Garden Party: Victoria Rendezvous Celebrates Seattle Designer’s Perfect Proportions

The Maggie B, a stalwart Garden design, braved high winds to attend the Victoria Rendezvous. The yachts of William Garden ply bays and oceans locally and around the world. And as they plunge through the waters, their clean lines stamp them as works of the legendary Northwest draftsman who first started crafting vessels in Seattle in 1935. Garden fans paused in Victoria’s Inner Harbour this fall to pay homage to his designs and the man himself. Land and water exhibits showcased the breadth of Garden’s work, which ranges from working tugboats and ocean-going trawlers, to globetrotting mega-yachts and top-sailed, gaff-rigged cutters. Dodgy autumn weather and a forecast fraught with heavy winds made participation daunting for some, but nonetheless more than 20 boats arrived for the three-day retrospective. Garden himself left the shelter of his island home, near Sydney, B.C., to ramble down the Inner Harbour gangway with a youthful grin on his face. “We were interested in taking the Garden thing and lifting it to an artistic perspective,” said Hal Irwin, co-owner of Philbrook’s Boatyard, which hosted the event. Garden boats were spread out on Victoria’s docks, while a nearby tent sheltered guests and passers-by. Inside, people took in plans, photos and pages of The Rudder magazine lauding vintage Garden designs. Plans for a 90-foot, sloop-rigged concept yacht deftly titled Daysailer hung on the wall. And a page featuring a small, flat-bottomed runabout quoted Garden saying, “The variation in proportion is limitless and all are fun to build and sail.” Owners held boat open-houses on Saturday, allowing public access to significant power launches like Blue Heron, a 63' wooden yacht built on Lake Union by the Blanchard Boat Company and featured in the Garden classic, Yacht Designs. On the other end of the spectrum was a well-traveled Gulf 32 named Pelican, a production-built fiberglass sloop owned by a Whidbey Island couple who farm sheep when not sailing up and down the west coast. They were perfectly at home among the other contented owners of utile Garden vessels, sharing cruising stories. And then there was Sayonara, a well-finished trawler whose owner bought a container-truck load of teak when restoring the boat. He used most of it and sold the rest, helping to finance the project. Dick Wagner, founding director of The Center for Wooden Boats, sailed to the event on the 40-foot Garden sloop Bolero. “Garden has an eye for traditional lines and just the right proportions,” he said.

 

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