Labor of love

Alex Coolman

Before a boat looks beautiful, it looks like this. Before it has a glossy

white hull or creamy wooden rails, it looks like this.

In the lot of Newport Harbor Shipyard, Allister McIntosh and John Ward

are at work on something that looks like a dusty gray fiberglass bathtub.

What the two men -- a boat builder and a shipwright, respectively -- can

see in the dull shape is the artful vessel it will eventually become: a

snug, 24-foot tugboat with a gleaming teak deck and a tidy, efficient

deckhouse.

That’s what it will be after a lot of work. For now it’s just a tub and a

pile of wood stacked up next to a band saw.

Transforming these mundane ingredients into boats that bring tears of joy

to seagoing eyes is something that 75-year-old Ward and 60-year-old

McIntosh have been doing for a longtime.

The men, a pair of Scots, both started their trades when they were

16-year-olds in their native land.

“Everybody in Scotland, when you leave school at 15, unless you want to

be a banker, you become a coal miner or you work on the farm or you get a

trade,” McIntosh said. The trade he learned was making salmon-fishing

boats in Newburgh, Scotland, along the river Tay.

Ward, who is from Glasgow originally and spent time working in the

shipyard that produced the Queen Mary, said almost six decades of toil

haven’t dulled the appeal of the job.

“Every boat is something different,” he said, taking a break from

installing the foundation for the tugboat’s deckhouse.

The handiwork of the two men floats in many Newport slips. The woodwork

on Windward Passage was installed in part by McIntosh, and he can also

recall doing some repair jobs on John Wayne’s old boat, The Wild Goose.

And the little tugboat they’re working on will have a home on Balboa

Island when it’s finished. The ship is being prepared for Island resident

Mike Craig.

The design of the tug is drawn from boats originally used by logging

companies, said Jesse Salem, the owner of the shipyard.

“When the timber industry cuts down fir trees, they use these boats to

undo the logjams,” he said.

Craig’s plans for the tug, Salem believes, have more to do with pleasure

than business.

But most importantly, McIntosh said, the new owner plans to fly a

Scottish flag from the tug.

“He’s got some Scottish blood in him,” McIntosh noted.

And so does the boat.