Thorne (aka David Luckhardt) is well known in both wooden boating and historical recreation circles (particularly those involving gunpowder).
(Or how to fire a cannon without putting holes in your sails!)
He normally lurks around San Francisco, but on this occasion had driven up to Timothy Lake underneath the summit of Mount Hood.
I had the opportunity to interview him about his boat and about being a pirate (or as it turned out a pirate hunter).
I met him at the Lake Timothy Messabout near Portland Oregon. About a dozen small boats gathered and I met a whole bunch of people that I knew about from the net. But meeting them in reality was even better.
My pictures of the boats and people from the event are here.
My written piece about the event is here.
One of these men is Thorne, the other is David Graybeal. They argue about who is the evil twin.
Anyway Thorne took me for a sail wanting to pick my brains about what to do with his rudder. He uses tiller lines with a 2:1 purchase to steer, this produces a very gentlemanly sailing posture.
I had my recorder with me so I managed to record two interviews while we were sailing. The background effects of water and wind in the recording are the real thing.
Interview 1 – Simon Watts built classic dinghy
… talks about the boat and how he uses it. We are sailing … so there is background noise.
How it was built in a wooden boat building class run by the remarkable Simon Watts who was there at the the beginning of the modern wooden boat building movement and Thorne’s travails in turning a nice little row boat into a equal sail and rowing boat.
Interview 2 – with Thorne – Black Powder and Pirating, Creative Anachronism, Role playing with explosives.
The second interview is about his addiction to pirating, historical re-enactment of battles, cannons, flintlocks and black powder and more about boats.
All while sailing.
It starts with Thorne discussing sailing his Blue Jay with his whole family aboard (including his mum) but quickly devolves to a discussion of matters piratical.
It was my first real shot at an interview and David was an excellent subject and a nice sail!
I have a whole bunch of interviews with other boating people as I travelled around the USA to wooden boat events, museums etc. More later.
