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ESSENCE

I built Essence shortly after I moved to Lake Vista in 2001 as a sail testing sharpie. She was unique in having a sheer that was simply the straight long edge of two pieces of plywood that had been butted together, epoxied, and glassed. Once I cut out the rocker on the bottom of one side, all I had to do was lay the cut side on the uncut side, line up the top edges and draw the rocker of the second piece.

Once I had the sides cut out, I glued on framing, bent the sides around two thwart frames, cut the bow and transom angles, filled in the stem and transom, cut a bottom to fit, and nailed it on to complete the hull. Well, it wasn’t quite that easy because her bottom was slightly rounded amidships in the Huntington Sharpie fashion, so that when a person looks at her sides afloat, she appears to be floating in only an inch or so of water

Essence had some unique features. She had a couple of removable jump seats for my grandson, and an unusual scimitar rudder. I recall that the leeboard required a special casing to fit her flaring sides and was a lot of work to get right. She was lightweight at less than 160 lb. in a 15’ boat. She was also easy to row or sail and with her 4’ beam and stable enough for fishing with my grandson. Even my wife would occasionally condescend to go for a turn around the lake in her—but not under sail, of course. With her 80 sq. ft. leg o’ mutton sail, she required very little breeze for sailing.

She was on of the few boats I built a model of before I began construction. I made the model to ¼ scale and equipped it with sails. I remember taking it to an elementary school where I was doing some tutoring, and letting the second-grade boy I was tutoring sail it across the pond in front of his classmates. He was beaming with pride when he got back to the classroom. My daughter still has the model having rescued it from a storage building after I moved to Florida. Essence,though, was sold shortly before we moved.