Saving the Chieftain

A young couple has set their sights on the restoration of the veteran sail-trainer Hawaiian Chieftain, which has not sailed since before the pandemic. The plan is to return her to Hawaii, where she was built in 1988.

After several years on the hard, Hawaiian Chieftain has new owners. Aubrey Wilson and her husband Matt have purchased the ketch from the Grays Harbor Historical Society, planning no less than a complete restoration and COI reinstatement.

Eventually, they plan to sail her to Hawai’i, where she will once again take on passengers for day sails, be available for tours and events, and offer educational programs and sail training opportunities.

Marlinspike spoke to Aubrey in September.

Marlinspike: Aubrey, I understand that you have some traditional sail experience from an earlier time in your life.

Aubrey Wilson: Well, I sailed for four years as a deckhand on Niagara and Tole Mour and Roseway.

I was in college, Colorado State University, and we took a family vacation to the Caribbean. We went to Antigua. We’re from Colorado, totally landlocked. That’s the first time I saw a ship just sailing and I was like, “Oh my God, people still do this? This needs to be my life.”

So after I graduated, I looked around for a ship I could get on board without having any experience.

I found an apprenticeship on Niagara, basically called them up. They were doing two-week programs...

MS: Was Wes Heerson running the boat at that point?

AW: Wes was the captain. Jamie Trost was chief mate. Billy Sabatini was, I guess, second mate. I had a great time.

It was awesome. They were like, “Hey, we need help uprigging. So if you come early in the season and help us uprig the boat, then we’ll waive the fee for the training course. And then if you like it, you can stay on and become an apprentice deckhand. And from there you move up to a paid position.”

And so that’s what I did. I think they’ve figured out since then that people actually do want to uprig and downrig a ship, and that they’ll pay for that experience, too. But at the time they were just like, “Hey, can you help?” I was like, “I am there.” And that’s the first time I ever really went sailing.

MS: How long were you on Niagara?

AW: Two seasons on Niagara. That was great. Loved it! And then I did a delivery, took Roseway from Boston down to St. Croix. That was a great sail, but oh my God. I don’t know what it’s like now, but at the time… we got to the Caribbean and they were like, “So, we know we promised to pay you all...”

The deal was, we were not getting paid for the voyage, but we’re getting sea time, right? And we all want to sail it anyway. That’s no problem. Once we got down there, they were supposed to start paying us, but we got down there and they were like, “So we can’t pay you yet, but we want you to keep working. And eventually we’ll probably start paying you. But we also have too many people on board. So we’re going to pull you aside one by one and see if if anyone’s interested in leaving and we’ll pay your way home.”

And I was like, “Oh my God, me! I’m not staying on. This does not sound like it’s going to go anywhere good.”

MS: What was your next tall ship experience?

AW: That was Tole Mour, and that was amazing. It was Guided Discoveries and she was working with the Catalina Island Marine Institute, and we did a sea camp for kids, a weeklong sea camp. We took middle schoolers out Monday through Friday. We’d pick them up in Long Beach. And we would just go sailing out to Catalina and then take the kids snorkeling and teach them sailing, teach them some navigation, some marine science.

Part of the crew were traditionally trained sailors. And part of the crew were marine biologists. We had a lot of fun together teaching each other different things. And then on Friday, we would just pull in to port, and get to play in LA all weekend, so that was nice.

Then I decided I wanted to be a scientist. I went back to school. I got another degree at the School of Mines, back in Colorado. And then I met my husband Matt at a ballroom dance studio during that time. And then he moved to San Francisco. We got married, and we moved to Hawai’i. He currently works for one of the telescopes here on the Big Island as a software engineer. And I was working at the volcano observatory on Kilauea for a minute. And then we had a baby! So we have a son. He’s two and a half.

MS: Wow.

AW: Yeah. Just all over the place, all the time. But I still love ships and have been looking. We’ve been in Hawai’i for five years now. Not a lot of tall ships in Hawai’i, it turns out. But I want there to be one. So it just, I don’t know, just kind of happened.

MS: How did you get connected with Chieftain?

