Bill Boeing's boat

Came across the Taconite (2) in Maple Bay last week.* Bill Boeing's first yacht, the Taconite (1) was built in 1915-16 and was directly responsible for the creation of Pacific Aero Products in 1916 which was soon renamed the Boeing Airplane Company.

The Taconite (2) was built for Bill Boeing in 1930 to replace the first Taconite.* Today it belongs to a fellow who splits his time between Vancouver and a home at Maple Bay.* The Taconite (2) is chartered out to folks who want to cruise the BC coast in style.* I'm told that in years past the Taconite's charter business was very busy but the last couple of years has seen it drop off considerably.* Nevertheless the yacht appears to be kept up in beautiful shape.

We were moored right across the channel from her and while as a Boeing employee I was expecting a dinner invitation for us and our friends on board the Taconite we apparently missed the text message...

Stylish it is.

Did you notice the nice, five horns?* Bet they sound good.

I've only got two.


-- Edited by markpierce on Tuesday 11th of October 2011 07:16:47 PM

So do most of us.

One time I contemplated getting a three-horn set, but then decided I*would be sufficiently*"over-horned" with two.

Perhaps you were looking for a text message invite while they sent it semaphore?*

A real beauty. *One question, how is it pronounced? like*Ta -ka' - night? or*Taco-Night? or ?

It's a type of rock that contains iron. I"ve always heard it pronounced tacka-night or tackuh-night (slight "o" sound) with the emphasis on the the first "ta." It's part of what the Boeing family made their fortune on before Bill moved to Seattle. It's what the Edmund Fitzgerald was carrying in pellet form when she broke her back on a reef during a storm and sank in Lake Superior.

From Wikipedia--- Taconite is a variety of iron formation, an iron-bearing (>15% iron) sedimentary rock, in which the iron minerals are interlayered with quartz, chert, or carbonate. The term was coined by Minnesota State Geologist Newton Horace Winchell during his pioneering investigations of the Precambrian Biwabik Iron Formation of northeastern Minnesota due to its superficial resemblance to iron-bearing rocks he was familiar with in the Taconic Mountains of New York.


-- Edited by Marin on Monday 17th of October 2011 11:49:26 AM

Beautiful boat! Built back when they looked like boats. thanx for posting. What is her length?

The Taconite (2) has a length of*125 feet with a 25 foot beam. Built by Boeing of Canada it has two Atlas diesels.* She was built for Bill Boeing to replace his first yacht, also named Taconite (see photo).*

The first Taconite was directly responsible for the creation of The Boeing Company.* The Boeing family made their money in taconite and lumber in Michigan and thereabouts*and Bill continued the business, moving to Seattle to pursue opportunities in the forests around Puget Sound.* In 1914 or*so he decided he wanted a yacht of his own so he commisioned Ed Heath to build one in Heath's shipyard on the Duwamish Waterway at the south end of Seattle's Elliot Bay.* I don't know who designed the original Taconite--- it might have been Ed Heath himself.

Ed and his shipwrights were consumate boat builders but Ed was a crappy businessman and he tended to put more into his boats than he charged for.

Before Boeing's yacht was finished Ed went bankrupt.* Boeing wanted his boat finished, so he bought the Heath Shipyard for a dollar and the debt.* He retained Ed Heath and his staff and they finished the yacht.

Meantime, Boeing had gotten interested in aviation.* His first airplane ride was in a Curtiss pusher seaplane on Lake Washington on a 4th of July.* The friend who went with him, US Navy officer Conrad Westervelt who was an engineer, stated on their way back to Seattle that he'd done some rough calculations and the Curtiss they'd just flown in was barely strong enough to hold itself together.* He reckonned they could build a better plane themselves.

So they did.* Boeing had purchased a Martin floatplane to learn to fly in and he kept it in a three-bay floating hangar he'd had built on Lake Union in Seattle.* Conrad designed a plane very similar to the Martin and Boeing had it constructed in Ed Heath's shipyard which Boeing now owned.* So the same guys that built his yacht built his airplane.*

Actually, they built two of them.* One was called the Mallard and the other was called the Bluebill.* Ed Heath himself designed the floats which were of wood and were real works of art.* When the components of both planes were finished they were trucked to Lake Union and assembled in Boeing's little hangar.* While the two planes had individual names, they soon became known as B & Ws, for Boeing and Westervelt.

