Orcas teen builds boat by hand

by Cienna Richardson

Orcas High School Sophomore and Sounder contributor

Solianna (Soli) Halabisky has built her childhood dream boat with the help of her father, Bruce Halabisky.

The 11-foot dinghy, which can be used for rowing and sailing, was launched during a celebration on Sept. 1. Friends and family, including Soli’s mom Tiffany Loney and sister Seffa, were in attendance. The vessel was traditionally built with lapstrake cedar planks and steam-bent hemlock frames.

“I always knew I wanted to build a boat, and I looked at a bunch of designs. All the boats I saw were cool, but none of them were exactly what I had in mind,” said Soli, who is a senior at Orcas High School and just turned 18. “My dad, he writes for Woodenboat magazine, and he was looking at it, and in the back section, he saw that you could write to this designer with your boat idea, and he might pick your idea.”

Soli, who was 13 at the time, mailed a letter to boat designer Laurie McGowan. He chose her concept and created plans based on her specifications.

“I was the first girl and first kid to design a boat (with him),” Soli remembers.

She and Bruce built the boat pieces last fall after they constructed molds the previous summer.

“The hardest part of building the boat was having enough time. Once I started, it was just so fun, but having school and dance, it was hard to find time to actually carve out time to work on it,” she said.

Soli’s greatest technical learning curve was the “rabbit,” which is on the boat’s keel where the planks fit into it. It has to fit perfectly. She says her dad “taught her everything” and encouraged her to not focus on the little mistakes but instead on the bigger picture.

“I would not have been about to do any of it alone,” Soli said. “It was really enjoyable to work with my dad. Hanging out with him and doing something that he’s passionate and excited about was really fun and made me more excited about it than I already was. It was a great bonding experience.”

Together, they spent countless hours working on the vessel. Soli’s letter to McGowan explained she planned to build her boat with hand tools. Bruce enjoyed being able to pass those skills on.

“My trade is a boat builder. It’s been a while since I built a boat from start to finish, but it was really fun,” Bruce said. “I could tell she wasn’t just doing it for me, she really does enjoy working with wood. It really meant a lot to me to be able to do this with her. My favorite part was that she got it. She is a very good woodworker (partly from this project), but she already had some skills, and it was just fun to see her grasp the concepts and learn to use the tools.”

As a child, when Soli was sailing around the world on her family’s sailboat, Vixen, she would captain the little dinghy. Early life on a boat and her family’s passion for wooden boats influenced her desire to one day make a boat of her own. Her family would often refer to “Soli’s boat” even before she wrote to McGowan.

“I always wanted to be the captain of my own boat, so when I was little, I think [sailing around the world] really sparked that interest in me,” said Soli.

Fiberglass was never something she or her family wanted regarding boats — so for her, having a wooden boat was critical. As president of The Orcas Island High School’s Environmental Club, Soli is passionate about utilizing our island’s natural resources. Her boat is made entirely out of local wood from Orcas Island. It was all from the beach or Bruce’s shop scrapes; the only things purchased were the necessary hardware.

“It’s a special boat because Soli and I built it, but it’s also a special boat because it’s an Orcas boat,” said Bruce, who believes this speaks strongly to the quality of wood on the island.

The vessel has been dubbed La Belle Sauvage, which is French and translates to “The Beautiful Wild.” One of Soli’s favorite books is “The Golden Compass” series by Phillip Pullman. In the prequel, “The Book of Dust,” a boy survives in a boat called La Belle Sauvage when the Thames River floods.

“It’s just a really fun adventure story and I was like, that’s the name of a good boat, it’s going to have lots of fun adventures,” said Soli.

Next, their winter project will be putting the sailing rig on La Belle Sauvage.

“Building a boat was super cool, and every new stage I would get just even more excited. And then when we took it to the Wooden Boat Festival (in Port Townsend), and I got to take out my friends and family in my boat that I built. It was crazy,” Soli said. “I would be rowing and then I would realize I built this boat and it’s floating me on the water right now. It was such a cool experience.”