With the words “May she have fair winds and following seas and may she bring good luck to all who sail on her,” Greta Gannon cracked a canvas-swathed bottle of champagne against the bow and christened the 19-foot gaff sloop Sheldrake, on behalf of owners Steve and Maureen Corkery of Shelter Island, N.Y., who were unable to attend her Monday launch.
The boat slid down the rails into Vineyard Haven Harbor with some help from a contingent of volunteers at Gannon and Benjamin (G&B) on a resplendent spring day, amid applause from a robust group of well-wishers, with buckets of daffodils on fore and after decks, the boat’s gray-green rub rail setting off glistening white paint and varnish, with Ross Gannon’s children Greta and Olin Gannon, friend Nathaniel Weisman, and G&B boatbuilder Matt Hobart aboard.
The 85th of Nat Benjamin’s designs to be built, Sheldrake is also the third G&B-built boat commissioned by the Corkerys, who chose the local Island name for the Merganser duck, to recall Nat’s earlier Canvasback design, which they once owned.
“Steve liked the Canvasback profile but, now in his eighth decade, he wanted something smaller, with a smaller mainsail and no centerboard,” Nat Benjamin explained. Shorter than the Canvasback by 6.5 feet, Sheldrake is built with American cedar and white oak and Surinamese angelique; the bowsprit and mast are of Douglas fir. Myles Thurlow did the standing rigging and splicing, and Matt Hobart led the construction project, in which Lyle Zell was a major participant.