With each pass of the plane and each driven nail, Henry Vokey further secures his reputation as a master boat builder.
Vokey has become world renown for his ability to ply his trade in the art of wooden boat building; he was even a key focus point of this year's wooden boat building conference, held in Trinity this past weekend.
Vokey has been building boats for 56 years, successfully ran a shipyard for 26 years, and is estimated to have been involved with the construction of some 1,000 vessels - from dories to 65-foot draggers.
Because of his dedication to traditional wooden boat building, he received the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador in 2007.
At 82-years old, he has no plans of slowing down and is currently in the process of building a 44-foot schooner - mast and all.
Vokey comes from a line of personal use boat builders, but never really decided to try his hand at it until he was 26.
His first attempt was a 32-foot schooner.
"I just took it on as a project, and I've been at it every since," he said. "I was living in a place with no roads so I needed a boat to get to other areas, and it's served me pretty well."
A modest man at best, he sticks to traditional methods of building.
A full model was constructed to get a sense of how the boat would be shaped, and from there he started bringing his vision to life, the way he's done so many times before.
Vokey doesn't steam planks to fit the hull, he bends them every 14 centers to attach to the hull.
He uses local timber that he cuts as he needs it, typically black spruce.
"I still goes in the woods, all my boats are about 95 per cent local wood," he said.
When a conference-goer asked where the mast for the schooner was, Vokey joked that it was still in the woods.
He will ballast the boat with lead and salt.
He hopes to have the schooner ready to launch by June.
There is a name in mind for the vessel, but he's keeping it a secret for now.
The history
Sharon Vokey, his daughter in-law, presented the Vokey history at the conference.
Boat building is traced back to Henry's grandfather - Nathaniel Vokey. I the late 1800s in the since relocated community of Little Harbour.
"But Henry was the first to get into it in a commercial way," Sharon says.
For the first 10 years he was building vessels by himself before taking on extra hands.
His Trinity shipyard once employed 40 people, serving as the main employer in the community at the time.
There were, at times, five long-liners were under construction at once.
"It sort of changed after the moratorium when fiberglass and steel came into play," she said. "You don't have the same call for fishing boats anymore."
He closed in 1992, but never gave up his passion for building.
Vokey's boats have been sold across the province, but have been sold internationally as well.
Sharon said the name has been carried with a great sense of pride, and people even note the construction style as a "Vokey."
"My Husband - Wayne Vokey, Henry's son - was at a marine show once, when somebody there realized his name was Vokey. It was the first time that person knew it was a family name, he only thought it was style, because the ‘Vokey boat' is that well known," she said.
She thinks the name has carried such a reputation over the years because of dedication to craftsmanship.
Nothing was ever slapped together or built in mass production she said.
"Everything they ever built was a work of love," she said.
Jim Hoskins, residing in Conception Bay South, has seen Vokey's vessels in action.
There was a reenactment of the British and French battle for Lewisporte, and one of Vokey's boats was one of the vessels involved.
"She really put on a show on sailing and maneuvering as she came into the harbour, " he said. "Mr. Vokey is a real treasure for hanging onto traditional ways, there's hardly any (of those wooden schooners) left anymore, and it's a pity because there use to be thousands of them and today there is hardly any."
arandell@thepacket.ca
