Voyaging with Marionette
$39.95
Description
ISBN – 978-1-7349136-1-3 • Paperback • Page Count – 330 • Size – 11 x 8.5
Voyaging with Marionette highlights the 25-year voyage Ron Breault has shared with his boat. This story begins with the 1995 purchase of the boat, a very early Dolphin 24, and weaves a course through her restoration and the experiences and relationships he shared with his boat, the places they’ve been, and the interesting people they met along the way.
The Dolphin 24 story begins in December 8, 1958, with a memo Olin Stephens wrote and shared with the managers of his design firm, Sparkman and Stephens. It reads:
“I have just had a phone conversation with George O’Day, who is very anxious to get going on two new boats to be built of Fiberglass, which he would like to have built according to our designs. The smaller boat he has in mind would be a Junior Ocean Racer.”
Voyaging is a soulful book filled with photos of New England port towns and boats. The stories are short chronicling cruises and races with images of boats (lots of boats) and the people who sail them for fun.
Learn more about the boat in this cover story in Maine Boats Homes and Harbors: https://maineboats.com/print/issue-169/marionette
LymeLine –
Review from Lymeline.com:
Although he did not realize at the time, Ron Breault had signed on for a long-term love affair with a very special shoal draft24-footer built during the boatbuilding industry’s transition from wood to fiberglass construction. In his words, “…she had a fascinating history, loved compliments, loved racing, especially in light air, and loved taking me for the ride, especially to Maine, where pretty wood boats have a special place.”
One of Ron’s goals was to create an informal conversational narrative akin to sailors swapping boat stories over a couple beers at a favorite pub, and he’s succeeded. From the restoration process and construction of Marionette’s barn and her wooden tender ‘TEER to the S&S 75th Anniversary celebration at Mystic Seaport Museum, success in the Off Sounding Regatta and cruising Downeast, Voyaging with Marionette is beautifully illustrated with lots and lots of photographs. https://lymeline.com/2020/08/reading-uncertainly-voyaging-with-marionette-by-ron-breault-of-old-lyme/
WindCheck –
Review from WindCheck Magazine:
“Although he did not realize at the time, Ron Breault had signed on for a long-term love affair with a very special shoal draft 24-footer built during the boatbuilding industry’s transition from wood to fiberglass construction. In his words, ‘…she had a fascinating history, loved compliments, loved racing, especially in light air, and loved taking me for the ride, especially to Maine, where pretty wood boats have a special place.’
“One of Ron’s goals was to create an informal conversational narrative akin to sailors swapping boat stories over a couple beers at a favorite pub, and he’s succeeded. From the restoration process and construction of Marionette’s barn and her wooden tender ‘TEER to the S&S 75th Anniversary celebration at Mystic Seaport Museum, success in the Off Sounding Regatta and cruising Downeast, Voyaging with Marionette is beautifully illustrated with lots and lots of photographs.”
See the Full Review here: https://www.windcheckmagazine.com/article/voyaging-with-marionette/
Points East Magazine –
Review by Bob Muggleston
The reader’s forbearance is requested. This story is best told over a couple of beers – the downstairs pub at the Brooklin Inn, in Maine, comes immediately to mind – but there are many such places where sailors gather and talk about their boats. These stories are “undisciplined” in their presentation, and are conversational. I’ve tried to keep the same environment in writing this book.
Ron Breault
PS: I need to thank my wife Chris for putting up with all this sailboat stuff.
Well, after spending time with “Voyaging with Marionette,” by Old Lyme, Connecticut’s Ron Breault, I can see why the postscript to his wife was added to the book’s preface: Holy smokes, is this a deep dive! The publication is ostensibly about the 25 years Breault has owned his 1960, S&S-designed Dolphin 24, but it’s oh-so-much more than that. Are you old enough to remember phone books? This is what “Voyaging” feels like in your hands, and it’s chock-a-block full with Dolphin 24 information, much of it gleaned from Breault’s time running the website Dolphin24.org.
