I first met Charlie Ladoulis at Monmouth Boat Club and knew he sailed a dark blue Pearson Ensign. (That is how you get to know people in sailing.) Charlie and his wife, Barbara, were regular participants in MBC events, and while I have only a vague memory of it, in 1998, at a social event, Charlie approached me with the idea of community boat building. It may well be that somebody else at the boat club had told Charlie that I was a wooden boat maven, even though at that time my boat was an old and nasty red fiberglass Lightning. I was game and told him I would bring in tools and join in on any type of community boatbuilding effort. If I remember correctly, Charlie was already further ahead and had picked out the six-hour canoe as the project, and he formed a committee to which I was shanghaied. The organization of the event was particularly smooth. The club would host it and there were quite a number of members, friends, and family who decided to join in. Charlie and Barbara decided to test the waters a bit more carefully and independently built a prototype at their house before the event. That canoe served for many years and in its most popular livery was called Icecube. The event went off without a hitch. Which means that we improvised, but it was all part of the fun. The day of the event it was raining, but we just found a bunch of tarps and suspended them between the clubhouse cranes and picnic tables and used oars as additional canopy supports. Charlie decided that we needed to make it an annual event so we might as well start an organization to run the event. He put together a small team consisting of Bob Nogueira, Gayle Horvath, Ken Jewell, and me, with occasional help from many other enthusiasts. It was decided to call it Navesink Maritime Heritage Association and in 1999 we were off to the races. Charlie was properly punished for drawing us all in and was elected President, a position he filled enthusiastically year after year. Navesink Maritime and Charlie were a perfect match. They were alter egos. Charlie was intellectually restless. He loved exploring and picking at the seams of life to see what popped up. But remarkably, while he was peripatetic in action and intellect, he had the drive and persistence to turn his ideas into realities and he did this by being friendly, social, and inclusive and doing it as efficiently as possible with minimum expenditure of resources. And Navesink Maritime does this to this day. From the inception of Navesink Maritime, Charlie felt we needed a proper home. There were many experiments. A container at Chris's Landing was hidden among the reeds, poison ivy, and shrubbery and for a period of time we rented an abandoned battery distribution warehouse. All these solutions had their weird charm, but none were sufficiently effective. But Charlie kept scouting while leading dozens of other fun and innovative efforts such as wooden boat shows, public presentations, more boat building, River Rangers, and advocating for river access. And then he scored. He discovered that the Grover house was falling apart due to neglect and lack of tenants and he made a deal with Middletown that turned the Grover house into NMHA's headquarters. I will admit that I was not over-inspired based on the dismal condition of the interior, but at least there was a nice basement for our gear and a place to park the trailers. Charlie marshaled the troops and worked with some to obtain grants, others to get more information on historic restoration, and others to design a workable layout for the interior. We were all swept up and this year marks the 10th anniversary of Navesink Maritime's home base. It could not have happened without Charlie Ladoulis and is a testament to persistence with a light touch. Thanks, Charlie, for your friendship and inspiration. There are fair winds now for sailing and exploring in catboat heaven; it is the way we will always think of you. Rik van Hemmen |