Boeing established an airplane company in 1916 called Pacific Aero Products and tried to get the government interested in buying the Mallard and Bluebill and ordering more.* WWI was going on at the time but we weren't in it and the government wasn't interested.* But as the war went on people in the military began to see the writing on the wall, so the Navy gave Boeing a contract for fifty improved versions of the B & W called the Model C.* The Model C established Boeing in the airplane business and the name of the company was soon changed to Boeing Airplane Company.

So... if you go to Seattle today and visit the Museum of Flight on Boeing field, you will see a red barnlike building at the core of the museum complex (which is not the building's original location).* This building, appropriately called the Red Barn, was the main erecting shed of Ed Heath's shipyard--- at the time it said "Heath" down the side in big letters-- and is where the Taconite (1) was built, then the Mallard and Bluebill, and then the Model C's.* The building became the core of the Boeing manufacturing and assembly complex that was built up around it which became known as Plant 1.* At one point in the 1930s most of the second floor was cut out of the*Red Barn*and the*prototype Model 307, the world's first pressurized airliner that was based on the Model 299 (later called the B-17) was assembled in the building.

So I and 150,000 other people are working at Boeing today--- and* you perhaps went somewhere recently in a Boeing airliner---- because in 1914, Bill Boeing wanted a yacht and hired Ed Heath to build it.

More than you wanted to know, but it's an interesting story.

*


-- Edited by Marin on Monday 23rd of January 2012 10:37:18 PM

Marin wrote:
So do most of us.

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*But yours are, well, small!

Mine:


-- Edited by markpierce on Monday 23rd of January 2012 10:49:58 PM

markpierce wrote:
*But yours are, well, small!

Click to expand...

The ones on our boat are the same size but a different brand.* Actually, I think the longer of our two trumpets is physically*longer than yours judging by your photo.* Doubt it's as loud, though


-- Edited by Marin on Tuesday 24th of January 2012 12:13:19 AM

Marin, I was thinking of*the diameter of horns rather than length.* Skinny horns "squeak" and thick horns "boom."* Low frequencies transmit further than high.

Marina neighbors recognize my horn and have yet to complain of*my booming*"toot" entering/leaving the marina at low tide when the breakwater blocks visibility.


-- Edited by markpierce on Tuesday 24th of January 2012 10:37:07 PM

Well, our horns definitely don't squeak. They are considerably lower and louder in tone than the electric horns I hear (on the rare occasions when anyone blows a horn up here). But how they compare in tone and pitch to yours I have no idea. Kahlenbergs are among the best there are so I would imagine yours sound really good.

But considering how often boaters use their horns up here--- fog is about the only time-- a person could probably get away with a kazoo and be just fine

Try the D-1.

http://www.kahlenberg.com/yacht.html

Like I said, most people don't use horns up here for anything other than fog. A D-1 or any other horn on a boat up here is just one more thing to polish

PS* Just realized you probably meant listen to the D-1.* So I did.* Good sound.* Ours are lower than that in pitch but I have no idea how they compare in volume.* That's probably more dependent on the compressor than the horns themselves, I don't know.* Our*compressor is not very big.* I know a guy who has horns like ours but he runs them off an air tank.* He demonstrated them once to me and they are a lot louder than ours.


-- Edited by Marin on Wednesday 25th of January 2012 04:26:04 PM

Have a fair-sized air tank and a compressor capable of continual use.* Air pressure is set to about 100 p.s.i.


-- Edited by markpierce on Friday 27th of January 2012 12:18:10 PM

I think that's a better system than what we have, which is the compressor (small) mounted inside the flying bridge console beside the horns on the outside and plumbed directly to the horns.

Took a photo of my air compressor today.

markpierce wrote:
Have a fair-sized air tank and a compressor capable of continual use.* Air pressure is set to about 100 p.s.i.



-- Edited by markpierce on Friday 27th of January 2012 12:18:10 PM

Click to expand...

*There you go! * I like it! I've got a similar set up! There are places to plug into the system all around the boat.My wipers on the bridge windows are air powered!

Wow, what great lines.* There are a couple of classic fantail 75+ ft built in that time that are not being maintained very well.* In years past the owner live on and/or charter them.* To maintain a boat in Bristol condition in the PNW takes a lot of time and money.*
*
I am surprised the boat does not have a lot more canvas.* If we did not have most of the Eagle covered with canvas and tarps on the deck it would triple the amount of bright work.* Must have a full time crew on the boat to maintain her in that condition.
*
I did notice she is a wide body, no walk around deck with a canoe stern.* I am surprised it does not have a fan tail as fan tail where very popular during that time. *
*

Phil Fill wrote:<br style="font-family:'Times New Roman';" />I did notice she is a wide body, no walk around deck with a canoe stern.* I am surprised it does not have a fan tail as fan tail where very popular during that time. *
*

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The Taconite is actually a fairly narrow vessel for its length, which was the typical design for this type of boat in that era.* There was probably no real need to work lines from amidships with this boat.* Fore and aft deck access was all that was needed.* Plus the yacht would have had a crew of at least three or four, so there would have been no need for the person on the aft deck to get forward fast during a docking.

