Historic oyster sloop to undergo repairs

Eleven years after a major overhaul allowed North America's oldest oyster sloop to resume cruising North Shore waters, the Christeen was hoisted from Oyster Bay so the last original piece of its hull dating to 1883 could be replaced.

In the restoration completed in 1999, all of the boat's wooden structure except the rear portion of the keel - the lowest timber running the length of the hull - was replaced.

The section of keel left in place had some rotted spots that were repaired in 1999 and the keel held up until about two years ago when the rot spread, causing the 32-foot black hull to begin leaking.

The WaterFront Center, an Oyster Bay marine education and recreation facility that owns and operates the vessel, decided to undertake another restoration over the winter to replace the remaining section of keel and the rotting white pine mast.

"Rather than allow it to deteriorate further, we're going to take care of it now," said Pete McAndrew of Centerport, Christeen's captain for the past eight years.

Shortly after 9 a.m. Tuesday, Christeen was raised by a lift at Seawanhaka Shipyard on Centre Island. Wednesday, the boat will be trucked to a new shed on the waterfront in Oyster Bay for the restoration scheduled to be completed in mid-April. The public will be able to watch the work being done by Massapequa shipwright Josh Herman, his colleague Joe Sayre and about 20 volunteers.

The WaterFront Center has raised $141,000 of the $160,000 cost of the project and hopes to find another $100,000 for an endowment for future upkeep, executive director David Waldo said.

"When we restored the boat and put it in the water in 1999 we knew that leaving an original section of the keel would ultimately result in our needing to replace it at some point in the future," McAndrew said. But he said keeping the original wood in place helped qualify Christeen for its listing as a National Historic Landmark under federal guidelines.

Herman said replacing the keel now would not jeopardize Christeen's status under those same guidelines because it is a working vessel that must be maintained to Coast Guard passenger-carrying standards.

Christeen was built for Captain William Smith in Glenwood Landing with a shallow draft of three feet and a broad beam to harvest oysters in Oyster Bay and Cold Spring Harbor. Until the early 1990s, Christeen served not only as an oyster dredge, but also as a cargo carrier and floating residence in Connecticut, New York and New Jersey. The boat returned to Oyster Bay in 1992.

Herman said the boat was built with ribs that support the hull planking fitted into notches in the white oak keel for extra strength. But that meant "the only way to take out the keel without cutting the frames is basically to disassemble the whole bottom of the boat."

Since the Christeen Oyster Sloop Preservation Corporation, a nonprofit group, restored it and donated it to the WaterFront Center in 2002, about 20,000 people have gone aboard for educational and recreational sails on Oyster Bay and Cold Spring Harbor. A fundraiser for the project will be held at Beaver Dam Winter Sports Club in Mill Neck on Oct. 24 from 5 to 8 p.m.