Getting a unique boat shipshape: As work continues to get Suva ready for second season, maritime series starts at museum

She’s been resting quietly at the Oak Harbor Marina for a few months now, wrapped snugly in plastic to protect her from the elements. The patchwork of wrap, tape and PVC pipe orchestrated by Mark Saia isn’t intended to be pretty. It’s about keeping the teak deck, pilot house and the rest of the wooden schooner Suva dry.

She’s been resting quietly at the Oak Harbor Marina for a few months now, wrapped snugly in plastic to protect her from the elements.

The patchwork of wrap, tape and PVC pipe orchestrated by Mark Saia isn’t intended to be pretty. It’s about keeping the teak deck, pilot house and the rest of the wooden schooner Suva dry.

“What kills an old wood boat is freshwater,” said Saia, watching the caulking between the deck boards crumble while he picks at it. “With freshwater, at 48 degrees, you start to grow mold and bacteria and all that sort of stuff. With saltwater, it does not. What we do is salt the decks every evening. It helps seal the deck. The salt and saline solution kills the bacteria.”

The plan in the coming weeks will be to reseal the deck and do other aesthetic work and mechanical repairs to get the boat ready for its second sailing season back home in Penn Cove.

Updates about those projects and other facts about Suva, as well as new information about the boat’s original owner, will be addressed during an open house and presentation held at the Island County Historical Museum in Coupeville from 5:30-7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 21.

Lee James, a historian with the Coupeville Maritime Heritage Foundation, will conduct the talk and share new information about Frank Pratt Jr., a Coupeville millionaire who commissioned well-known naval architect Ted Geary to build the boat in 1925, making it arguably the best cruising sailboat of her type on Puget Sound during that time.

Coupeville was home port for the boat for 14 years before Pratt died in 1939.

Last spring, Saia led fundraising efforts to purchase the boat from a Port Townsend man and return it to its home waters in Penn Cove.

In the process, the Coupeville Maritime Heritage Foundation was formed as a nonprofit to take ownership of Suva.

Last summer, tours and sailings took place from the Coupeville Wharf on a donation basis.

The group is trying to raise enough money to do the mechanical repairs and other work necessary to meet U.S. Coast Guard requirements for certification as a small passenger vessel.

If that is accomplished, Suva will be able to sell tickets and accomodate more guests on scheduled cruises, and in the process pay captains and crews who currently are volunteering their services because of their love for the boat.

“That’s what it’s all about: Providing jobs and empowering people to handle this boat,” said Saia, one of eight licensed captains on a list interested in driving the boat. “It’s quite nerve-racking parking that thing and just driving. It’s a big boat. Nobody wants to scratch her.”

The Coupeville Maritime Heritage Foundation’s stated mission is to “create awareness, educate, promote and preserve the maritime heritage of Coupeville and Penn Cove.”

Thursday’s presentation at the museum also is the opening reception for the Suva exhibit, the first of an ongoing series at the museum on Whidbey’s maritime heritage.

“There is never-ending subject matter,” said Rick Castellano, the museum’s executive director.


On display at the exhibit are two of Suva’s dinghies, including the 12-foot, all-teak tender that was built by Geary in Hong Kong along with Suva in 1925.

The 65-foot-long Suva, however, will remain in Oak Harbor until its scheduled return for the Penn Cove MusselFest March 12-13.

Suva’s return last year was met with heavy interest from tourists as well as by those who live on the island, James said.

James said he found that out while manning an information table twice a week at the wharf last summer for the Coupeville Chamber of Commerce.

“I can tell you first hand that by far and away, the thing of most interest at that table of anything in Coupeville was definitely Suva,” James said. “I kept numbers on it. It was like 80 percent Suva.”

Saia, who also teaches people how to sail on other boats through his own sailing business, Penn Cove Sailing, said the response to buy the yacht and return it to Coupeville exceeded all expectations.

“She is a magnet for volunteers and for just boat lovers,” he said. “People came to town just to see her.”

Saia believes the return might’ve met Pratt’s approval as well.

He got that feeling after a nightly inspection of the boat late one evening in October while it was still docked at the wharf.

As Saia walked by the pilot house as he prepared to leave, he looked through the window and noticed a figure inside staring back at him.

The enclosed pilot house is a feature that Pratt is believed to have helped Geary design to make for such comfortable cruising under all types of Puget Sound weather conditions.

Saia said he believes the figure he saw was Pratt’s ghost. It was wearing a hat, a Pratt trademark, and had an older look.

“I wasn’t scared,” he said. “I thought it was kind of neat. I believe in entities. I believe in the energy of the boat. I feel her. I’m a pretty intuitive guy. I have a feeling on her every time. I just feel comfortable. I feel at home. At ease. And that’s what she does with people that are on her.”

Saia said after seeing the image of the ghostly figure, he smiled, shook his head and kept walking. He said he then voiced an oath under his breath.

“I said, ‘Frank I promise you I’ll make sure she stays here and runs in this cove for as long as I live.’”

It’s a promise Saia plans to keep.

Suva talk

Lee James will make a presentation about the schooner Suva and its original Coupeville owner as part of the opening reception for the exhibit about the boat at the Island County Historical Museum, 5:30-7 p.m. Thursday.