he came to Port Townsend, Wash., in 1977 to visit a
friend and felt like he’d “come home.”
That same year he attended the second Wooden Boat Festival in that town and became
physically overwhelmed by the beauty of the collected craft and the longing to have a hand in
their creation and continuance.
“I literally couldn’t talk for two hours,” he recalls. “I could not form a sentence after having
walked the festival docks.”
Baird was 30 years old, tongue-tied for once in his life, and had finally found his vocation.
Becoming a boatbuilder
Port Townsend Boat Works hired him for his carpentry skills. As he puts it, “I spent a year
trying to make up for the fact that I had gone from being the foreman on construction crews to
being the dumbest guy in the boatyard. So I worked really, really hard.”
But it wasn’t long before he had a revelation.
“I realized repair work would teach me bits and pieces about boatbuilding, but I’d really never
understand the logic until I built a boat,” explains Baird.
His “apprentice project” was the Grace B., a 26-foot open wooden ketch modeled on a Maine
working vessel. While still employed at the Boat Works, Baird assembled “Gracie” in a friend’s
barn. Four years of work culminated in launch day on July 4, 1985.
“At the point she hit the water, Gracie had repaid me in full,” he says, “because she had
developed in me the skills of a boatbuilder.”
A decade into his career as a shipwright, Baird decided to strike out on his own, founding
Baird Boat Co. in 1988.
By many measures of success the company shone. It earned loyal customers among the rich
and famous – Neil Young and Peter Fonda, the historic – Lady Washington and the 1913
schooner Adventuress, and the elite – M/V Olympus, the flagship of the Seattle Yacht Club.
But Baird is just as proud to measure his company’s success by its impact on the lives of his
seven employees.
Five of them were married during their employment, he reports. The seven built or bought
nine new houses, produced 11 babies, and built or purchased five boats of their own.
“Ernie always maintained integrity toward his employees, our customers, and the work we
did,” asserts Tom Foley, Baird’s office manager and one of six employees who have taken
over the business, renaming it Haven Boatworks.
“A first-rate job was a given. That’s what kept us going.” And will in the future, no doubt.
More time to cruise
Twenty years after Gracie’s launching, Baird is still sailing her. Now that he’s retired, he plans
to sail her more, revisiting favorite anchorages at Pillar Point, Neah Bay, and Saltspring Island.
And although he has fond memories of extended cruises with his wife and daughter – “One of
the ways in which I’m unduly blessed is that I’m married to a woman who is both beautiful and
willing to go camping in an open boat” – wife Randy Pendergrass has long had her heart set
on a bigger motor vessel.
So a few years ago Baird purchased the hull of a Norwegian tender with her wish in mind. He
just discovered it’s rotted beyond repair, but he’s determined to salvage her.
“I’ll loft her lines and rebuild her,” Baird says without a trace of consternation, then looses a
booming laugh, knowing this time the joke is on him.
“Baird Boat Co. is about to do to me what it’s done to so many other people,” he chortles. “It
puts a hook in your heart and then tears your wallet apart.”
To obtain reprint rights for this article, contact author Shelly Randall.
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Ernie Baird:
Apprenticed to Gracie
Apprenticed to Gracie
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