By TERRYL ASLA
tasla@soundpublishing.com

BROWNSVILLE — The new spars and masts were ready in the spar barn. The cabin top beams were laminated and waiting in the shop. All that was needed was warm weather.

On May 28, with the return of sunshine, work resumed on the schooner “Fiddler’s Dream.” The 48-foot, steel-hulled schooner spent the winter moored at the Port of Brownsville, covered with white shrink-wrap cocoon — a necessity since the main cabin and chart house lacked overheads (“roofs,” in landlubber terms).

That Saturday, professional shipwright Scotty Kimmitt oversaw volunteers who were helping him with joining and placing of the cabin top beams (“rafters”) for the two cabins. Kimmitt, who brings 35 years of experience to the restoration currently lives in Olympia. However he and his wife, Alicia, have been so impressed with the Brownsville-Keyport-Poulsbo area that they are house-hunting and planning to move here.

“Scotty’s just great,” said Captain John (J.B.) Morrison, the “Fiddler’s Dream” project manager.

“We are going to be doing hands-on teaching with school children once the ship is done, and you can’t have a more precious cargo. So Scotty is helping assure we are building everything to the highest standards — all of the materials, the safety gear, the hull are going to be top notch when we get our U.S. Coast Guard Certificate of Inspection.”

(Morrison himself has been skipper. and overseen refits, of the Washington tall ships Hawaiian Chieftain and Lady Washington, and was a safety captain for the movie “Master and Commander.”)

Ultimately, to assure that kind of safety and quality, all of the original decks, cabins, masts and spars had to be scrapped.

“The ship had been sitting out, untended, at the Port of Poulsbo for several years before it was donated to us,” Morrison said. “The deck leaked and many of the top beams and the masts had rotted.”

The 2006 two-masted, gaff-rigged schooner resembles the cod schooners that plied local waterways between the late 1800s and the mid-1940s, according to the Kitsap Maritime Heritage Foundation, also located at the Port of Brownsville. The foundation plans to use the schooner for STEM education with local students when she goes back to sea.

The foundation has a matching gift and, depending on the speed with which donations and grants continue to come in, the ship could be completed as early as this October. At the latest, plans call for “Fiddler’s Dream” to be completed by summer 2017.

Individuals interested in volunteering to help with the restoration (no experience necessary) or making donations should go to www.kitsapmaritime.com, visit the office, or call 360-633-7421.