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He cut hundreds of bungs, dipped each in white lead or varnish, drove it home, clipped it, and smoothed it down. They saved that
job for him. John worked with a planking crew sometimes, fitting one end of a plank into place. Some of the yachts were double planked with no caulking seams and the planks had to fit perfectly together.
Most Luke wooden boats are still afloat and after decades most show no seams. Indeed, one, launched as PELLEGRINA and renamed DOUBLOON by a later owner, was rolled completely over in a gale and came up
intact.
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John became interested in metalwork, of which there was an increasing amount, with Wilcox-Crittenden and Merriman, who had made most of the
yacht hardware, going out of business. If a cleat, gooseneck, mast tang, or swayhook was needed, best make it yourself. 'We build the whole boat," said Paul, "and we export as little money as
possible."
John went for two years to Southern Maine Vocational Technical Institute in Portland to learn to be a machinist, and returned just as Paul was building up a machine shop more than adequate for the purpose. In short time, John was making not only cleats and goose-necks but coffee grinders for AMERICA's Cup contenders and another neat little winch called a pepper grinder, smaller than a coffee grinder, used not only on Luke yachts but many others, as well.
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To keep the machine shop lucratively employed, Paul acquired the rights to the Hyde feathering propellers. These, too, were used on
Luke boats, but the yard soon gained an international clientele. Galley stoves and elegant cabin fireplaces, some faced with Dutch tiles, were another popular sideline for the metalworkers. Another was
the Luke anchor, a Herreshoff type traditional anchor that could be broken down into three pieces, considered a storm anchor, and stowed, preferably low in the boat as ballast It could be taken on deck
under difficult conditions, one piece at a time, assembled near the rail, and tumbled overboard to where it would do the most good.
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1950, the yard had built 11 boats for Winthrop Warner and none for any other designer. In that year; K Aage Nielsen, a Dane who had worked for
John Alden and Sparkman & Stephens and had recently set up an office of his own, came to Paul for the 26' ketch CARINA. Nielsen had established a reputation with Long Island Sound and Marblehead yachtsmen, who
were more dedicated racers than the Warner clientele. Eventually, Luke would build more boats (22 of them) for Nielsen than for any other designer. In the late '5Os and '60s Sparkman & Stephens also came to Luke
for a number of yachts built for distinguished members of the New York Yacht Club, the Cruising Club of America, and the ocean racing fraternity.
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