The boat may be covered in the winter when it's over in Vancouver.* Maple Bay is the current owner's summer home, so the boat only spends a few months there.* And I did not go aboard the boat, so the "ten foot" rule applies to my photos. (Almost everythng looks good from "ten feet" ---or more--- away).* So I did not have a chance to examine the condition of the paint and brightwork closely.* However from what I've been told the current owner has the means the keep the boat in excellent condition.

Marin wrote:*However from what I've been told the current owner has the means the keep the boat in excellent condition.

Click to expand...

*Thanks goodness there are people like that.

Most boats at that time were long and narrow, many where wide body, no side decks to maximize the interior/salon area, and had canoe/fantail sterns.* *Here a site that show many of the older classic boats.* http://classicyacht.org/aboutclassics/fantails.htm.* Many of the boat listed are moored on Lake Union, and on the 4^th of July each year at the wood boat center at the end of lake Union they many are open to the public.*
*
Wehn we moored on Lake Union the Malibu, Thea Foss and a sister ship f Malibu where moored in our marina.* They all had a full time crew to mainain year*arond.* *

I wonder how many Boeing boats were built

There was a Boeing yacht in the Delta that spent time between Oxbow Marina and San Rafael that belonged to George Homenko about 60' in beautiful condition. George moved on to a steel trawler. I think this boat was named Nonchalant, I think it was re-powered with a single 671.

Marin said:

The Taconite is actually a fairly narrow vessel for its length, which was the typical design for this type of boat in that era.

Click to expand...

One of the reasons "fine" hulls were common was in that era, the horsepower needed to move a beamier vessel at the speeds they desired was only obtainable with very large and heavy diesels or snarling and temperamental conversions of water cooled gasoline fueled aircraft engines.

Something to be aware of: the boats built under the Boeing name in the 1930s were built by Boeing of Canada in Vancouver. They were not made by the airplane company in Seattle.

Bill Boeing and partners built a huge conglomerate which at its peak included Boeing Airplane Company, United Airlines, Varney Airlines, Hamilton Standard (propellers), Pratt & Whitney, Stearman, National Air Transport, Chance Vought, and a number of other aviation-oriented companies. The overall name of the company was changed to United Aircraft and Transport Company although the individual companies retained their own names.

Anti-trust fever was high in the early 1930s and in 1934 the US government used the Air Mail Act to break Boeing's company into three main divisions: Boeing Airplane Company, United Airlines, and United Aircraft Corporation which later became United Technologies. Bill Boeing quit the whole works in disgust and retired to his farm near Fall City, Washington (a few miles from where we live east of Seattle) and never had anything to do with the aerospace industry again.

Back in 1929 when the company was in a major acquisition mode, Boeing purchased the Hoffar-Beeching boatyard at Coal Harbor, Vancouver. They began buildng small flying boats there but continued their core business of building fishing boats, yachts, and smaller recreational craft until just before WWII when they, now called Boeing of Canada, moved to a huge new facility at Sea Island on the Fraser River and concentrated on building large seaplanes like the PBY Catalina.

The first boat to be built at the Hoffar-Beeching yard after Boeing's acquisition of it was his Taconite II, the boat pictured at the beginning of this thread. So it may have been the construction of this boat that motivated Boeing to buy the yard--- after all, he'd done it before in Seattle to ensure the completion of his first yacht, the Taconite.

more on Taconite II

Taconite II keel was laid in Vancouver in 1929 and launched in 1930. Mr. Boeing died aboard in 1956. My recollection is that his widow lived aboard for many more years. (Might be wrong on this)
Just like in Seattle, at the next door property, Boeing opened a plant to build float planes, at least 10 were built mostly for private owners. The plant was known as the Boeing plant up into the '50s. another plant was built on Sea Island next to the Vancouver airport to build PBYs.

The first international air mail to the US came from Vancouver to Seattle aboard a Boeing mail plane with Boeing aboard, 1919 I think.