Ship Shapes: The Ed Monk Sr. Ships Plans Collection

Grant funding from King County 4Culture has allowed us to plunge into the daunting task of preserving and cataloging the remarkable Ed Monk Sr. collection of ships plans. In this essay we'll revisit the man with the plans.

Ed Monk Sr., circa 1967.

In 2014 Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society accepted a large collection of drawings, documents, photos, and artifacts related to the work of renowned naval architect Edwin Monk (1894-1973) from his family. Monk was a designer and builder of boats large and small, pleasure and commercial. His vessels are familiar to mariners all along the Pacific Coast. The collection is an invaluable resource to those fortunate enough to own a Monk-designed boat, as well as to all interested in the history of boat design. We would like to thank Ed Monk, Jr., son of the shipbuilder, for arranging the donation of this collection to PSMHS.

Ed Monk at his National Building Office, circa 1967

Edwin Monk began his career as a shipbuilding apprentice in 1914, working with his father who was a shipwright in the Puget Sound area. He built the first boat of his own design in the backyard of his Seattle home. While working at the Blanchard Boatyard on Lake Union, Monk had the opportunity to meet the legendary naval architect Ted Geary. In 1926 Geary hired Monk as a draftsman. When Geary decided to move closer to lucrative prospects in California, Monk joined him there, taking his young family to Long Beach for two years.

Around 1934 Monk returned to the Pacific Northwest and designed and built the 50-foot live-aboard cruiser Nan. Moored at the Seattle Yacht Club, the boat became both his office and home for his family for six years. A few years later he moved his work space into a small corner of the Grandy Boat Company and later to an office at on Westlake Avenue.

In 1947 Monk, joined by fellow naval architect Lorne Garden, moved to the National Building near Colman Dock. From here he commuted to his home at Hidden Cove on Bainbridge Island. After an illustrious career, Monk died in 1973 at the age of 79.

The Monk Collection includes over 2,000 individual vessel designs on over 7,000 pages. In addition we have been given several of Ed Monk’s half-hull ship models, his drafting curves, and his shop sign. His photograph collection, which chronicles the construction of his ships, is currently being cataloged for accession. 

Remembering the Man and his Boats

The acquisition of the Monk Collection inspired us to learn more about the man and his world. We conducted oral history interviews with his daughter, Isabel Van Valey, and with his niece-by-marriage and one-time secretary, Doris Colbert. These personal accounts supplement the great information in the book Ed Monk and the Tradition of Classic Boats by Bet Oliver (1998). Transcripts of the interviews may be viewed by arrangement at the PSMHS office.

Isabel Val Valey in her home overlooking Rich Passage.

Isabel Van Valey, Monk's daughter, recalls excursions on the Ann Saunders, the first boat Ed Monk built for himself.

The boat was a typical…I think what they call a dreamboat design…and it was kind of like a shoe, with a hull and a cabin that came up….It reminded you of a shoe. And the cockpit had a nice, big long seat on it, so we could sit on it. He was very, very cautious about us not falling overboard, and so when we went through the locks or there was any bad weather we were tied. It didn’t bother me at all, but it bothered my sister terribly. She was older and she would sit on the ropes, because she didn’t want anyone to see her. [laughs] The life jackets those days were just great big bulky pieces of cork, and this was much simpler for us.

Going through the locks was the most interesting. Mother would take the bow line and Dad would take the stern line because he was near the wheel, and we would have to sit in the back on our ropes. This lady once said, “Oh, look at those poor children tied up like dogs!” And my mother was very indignant and said “I’d rather have them tied like dogs than drowned!”

That was my earliest memory [of the boat], and I remember a big electric storm with thunder and lightning bolts while we were crossing in the boat. And I think that’s why I don’t like thunder and lightning now.

Monk's plan for a troller

Another memorable Monk boat was the Nan, the family's home for several years.

Well, it was a live-aboard. It was designed especially for us. My sister and I had a stateroom and my parents had the back stateroom and our living room was the pilot house, which eventually [had] an office in one corner. And the galley was down below on the bow. Mother didn’t like it down there because she couldn’t see where we were going or what we were doing, and I think that was one reason why Dad was inspired to move the galleys up to the pilot house.

Doris Colbert recalled working with Monk during World War II:

When I started to work for him he was called up by the army to make a trip up to Alaska to design flat-bottomed boats for the rivers up there because the United States government was putting in the Alcan [Alaskan-Canadian] Highway. And so they needed these flat bottomed boats to cross the rivers. This is what he designed. At that particular time it was mostly work for the government, but there were times when he did fishing boats, too, because we had to feed the troops and Seattle was a port of embarkation. 

