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April 2017
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boatingonthehudson.com
Ninety or so miles north of New York City or “Mannahatta” (as
the indigenous peoples called it) lies the waterfront town of
Kingston, nestled comfortably in Ulster County along the shores
of the majestic Hudson River and the Rondout Creek.
Like many other towns that share this historic waterway, it can
be said that Kingston has amazing resilience and ingenuity -
much like the Hudson River Maritime Museum and its young
prodigy, the Riverport Wooden Boat School. Together, along
with the Kingston Home Port and Education Center, the
museum’s waterfront campus is located along the Rondout
Creek with a protected deepwater port – making the property
or complex a perfect complement to the downtown
district.
The museum has its own story of evolution and
“coming back”, and if ever there were an organization
which has seen it all -- changes in leadership and
mission; rising waters and storm surges from the likes
of “Sandy” and “Irene”; the profound impact from
unsuccessful Urban Renewal attempts in the 60s – the
drill is well-known by this museum.
But through all of the transition and growing pains,
the Hudson River Maritime Museum has stayed the
course – made it safely to port – while practicing the
fine art of course correction.
The 2012 building of the Kingston Home Port
and Education Center has since provided the sloop
Clearwater with a winter home, allowing maintenance
work to be done in a more conducive environment
while the vessel is not plying the Hudson, spreading
its environmental mission.
Among the many additional accomplishments of this
museum that “tells the river’s story” is its developing
Riverport Wooden Boat School. This tremendous
undertaking, beginning in 2015/16, has become a
good example of meaningful transformation.
Much of this transformation occurred during the ten
years or so tenure of now retired Executive Director
(but still involved as Exhibits Curator) Russell Lange,
who guided the museum through some of its most
strategic phases. Through insightful vision amongst
the leadership – a skillful combination of board, staff
and volunteers – the museum has crafted a bona
fide wooden boat school which now is engaged in
educating and training both youth and adults in
the revered tradition of woodworking and wooden
boatbuilding.
HRMM’s Riverport Wooden
Boat School in 2017
Continuing the Course for
Tradition on the Hudson
Lange remarks, “The school has certainly enhanced the historic
Rondout neighborhood, transforming the defunct restaurant
next door into a bustling center for teaching woodworking to a
new generation of artisans. Our Riverport Wooden Boat School
is on a steady course, providing a reinvigorated creekside venue
with first-rate classes and restoration work performed by some of
the finest shipwrights and woodworking instructors this country
has to offer.”
The boat shop also restores vessels which have required
extensive and painstaking restoration or those that some
considered were beyond repair. The 2015/16 massive rebuild of
An adult student enrolled in the Riverport Wooden Boat
School’s “Building a Sassafras Canoe” class in August,
2016 works on the fine details of his canoe.
Photo: Lana Chassman, Hudson River Maritime Museum