Hand-built boat to be raffled off by East End nonprofit

An East End nonprofit is preparing to raffle off a hand-built boat made from the white oak and black locust that a year ago was still growing around a pond near the public school in Springs.

The Classic Boat Society is dedicated to maintaining the tradition of hand-building boats, and the annual open house and raffle is an important fund-raiser for the group.

The overgrown wooded area near Pussy’s Pond was cut down to provide lumber to rebuild a foot bridge that had been popular with students, but was too badly decayed by years of neglect to be repaired. A 13-foot section of white oak was saved and milled while 235 feet of black locust was also cut to provide materials to build the boat.

“We also cut the sassafras for the seats,” said Ray Hartjen, president of the East End Classic Boat Society, which is holding the raffle at its open house on Dec. 7 in Amagansett. “All the seats are book matched...you can see the grain pattern in reverse order, like when you open a book.”

The not-for-profit Classic Boat Society is dedicated to maintaining the tradition of hand-building boats, and the annual open house and raffle is an important fund-raiser for the group. It has a $20,000 annual budget, half of which goes to cover insurance, Hartjen said.

The boat shop at 301 Bluff Rd. in Amagansett is behind the East Hampton Town Marine Museum, and is open year-round on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Raffle tickets cost $5 or $20 for a book of five, and are sold there.

“Someone came in last year on Friday and bought five tickets...darn if one didn’t get pulled the next day. And, he didn’t want the boat,” Hartjen said. Instead, the winner donated it back to the society, which sold it to a man in Montauk for $12,000. “That was half our budget,” Hartjen said.