Our Speaker for September 13 - Clark Beek of the Spaulding Marine Center
Our Speaker for September 13th was Clark Beek, General Manager of Spaulding Marine Center. The Marine Center is located in Sausalito and is a charitable organization (501(c)(3)) focused on the preservation of wooden boat works, including education and community events. The Marine Center includes a working boat works, a nautical museum, and a nautical library. Clark encourages everyone to visit the center. At any given time you can see boats being worked on, books, crazy-old tools in use, and look through the library.
Clark talked about Myron Spaulding, who started the boatworks in 1951. Myron was a concert violinist with a love of sailing. He was a racing skipper, designer and builder of boats. He started the boatworks to build his own boat designs. Some of his boats are still in use on the West Coast! After Myron died in 2000, his wife, Gladys, continued the boat yard and ultimately established a charitable trust that will keep the Center open for years.
Clark also discussed “Freda,” the matriarch of S.F. Bay. Clark and his crew restored the boat, originally constructed in 1885 and relaunched it in 2014. Freda still sometimes roams the S.F. Bay and is considered a “masterpiece” of wooden boats.
The Center’s chief charitable purposes include summer camps for kids and general boat-related education and training for kids. The current summer camp venture is to teach kids sailing on the Center’s boats. This program was very successful and they intend to keep it going. Another major endeavor is cooperation with Bay Area Association of Disabled Sailors (BAADS). Sailing can be very beneficial to individuals with disabilities and is always fun! Clark spoke in depth about the development of the S/V 14, a small boat specifically designed for disabled individuals. Among other things, the boat ‘cants’ to allow the seats to swing freely with the boat as it “heels” and “jibes.” As Clark said, this is a “game changer” for disabled individuals. The S/V 14 was designed by Australian boat designers and one of the prototypes was built and tested at the Spaulding Marine Center.