It’s also packed with color photos and personal anecdotes about the author’s time spent racing and cruising Marionette throughout New England. Many of the boat’s logbooks have been trotted out in this capacity, but it’s all neat stuff, never boring or overly detailed, and produced by someone with a knack for identifying the most interesting aspect of any particular harbor.
Anyone who’s owned a pretty boat understands that the possession of such a craft is never enough: That is, if you like nice lines, you’re going to have a wandering eye. The author’s favorite cruising destination is Maine. Hey, wouldn’t you know it, there are some nice-looking boats up there! Many of them wood, with incredible pedigrees. Breault goes deep on some of those, as well. I’m always a sucker for the lineage of a classic boat, and clearly so is Breault. He’s also not afraid to reach out to legends like Olin Stephens, Bill Shaw and John Rousmaniere, either, and talks a bit about his various associations with these men, and even shares some of his correspondence with them.
More than anything, though, “Voyaging with Marionette” is a love letter to his Dolphin 24. Over the years Breault has meticulously restored her, built her a storage barn, and in that barn’s workshop constructed her wooden tender. In the book he shares many of the clever modifications both he and others have done to make life cruising aboard a Dolphin 24 easier, and more comfortable – many that could be applied to any small sailboat. So it’s a book that’s theoretically specific, but also has general appeal. I wish such an exhaustive work existed for my last boat, which also fell into the “Classic Plastic” category (though Marionette’s deck and cabin are wood).
In the book Breault reveals that, after retiring, he was casting about for something that would give his life meaning in the way his job previously had. His ownership of Marionette – and running a website dedicated to her class – seems to have been just the ticket.
Voyage on, Breault and Marionette.
Bob Muggleston is the editor of this magazine.
Good Old Boat Magazine –
by Daniel Spurr | Book Reviews, Dogwatch, Reviews
Amongst the hundreds of sailors I’ve known, only one kept the same boat nearly his entire life; she was a sweet 17-foot Silhouette, with bilge keels, that my friend Bob maintained flawlessly, at minimal cost. If Bob perceived that she required some improvement, he generally made the part himself—metal or wood. Over the winter he would labor deliberately over the part in his workshop, pausing at a decision point to thoughtfully puff on his pipe.
Everyone else I have known has owned a list of boats longer than three generations of their family tree. That is, until I began corresponding with Ron Breault, 25 years ago, via letters and email. In 1995, Ron bought a 1960 S&S-designed Dolphin 24, built by Marscot Plastics for George O’Day’s new company in Massachusetts. After sailing his way through a succession of small cruisers, like a Columbia 9.6, and the Atlantic one-designer keelboat racer, Ron fell head over heels for the Dolphin and decided the marriage was till death do them part. This partnership is the subject of his book, Voyaging with Marionette, a comprehensive scrapbook of their years together. He treats Marionette as if she were a sentient being, attributing to her such willfulness as, “Marionette wanted to cruise Maine.”
Like my old friend Bob, Ron does all the work on and surrounding Marionette. His restoration of the boat is well documented in text and photographs, including photographs of all his power tools, and step-by-step accounts of the barn he built to properly house Marionette during the rough Connecticut winters. He even wrote an essay on why he decided to write the book, as if love weren’t sufficient reason. Then there is the wood Ian Oughtred-designed dinghy he built for towing behind his treasured partner, and development of a class website, Dolphin24.org.
While many of the tangential forays are scantily tied to his main subject (such as a copy of the remarks he gave at the memorial service for the old gent who regularly crewed for club races), they have an endearing quality, each a proof of his everlasting devotion to Marionette.
Along the way Ron met a lot of interesting folks, not the least of whom were Olin Stephens, Rod Johnstone, Bill Shaw, John Rousmaniere, and photographer Benjamin Mendlowitz. The sheer variety of clippings, photos, and anecdotes make the book fun to browse regardless of the boat to whom you are wedded.