AW: Matt and I went on a sail in 2013 together. We were dating at the time, living in San Francisco, and I wanted to take him sailing on a tall ship because I loved it, and he’d never been on a tall ship, and Chieftain was doing sails out of Sausalito, so I took him sailing on Chieftain. Just a day sail.

MS: And was it a nice day? Was it the kind of day that persuades people that they should own tall ships?

AW: Not really, no! It was kind of still and overcast and we did a lot of motoring, but we still raised the sails and sailed a little bit, had a good time. Yeah, that was it. We had one sail on Chieftain in 2013, and kind of forgot about it for years.

MS: Have you been following the tall ships industry here on the mainland? Through former shipmates, through the internet..?

AW: Yeah. We ended up on Grays Harbor’s mailing list because we went sailing on Chieftain, and so I’ve been getting their newsletter for the last eight years. And that’s how I found out that Chieftain was for sale. And that’s also how I found out that Jamie Trost was captain.

We had stayed friends, Jamie and I, over the years. We’d text once in a while. So I just texted my buddy, and I was like, “Hey, man, is your ship really for sale? How much?” I just started talking to Jamie and talked with him some, talked with Brandi [Bednarik] the Executive Director at Grays Harbor.

MS: How did you possibly sell Matt on this?

AW: Matt’s awesome. He’s down for an adventure anytime. Apparently he likes that I’m this crazy. When I say things like, “Let’s buy a tall ship and bring her out to Hawai’i,” he’s like, “Definitely.”

MS: So the plan is buy her, fix her up, sail her to Hawai’i. I assume you have to do quite a bit of the work before you sail her to Hawai’i.

AW: There’s a lot of work to be done. We’ve had multiple surveyors look at the ship, among them John Baird, Lee Ehrheart and Ian Weedman. I don’t yet have the results of the ultrasonic inspection, but we'll definitely be replacing steel in several sections of the hull, cabintop, and sole.

The bowsprit needs to be replaced, and it's starting to look like the mainmast as well. The engines need to be replaced, and the electrical system needs an overhaul. But hey, the sails are new!

She’s currently hauled out in Port Townsend. The first Coast Guard inspection was last week, and so now we’re compiling lists of all the repairs that we need to get her COI reinstated.

MS: I assume there was already a list, that she had stopped operating because Grays Harbor couldn’t satisfy the Coast Guard.

AW: I got that information from Grays Harbor before we purchased the boat. They said, “Here’s the list, here are the estimates we have from two years ago, and here’s how much we think it’s going to cost.” But then she’s just been sitting in the water for the last two years.

MS: Your plan is to do the work in Port Townsend?

AW: We’re going to do what we can at Port Townsend Shipwrights. That’s who has her now, and that’s where she’ll be for the next, I’m guessing, at least a year. They were saying six months to a year, but we’re finding more and more damage, so maybe a little longer.

I mean, they’re finding things we didn’t know about, but we just kind of also assumed we would find things we didn’t know about, because we couldn’t do a full survey with her in the water. So I just took the estimates that Grays Harbor gave me and doubled them.

MS: I imagine that in Hawai’i, you can’t get a Lakes, Bays, and Sounds COI. Once you leave the harbor, there you are, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean! The standards for boats operating out of Hawai’i have to be a little higher than for a coastwise boat operating on the Great Lakes?

CHIEFTAIN was taken out of service before the pandemic. GHHS announced that the cost of repairs exceeded the value of the vessel, and put herup for sale.

AW: I don’t know. I think the COI she had before was Limited Coastwise, partially-protected waters, and that’s really the lee side of every island here. So she’ll be able to operate with the same COI that she had, assuming that we can get that back.

MS: It sounds as if you haven’t got any experience in the management or administration side of tall ships; you were a deckhand. Does that concern you?

AW: No. I’m excited. I’m having a lot of fun. I’m learning the ropes. And I’m looking forward to the restoration, actually, even before we get her out here. I think restoring the ship is going to be fun. We’re going to fly out there as soon as we can.

MS: Are you planning to relocate to Port Townsend?

