WIZARD OF HARWICH

The greats of one-design sailing past and present know how and where to find the boatwright of champions.

- JOE BERKELEY

Karl Anderson is working in his shop when he stops to answer what should be a straightforward question: How many boats do you own? After a lengthy pause, the 64-year-old responds, "I don't even know." Yet the answer can be found with a thorough inspection of the grounds outside the door of Karl's Boat Shop in Harwich, Massachusetts. What a passing motorist on Great Western Road might assume is just another Cape Cod nautical junkyard has an eclectic collection of vessels ranging from beautifully maintained racers to unfinished projects. Anderson owns a lot of them-some by choice, a few by trade, but most by chance or unpaid invoices.

When I pay him a visit, and our discussion turns to an obscure design by Ray Hunt, Anderson perks up. "I have one of those in the woods out back," he says. "You can have it if you want it." This is not an attempt to bribe a reporter into writing a more favorable story, just a fact that it is there for the taking.

One reason Anderson has so many boats in his possession is because he has always had a fondness for things that float (or should float). He learned to sail on the waters of Cape Cod in general and Dennis in particular, first in Turnabouts and then in O'Day Widgeons. His first Rhodes 18 was a boat that had washed up on shore, upside down with the centerboard stuck in it.