If you're reading this, you probably read WoodenBoat. If you read WoodenBoat, you've probably had the occasional boat-restoration fantasy. You know the one: ancient rust-streaked Alden schooner... elbow grease,.. sweat equity... Bermuda... Virgin Islands... Galapagos... New Zealand. But you snap back to reality after a few friends talk you out of it, using phrases like "lifestyle change," "I knew a guy once...," and "return on investment."
Meet Audun Hausberg (photo, right). His father purchased the decrepit galeas LOYAL in the late 1970s, and the two of them spent the next twenty years putting her back together. A galeas, in Norway, is a ketch. But it's not just any ketch. It's a heavy, cargo-carrying one which, if cutter-rigged, would be called a jacht. If schooner rigged, it would be called a… well, a schooner. The term galeas refers to the combination of ketch rig and heavy hull. All galeases are ketches, but not all ketches are galeases.
LOYAL is the last of her type. The Hausbergs, with their unwavering vision, spent one full month just hauling her from the water. They rebuilt the hull, the rig, the deck, the engine, the interior. The engine, by the way, is a 12-cylinder Dutch beauty--a diesel--that runs smooth as silk. The rig carries two squaresails; I had the pleasure, with Jeff Lane, of tending the course. Jeff (on the course yard in the top
left photo, and descending in the bottom one) is the man who wrote about LOYAL for us in WoodenBoat No. 156; a course is the lowest squaresail--the one with no yard below it. We did the best we could, Jeff and I, but Audun and his mate, working the sail above us, achieved a much tighter furl. I suppose we'd get better with time--if we didn't scrape all of the skin off our knuckles in the process.
We spent eight hours aboard LOYAL that day, motoring and sailing up Hardangerfjord through tight granite-walled passages and under criss-crossed bridges. The vessel is a beauty; her restoration astonishing. Audun's father John wasn't there, and I regret not meeting him. He's an inspiration to all of us dreamers.
Again: If you're reading this, you are, presumably, one of those dreamers. If you should find yourself going Bergen, Norway, click here first. Call ahead and book yourself a charter on LOYAL. You won't be disappointed, and you might even be inspired to take tools to boat and begin a restoration of your own.
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