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Jon Bielinski
Jon Bielinski is a book author, journalist, boatbuilder, rower and elected boat captain at the Dolphin Club. Since 1984, as the on-staff boatwright, Jon has restored the club fleet, built eight new rowboats (including the Spectre, Cecco, Bruno, Haake, Kapuna, and Semper Fi ) and led the 100-mile annual Dolphin Club row to Sacramento.

Jon's 1985 book entitled Building the Block Island boat Annabelle is about the boat he built as part of his boat building master's thesis. Annabelle has served as his primary residence since he built it.

Jon's 1982 magazine article entitled "San Francisco's Oldest Rowing Clubs" describes the 150 years of friendly rivalry and boat building by the rowing clubs.

Jon served as Secretary for the Shipwrights' Co-Op in Sausalito.

Articles about Jon
SF Gate Article

Bielinski sources much of his wood from a grove in Isleton (Sacramento County), where he has permission to fell a few trees a year. He then trucks the logs back to the Dolphin Club and mills them in his workshop.

"It changes how people think about boats once they realize what goes into keeping it shiny and watertight," Bielinski said. "No one ever crashes a boat once they've worked on it."

SF Gate ArticleBielinski is the club's boat builder, a master of an ancient and almost lost art. "What we wanted to do," he said, "was to give a cultural rowing tradition for generations of San Franciscans to come."

There are 82 ribs of black locust wood, picked, said Bielinski, for its strength and resistance to rot. The ribs, like those on a human chest, give the vessel its shape.

The topside has gotten six coats of varnish. It glistens like a jewel. "Wood," said Bielinski, "is the life of the boat."

The boat can make six knots -- "It can scream across the water," said Bielinski -- but it was built for pleasure, not racing.

Articles by Jon in Wooden Boat Magazine
"San Francisco's Oldest Rowing Clubs," 40:46

"The People's Timber," 45:46

"The Shipwrights' Co-op: A Report from the Inside," 34:38

Currents, 217:12

Letter on Jeremy Fischer-Smith, 41:9

Comments/San Francisco's rowing clubs, 155:32

Currents, 217:12