The View from the Helm

Here is my latest watercolor- of my first design the FRANCES surfing down a wave. When I’m not designing boats, I paint!

Last Saturday evening I appeared at the East Greenwich Yacht Club (Rhode Island) to donate my oil painting “Wednesday Night Races” to the club.  It shows the Paine twins, at age 15, setting their spinnaker in their bright red bluejay, Scratch.  In 1958 as a teenager from the “wrong side of the tracks” who was fascinated by the idea of sailing but with no possible access to the sport owing to my parents’ abject poverty, a caring neighbor sponsored me and my twin in their youth sailing program. A lifetime of sailing fun, and sailing industry success, which engendered salaries for boat carpenters totaling over $175,000,000, resulted. Support community sailing!

I  do one 30″ x 40″ oil painting every winter from memory of sailing transatlantic in 1966.  This is my latest.

SAVE THE DATE.  Chuck will be speaking to the Victoria/Shadow Owner’s association on or about 12 March, 2016. For those who attended his last talk in the U.K., this talk will be different and will trace his history as a “kid who loved to draw”, beginning as an artist and painter, through his design of over a thousand yachts and motorcraft, to his present reincarnation as a marine painter. Exact location not yet firm, but will be in the Warsash/Hamble region not far from the birthplace of your favourite yacht.

A FRANCES 26 at Warsash

Painted from memory of sailing transatlantic on BURGOO in 1966, when I was 21 years old. With that big spinnaker, that sucker would roll!

See this and more at:

http://www.painefineart.com/

I spent the month of February in sunny New Zealand. Searched every harbor and marina for the boat of my dreams but failed to find it. Got a chance to do a few nice watercolors, though. Sold this one on the spot to the Dutch family under the beach umbrella.

When I need a subject for a new painting I summon them up from my distant past. In 1975 I sailed my brand new FRANCES to the Newport Boat Show where Tom Morris and I showed her off- and sold a few for him to build. On the way back I got caught outside and ran the breaking bar of the Merrimac River into Newburyport. This painting is the result. For more of my recent paintings click here:  www.painefineart.com

What better to remind you of the fun of summer than a painting of two young people sailing a Herreshoff 12 1/2 on a sunny and windy day.

Check it out and a whole lot of my new artwork at

www.painefineart.com

Burgoo was a gommey rule-beater and a bear to steer. But we made it, eventually, to Copenhagen, having lost our rudder along the way. A wonderful adventure for a skinny 21-year old kid.

I sailed transatlantic in 1966. 48 years later, this painting is the result.

FRANCES IN THE OCEAN

Idle hands are the devil’s tool.  I was on holiday in France the past two weeks and had an hour to sketch.  Came up with this pen and ink of my 26-foot double ender Frances romping around on the ocean. Whatcha think?