I have been so thankful to have met people of dedication that give „hope to mankind“ in my eyes. One of these very ones is Donn Costanzo on Long Island with his wooden boatyard in Greenport. Both are outstanding. Not only for the impressing quality they put into every tiniest detail of work, but also for the atmosphere of the boatbuilding sheds themself.
Donn asked me to create a new image film and through different visits we were able to witness and document some of their work. Building replicas of the William Fife 8-metres „Invader“ and „Defender“ and launching and tuning them where wonderful opportunities. Of course, it would have been wonderful to watch all the steps closely with the camera, but the traveling costs from Germany to the U.S. set limits for this.
Great support for our small low budget team, consisting of Angelika Berger and me was given by the yard’s Crew, Donn’s copartner Bruce, who was driving me in the powerboat, as well as, before all, Linda and Donn Costanzo themselves.
Concerning the spirit of these friends and the place, „The Bar“ needs to be mentioned. I had never seen a proper, beautifully rustic bar at the end of a boatbuilding shed before! Actually Donn was also surprised finding it there, when he moved into the rented sheds with his team. It was not there when he had the negotiations with his extraordinarily friendly landlord. This John Costello explained, that he had to put it in as a reminder that work is maybe not all (you can wonderfully look at the piers of the yard and the waters while sitting there at the bar). But to make sure that nobody sits there too early before the work closes, he explained, a clock over the bar is installed, visible to all. As it turned out this clock did not work anymore, but was set to 5 after four permanently…… Anyway, we never saw anybody sitting there during work hours, but we had the most wonderful „Defender launching party“ there, lasting very deep into the night and people from so may parts of the world dancing wildly….
As an offspring project we captured the moments of the very enjoyable sail that was tuning in „Invader“ – one of the wonderful boats created by Wooden Boatworks. The resulting mini film can be watched here.
