The Rev. Robert “Bobby” Ives was honored at an ice cream social on July 8, at the Carpenter’s Boat Shop in Pemaquid.
Hundreds of friends, family, volunteers and apprentices, former and current, gathered for the celebration to recognize the long ministry and retirement of Rev. Ives.
For more than 30 years, Ives has led the Carpenter’s Boat Shop, which he founded in 1979 with his late wife, Ruth.
The lawn party featured a program of music by Castlebay, prayer, communal song and praise, including a “Litany of Celebration.”
The “Litany” began, in part, with “Bobby, for many years we have been on a journey together, sailing the same seas, sharing the same meals, living in the same community, crossing the same paths. Even if we have traveled far from this safe harbor, our lives have been touched by your life and ministry.”
Bobby Ives is a Quaker minister who wanted to start a school for apprentice boat-builders that would also influence their lives beyond the trade. His vision has changed the lives of hundreds of people.
The Carpenter’s Boat Shop began in an old chicken barn. It grew into a program to help apprentices find their life calling. In each session, 10 boat shop apprentices are provided with the necessities of life: room, board, clothing, etc. They pay no tuition, and receive no monetary payment.
What apprentices receive goes beyond what monetary payment could offer: boat-building skills and immersion into a contemplative and balanced life. They live communally and simply together for nine months.
The selection process for the nine-month apprenticeship program is surprisingly simple. An interested prospect must visit and stay at the school for three days. “They can’t apply until they’ve come for three days to experience it,” Ives said. “It is a life commitment.”
Eighty percent of the apprentices arrive at the boat shop without any tool experience. They spend the first two weeks learning basic carpentry skills and building a toolbox and Shaker lap desk.
The third week, the 10 apprentices divide themselves into two groups and each group constructs a boat. When they launch their boats “the test”, Ives said, “is self-explanatory.”
Apprentices build small craft to order, and readily welcome donated boats to repaire, refit, and sell to support the boat shop’s mission.
Ives said his inspiration for the apprentices is patterned after Benedictine monks. “The Benedictine tradition of striving for balance in life has held true for 1500 years,” he said. “At the boat shop, every day is balanced by the principles central to that (Benedictine) philosophy: work, worship, prayer, hospitality, and service.”
“It’s simply put ‘hands to work, hearts to God,” he said, quoting the Shakers, a religion with roots related to Ives’ own Quaker background.
Though contemplative prayer is part of the day, the boat shop is strictly nondenominational.
The Ives’ raised three children Hilda, Jonathan and Hannah in the community they created at the Carpenter’s Boat Shop. Ruth Ives, who founded the Community Housing Improvement Project (CHIP Inc.), passed away in 2006. Their grandchildren Simone and Ian Wiley, played happily on the lawn at the celebration on Sunday.
Bobby Ives married Phyllis Lockhart in August 2010, a friend and boat shop board member.
Ives has plans to keep busy after retiring and continues to follow his uncommon path of ministry. “I think we’ll go to Scotland, and I’ll help around here,” he said, referring to the boat shop. There is no doubt in his mind the Carpenter’s Boat Shop will continue its unique mission of helping people in transition find peace and purpose.
Ives leaves his beloved Carpenter’s Boat Shop in the hands of a woman who found her own inspiration there, as a newly graduated high schooler, Kim Hoare came to the boat shop in 1985 with a church youth group from the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church. They slept on the floors of the shop and worked on area housing repairs for CHIP Inc.
Hoare returned as an advisor for that same youth group from Basking Ridge, NJ. for many summer weeklong work camps. In 1996, she became an apprentice at the Boat Shop, then stayed on for two more years serving as an instructor in the boat shop.
Over the years, she has served as a summer class instructor and as a member of the board of directors.
Under Hoare’s leadership, Carpenter’s Boat Shop apprentices will continue to build Catspaw dinghies, Matinicus peapods, Monhegan skiffs, Single Adirondack Chairs, Double Adirondack Chairs, baby boat cradles with rockers, and numerous chairs and wooden beach toys.
“The boat shop has played a transformational role in my life just as it has for hundreds of apprentices over the years,” said Hoare. “I’m honored and humbled to be called to carry on the mission of the boat shop into the future as we continue to be a community that is dedicated to “building boats, nurturing lives, and helping others.”
Speaking of the Carpenter’s Boat Shop running without his direction, Ives said, “The schooner has been launched. Kim can sail it. She has a great board of directors and volunteers to lead.”
The litany of celebration concluded with the fitting sound of hundreds of voices saying in unison, “Our gratitude, thoughts and prayers will keep traveling along with you, until you return to our midst with new gifts and blessings to offer. As you set off to sail new seas, know that your blessings are multiplied by the work of our hands.”
For more information on the Carpenter’s Boat Shop, call 677-2614, or write to 440 Old Country Rd., Pemaquid, 04558. The Carpenter’s Boat Shop also offers summer hiatus classes in boat building, woodworking, building oars and paddles, and others.
Instruction usually lasts a week, with tuition, and room and board fees.