AW: We’d like to, probably next, well, summer. Or whenever toddlers can get vaccinated. We would be there now, except for the pandemic. But my dad’s ready to come and house-sit for us so we can just go and rent a place for a few months and hang out with the ship and meet with people. We want to replace the engines with electric motors and get solar on her and make her as clean-running as possible. We want to run it clean out here in the pristine waters of Hawai’i!

MS: So what are your plans for those pristine waters? What’s your business plan? I’m not familiar with boat operations in Hawai’i. I don’t know what the boating season is, if it’s really year-round…

AW: It should be year-round. Sometimes it’s rainier than other times, but it’s always beautiful. Summer, everyone comes. Spring break and winter holidays would be the times when it’s just popping. And it’s been crazy, people coming in after being cooped up. I have friends who own charter businesses, snorkeling tours, dolphin swims, kayaking, that sort of thing. And they’re seeing a surge right now as the tourists are flocking back to the islands.

MS: Where would you base Chieftain?

AW: We don’t know yet. We’re looking around. It’s not so easy to get a mooring in Hawai’i, turns out, but there are places that are interested in hosting a tall ship. They want her to be there.

MS: Would those be resorts, or marinas..?

AW: Yeah. That would be cool. There’s not really a resort that owns a bay and can have a mooring, on the Big Island, at least. Ideally, we want her on the Big Island. So we’re looking at Kona, just because we live here, but we’re also looking at Maui, and we’ll just keep looking further afield if we need to.

MS: Where are the tourists?

AW: Everywhere. They’re everywhere. So that’s what I’m looking at now: where can she live in Hawai’i and what can she do and who wants to partner with her? So that’s where I’m at. I’ve mostly been organizing surveys and things in Washington still.

MS: I understand before you head back to Hawai’i in the boat, that you’ve promised Grays Harbor a farewell party. That’s going to be an emotional thing.

AW: That’s going to be awesome. They’ve been great. And they’re excited to see her restored. I talked to Brandi, we keep in touch. They still have a bunch of Chieftain’s stuff, actually: all the sails, PFDs, all the stuff they had for Chieftain, it’s just piled in a warehouse somewhere and they’re hanging on to it for us while we fix her up.

We’ll bring her back down, have a little reunion. Maybe she’ll hang out there for a minute. We’ll get crew.

MS: Do you envision operating Chieftain like Grays Harbor did? As a non-profit?

AW: Well, I’m not sure. We started off with a for-profit. We’re going to see what makes the most sense because we want the ship to make enough money to take care of herself. Ideally that’s what everyone wants, right?

MS: That’s the goal!

AW: I’m not sure what form that’s going to take. We were like, “Yeah, for-profit, we’ll start with that.” And now we’re like, “We want to partner with educational programs and get grants and stuff.” That would mean probably going non-profit.

MS: In the meantime, without those sources of funding, how are you planning to pay for the work on the boat?

AW: We formed an LLC when we purchased the boat and we have just private funding. So far, that’s how it’s working.

We’re not actually trying to make money with this whole endeavor. It’s mostly just, we want to save the ship. We want to see her sailing again.

And how cool would it be if we brought her to Hawai’i and there was a ship that was built in Hawai’i, back in Hawai’i, doing sails and educational programs and sail training and making enough money to take care of herself? I don’t know. That’s the goal.

MS: So here’s a question out of left field. A couple of former Chieftain crew were on my boat this summer, and they were saying, “We heard that when the Chieftain was built in Hawai’i, she had little secret compartments for contraband cargo” implying that she had been smuggling drugs, or at least that was the plan of the guy who built her.

Have you ever heard anything like that?

AW: I heard that too! From Jamie. He’s like, “When we went to do some repairs, we discovered these compartments.” I was like, “Did you leave them?” He’s like, “No.” I actually am in contact with the original architect, so I’ll ask him about it!

MS: I don’t know if it would be the architect, unless they were designed spaces… maybe it was the people who were actually building the boat, on the beach there, that were putting in those secret compartments?

AW: Well, I’m in contact with some of them, too, so I’ll ask.

For more information on the rebuild, visit sailhawaiianchieftain.com.