They call the boat Painted

Tom Forquer

With a little tender loving care, Albatross sloop Pintado, which

means “painted” in Spanish, will soon live up to its name.

Owned by the late David Williams, the 18-foot wooden boat was

donated to the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum in May by Williams’

daughters Debbie and Michelle.

“We really were looking to preserve our father’s name and his

memory in the Newport area, and we felt it would be best done by

donating the boat,” Debbie said.

The boat is a vessel for a new volunteer program at the Nautical

Museum based on the livery concept, a rewards program for people who

donate their time to restoring a boat.

“Every hour they spend on the boat, they spend an hour out sailing

it,” said Marshall Steele, facilities manager at the museum.

The project involves painting, varnishing and the replacement of

some hardware.

“A lot of the work here is grunt work, so you have to like what

you are doing,” Steele said.

The boat rests at the Sea Spray Boat Yard in space donated by the

yard’s owner, Paulette Pappas.

Coincidentally, it is being restored right across the street from

the South Coast Shipyard where it was built in 1946.

Pintado is hull No. 28 of what Steele estimated was fewer than 100

Albatrosses built. The boats were a popular design for class racing.

On Wednesday, museum employees Peter Richter and Mike O’Riley, as

well as Joe Cadotte, a volunteer, were sanding and stripping

Pintado’s paint, the dust of which left their skin with a green hue.

When he first saw the boat docked at the museum, Cadotte wanted to

buy it. Since that was not an option, he volunteered for the project

instead.

“These things are great little sailors,” he said affectionately of

the mahogany and spruce boats.

Pappas described the work put into maintaining a wooden boat.

“You start at one end, work your way the other, and by the time

you finish, you go back to where you started again,” she said.

So why the hassle? The reasons go beyond simply preserving

Newport’s nautical history.

Unlike contemporary fiberglass boats, wooden boats have hundreds

of pieces, which fit and move together while sailing, an action

called “working.”

“You can actually feel the boat moving and the mast pumping,”

Steele said. He likened the sensation to that of riding a horse.

The name Pintado has the implied translation of “painted bird”

when combined with its class name, Albatross.

Steele predicted that it will fly across the waters of Newport

with fresh paint in about a year.