Charlotte, the latest Nat Benjamin design, launched from G&B

By Susan Vaughn - September 13, 2007

Nat and Pam Benjamin launched Charlotte from the Gannon and Benjamin Marine Railway Saturday. Named for Nat's paternal grandmother, the 50-foot schooner is the Benjamin family boat, designed and built over three years by Nat and crew at G&B's Mugwump annex, behind Tisbury Marketplace.

Nat has owned other boats. There was Sorcerer of Asker, the 60-footer aboard which Nat and Pam and their girls, Signe and Jessica, arrived at the Vineyard from Europe in 1972. And there was Venture, the speedy Lawley sloop Nat got from the late Pat West of Vineyard Haven and rebuilt from the keel up. But now, 27 years after he began designing and building boats in Vineyard Haven, Nat is 60 and a grandfather several times over, and Charlotte is the first boat designed and built by him precisely to suit his eye and ambitions. Perched on a staging plank under the new schooner's starboard bow, Nat recognized and thanked the many craftsmen and women who built Charlotte, and then, typically, he deflected the spotlight from himself onto the assembled crowd and the community at large, saying we had all played a part in creating the boat.

Friends of G&B and of Nat and his partner Ross Gannon crowded the little boatyard for the festivities. Others who couldn't come watched the event on The Times web cam, which overlooks the boatyard. Pam Benjamin described the event for missing friends in an e-mail: "Everything went fantastically well on Saturday. Even though it was raining all morning till about 2 pm, and then windy. As usual, it cleared up splendidly just in time, and when the boat touched the water the sun revealed itself completely, putting the spotlight on Charlotte and the other beautiful boats in the Harbor.... We did not do the traditional break the bottle over the bow routine. Too violent for the Benjamin/Stevens/Abrams/Hearn family. We all poured water from five of the significant ponds on the Island over the boat from Jessica's and M.V. hand made pottery bowls and cups - Menemsha, Squibnocket, Tisbury Great, Cape Pogue, and Tashmoo Ponds. Then the grandchildren, Hoffie, Harper, Silas, and Axel put together feathers, rocks, flowers, shells, wampum, driftwood with sheep's wool from the Allen Farm braided around it all, a bag that Signe made - treasures from Martha's Vineyard. That was all put in a basket and placed on the boat with numerous bouquets of flowers."

Charlotte is 14 feet wide, draws six feet, eight inches, and she's built to last with nearly indestructible South American hardwoods that have become a favored building material at G&B. She displaces 56,000 pounds and has an 80-horse Cummins diesel for auxiliary power.

Matthew Stackpole, executive director of the Martha's Vineyard Museum and himself a former schooner man, spoke at the christening ceremony, placing Charlotte in the line of schooners and other vessels that have built the Vineyard's maritime history; John Maloney, the Chilmark poet and stonemason, read verses he'd written for the occasion; Kate Taylor and Devan Donaldson made music. The Rev. John Wilbur of Vineyard Haven offered the blessing, and a potluck spread with a skiff full of beer nourished the happy afternoon.

"What an emotional and beautiful, beautiful day," Pam wrote. "We are still radiating joy and love from the blessed and holy experience."