Embarking on a Voyage of Preservation

The Monk plans, photos, and objects, while well organized, require proper archival storage and cataloging. It is a big job! UW Information School students Jodi Myers and Suzanne LeDoux have laid the groundwork for us by formally assessing the collection and estimating the resources (time, money, personnel) required to complete conservation. They also drafted a user guide for staff and volunteers working on the conservation project.

PSMHS volunteer John Kelly has helped curate the Puget Sound Maritime ships plans collections for years. 

Cultural resource specialist Katherine Kidwell has been working with PSMHS staff and volunteers since January of this year to place the ships plans into archivally safe storage and entering detailed information about each hand-drawn page into our PastPerfect database. A great deal of work remains to be done, but we are pleased to have set sail on this exciting voyage!

Katherine Kidwell shows us how the Monk ship plans are stored.

--John Kelly and Eleanor Boba contributed to this post. Special thanks to King County 4Culture for funding this important preservation project.

What’s the Scuttlebutt?*

There’s a lot happening at Puget Sound Maritime this warm summer of 2015. Listen closely and you’ll hear what’s going on behind the scenes.

But first …

Imagine you are the captain of a Puget Sound ferryboat at the end of the 19^th century, part of the famous “Mosquito Fleet.” Your job is to ferry passengers from Tacoma to Seattle, but Oh, No! There’s a log floating right in your path! A storm comes up suddenly! A passenger falls overboard! What’s a skipper to do?

Several new exhibits are in the works for the McCurdy Family Maritime Gallery at MOHAI that will help visitors understand the realities of navigation in the days when water was the primary highway for travelers around Puget Sound.

Our biggest project will be the installation of a large gaming console, referred to as a “touch table,” which will use historic photos and real events combined with modern animation to allow players to navigate Mosquito Fleet steamships around a variety of hazards along their routes.  Tentatively titled “Charting Our Course,” players will choose a course: for example, the Seattle to Tacoma run with the FLYER or the Mercer Island route with the FORTUNA. They will then follow the historically accurate route, making split-second decisions necessary to reach their destination safely in the face of real-life perils. The touch table will have an engaging soundtrack that will enhance the nautical feel of the Maritime Gallery and content that will attract kids and adults alike with its rich but fun presentation.

In addition to the permanent touch table, we plan to add a non-digital interactive mapping station where visitors will learn about and see historical mapping instruments, then use such tools to plot a course around Lake Union. Participants will be able to relate their maps to the panorama of Lake Union right outside the gallery windows.

For those who’d just like to get their hands on a ship’s wheel and steer, we will have a new hands-on helm station complete with ship’s wheel and engine order telegraph. Highlighting the building’s history as the old Naval Reserve Armory and the Maritime Gallery’s original function as a bridge deck mock-up, the helm station should be in place this fall!

The Mosquito Fleet touch table and the mapping station are currently in the planning and design stages. It takes a certain amount of resources to bring exhibits into the 21^st Century and these are no exception. The combined cost of the two exhibits will reach over $150,000, of which a large portion is being generously donated by the McCurdy Family. The rest must be made up of grants and individual donations. Details on a campaign to raise funds for these projects will be coming your way soon!

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

A year ago PSM took possession of a large cache of ships plans drawn by the late, renowned naval architect Edwin Monk Sr., along with a collection of photographs and artifacts. These plans, photos, and objects, while well organized, require proper archival storage and cataloging. It will be a big job! UW Information School interns Jodi Myers and Suzanne LeDoux have laid the groundwork for us by formally assessing the collection and estimating the resources (time, money, personnel) required to complete conservation. They have also drafted a user guide for staff and volunteers working on the conservation project. This work will be a big help to us as we plan our collections work and seek grants to fund it.

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Special thanks to the McCurdy Family for initial funding of our exhibits enhancement project; Christina Januszewski, UW Museology intern, for researching and designing the mapping station; MOHAI for donating the touch table console; the Harbor Club of Seattle for donating the ship’s wheel; James McCurdy Sr. for donating the engine room telegraph; Jodi Myers and Suzanne LeDoux, UW iSchool interns, for assessing the archival and cataloging needs of the Edwin Monk Sr. Ships Plans Collection; and students of the UW Museology Program for evaluating our gallery visitor experience and pointing us toward the future.

* Scuttlebutt: a cask of water with a hole allowing sailors to get a drink; a place to exchange news and gossip; news and gossip!