Classic Gloucester Schooner at Home in West Coast Harbor

Down to the seas in a self-made ship: Leland Parsons's magnificent accomplishment

I spent a couple of days last week with my friends John and Marcia Sullivan, also East Coast transplants now living in Marin County, north of San Francisco. One sunny day last week, we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge, through the city after the rush hour and continued southward on the coastal road. We stopped at Pillar Point Harbor, a few miles north of Half Moon Bay to look at boats, breathe salt air and enjoy warmth and sunshine.

Tied up on a dock paralleling the quay was a vision from the 18th century -- a schooner with wooden masts, canvas sails gently luffing in the breeze, varnished wood, gleaming brightwork and orderly lines hanging from wooden pins. What an unexpected vision in a watery neighborhood or working fishing boats and more prosaic pleasure craft.

We stopped to chat with the trim, gray-bearded man tidying the tidy boat. I asked him how old the boat was, and he replied, "The simple answer is 40 years old but in the water since 2005." He told us that his name is Leland Parsons and shared snippets of the story of this marine dream come true -- that of building a traditional boat from the keel up, a labor of love he and his family had shared over many years.  

The beautiful boat built in the style of a Gloucester fishing schooner is called the "Frank Edmund." It is late 18th century in appearance but features such 21st century safety and comfort accouterments as navigation and communication instruments, modern marine "plumbing," safety features and even a washer/dryer.

Reporter Gary Warth of the North Bay Times, who had known Parsons and his family in San Diego, wrote "Former Poway boat-builder still living his dream aboard schooner Frank Edmund." Parsons, originally from Gloucester, Massachusetts, is an expat New Englander, like the Sullivans and I. He, his wife Cecily and their sons built the boat for the possibility of sailing around the world, but the "Edmund's" home port this sheltered marina with shorter charters up and down the California coast on the ship's log.

Parsons invited us to come aboard and look around below, which is as beautiful as topside -- plus the addition of Oriental-style carpets.

The "Frank Edmund" is the Parsons' dream fulfilled. When we were aboard, for that short time, we briefly and vicariously shared such a dream.