PORT LUDLOW — Legendary boat builder R.M. “Tolly” Tollefson, whose trendsetting designs created a loyal fleet of Tollycraft Yacht owners, celebrated his 99th birthday with many of his friends and fans Saturday.
Some motored into Port Ludlow Marina from around Puget Sound aboard the famous wooden and fiberglass boats built by the company Tollefson founded in 1952.
The Seattle Tollycraft Club threw the birthday bash at the Harbormaster Restaurant. That club is the largest Tollycraft Club, followed by the Canadian Tollycraft Club and another in Portland, Ore., the original club founded nearly 35 years ago.
It is not unusual for the Canadian and Northwest U.S. clubs to cruise 140 boats to the annual June rendezvous at Roche Harbor on San Juan Island.
“They bring the parties to me now instead of me going to them,” Tollefson said, smiling as he sat in his spacious Port Ludlow home overlooking Port Ludlow Bay and the marina where his own Tollycraft, appropriately named Tolly, is moored.
In the past, he has been known to greet Tollycraft owners after spying them cruising into Port Ludlow Bay with binoculars.
As he moves closer to the century mark, Tollefson has lived longer than either his father, who died at 96, or his grandfather, who died at 98.
“Luckily, I came from a family line that lives long,” Tollefson said in his home office, which is decorated with sketches and photos of his yachts and plaques honoring a long, successful career.
In one corner is a wooden chair he finely crafted in high school for his mother. Nearby is a scenic oil painting he created at 13.
His natural artistic skills were what led him to architectural school at the University of Oregon, in Eugene, which he attended for two years before the Great Depression cut his education short.
He moved to Kelso, where he worked in real estate and insurance to survive.
“He gave up college to put food on the family table,” said Scott Fultz, Tollefson’s caretaker for the past year and a half, a man who has been in Tollefson’s life for 50 years, both as an employee and close friend.
Tollefson will be endowing much of his estate to the University of Oregon, with the understanding that it might help architectural students who have fallen on hard times.
Strolling, not sailing
Tollefson’s wit, charm and sharpness of mind remains, but he said his eyes, ears and body are failing to the point that he can no longer take his 48-foot blue-hulled beauty out for a cruise.
He now strolls about using a walker and deals with arthritis in his neck that he said makes it difficult to stand up straight.
He recovered from a bad fall early last year that seriously injured his back.
“You begin to wear out in places,” he said, talking about the fact that most recently his doctor was concerned about his low blood pressure.
A Port Ludlow resident for 20 years, Tollefson said he has no regrets.
He points to a plaque on the wall, the Jerry C. Bryant Award, named for a friend in marine industry, as a highlight of his life.
The Nov. 9, 2006, plaque honors Tollefson, former vice president of the National Marine Trades Association, for “Most outstanding contribution to the marine industry by an individual within the industry.”
Born in Stites, Idaho, on Jan. 24, 1911, to his father, Theo, and mother, Mae Decker, he was raised on a farm. When he was 8 years old, the family moved to Portland, Ore.
Introduction to boating
His first real introduction to boating was during high school when he spent two summers at Silver Lake, Ore.
He recalls a man from San Diego pulled in with a wooden speed boat, giving him a chance to learn how to drive it.
His father bought him a set of tools, encouraging him to work with wood.
Although he got the boating bug early in life, his chance to build his own wooden watercraft did not come until after he left the Coast Guard as a lieutenant following World War II.
His adventures during the war included an 18-month tour of duty to the South Pacific as captain of a 150-foot salvage-rescue tugboat.
In 1946, he purchased a lumberyard and millwork plant and operated it until it was destroyed by fire in 1952.
The same year he founded Tollycraft Yachts with five employees, paying the same union-scale wages he paid at the mill.
A larger plant was opened in 1959 near the Kelso airport. There, over a period of 35 years, more than 6,000 boats and yachts were built, a reason why Tollefson has been called “a man of many boats.”
Tollefson retired in 1987 at age 76, selling the company, which had more than 400 employees at the time.
The company later went out of business under another ownership.
From smaller to larger
When Tollefson began, he built 14-foot and 16-foot plywood boats covered with Fiberglas with outboard motors.
When he stated building larger boats, he used his architectural training to sketch the boat profiles and sent the drawings to naval architect Ed Monk, who drew the final designs.
Monk, and later his son, Ed Monk Jr., designed all of the Tollycrafts for Tollefson.
His yachts eventually grew from 28 to 61 feet over time.
“I am very grateful to the Monks for all they did,” he said.
Tollefson said he often toured boat-building companies in Europe and elsewhere to see what they were doing, and always left knowing his company was on the cutting edge.
“We used technology coming out of Boeing to get us on the right course as beginners,” he said.
Tollefson still gets fan mail from Tollycraft owners, as well as their children.
“I’ve had a very successful life,” he said. “I’ve got no complaints.”
________
Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.