Fritz (short for Frederick) has a tee-shirt that reads “Bundin er batlaus madur –bound is boatless man.”  He subscribes to Wooden Boat magazine and Messing About in Boats.  His grandparents on his mother’s side came from the fjords of Norway, so he is l/2 Norwegian.   He loves to build, repair, fish from, and journey in boats.  He spent the first thirteen years of his life in Sitka, living on Sheldon Jackson campus across the street from the beach, rowing with his neighborhood friend in a small wooden rowboat.

FRITZ AS A TEENAGER

When Fritz moved to Juneau as a teenager, his dad bought him a 16-foot wooden skiff and an 18-horse engine.  He began to teach himself how to repair and replace boat engines; how to wire and repair boat electronics; how to build wooden boats.

LEARNING TO SAIL

Fritz and I crewed on a 56-foot ketch, named the Red Witch, out of Juneau when we were 20.  We were running before a storm outside of Baranof Warm Springs when 19-year-old deckhand friend John raised the sail but over-stretched the winch’s reach.  Screw-bolted into the wood, it actually ripped out of the mast and hit John in the chest.  It could have killed him, but he was unhurt.  We made it back into the protection of the cove, where we all took hot tubs and hiked the hills of natural hot springs to avoid the raging captain carefully re-mantling the winch so we could continue on our journey.  A few days later we hit an unseen iceberg south of Juneau in Taku Inlet, heard the screaming blame of the captain one too many times and decided to leave the ship for good once back in Juneau. This was not the captain for us, but we certainly had sailing in our blood from then on.  Two things remain to this day – I am willing and capable of going out in any weather to deal with lines, then coil them carefully for the next person. The second is that I can tie a fast bowline knot, which I use to this day for tying up everything.

FIRST GUSTAVUS BOATS

In 1977, at the age of 23, we moved to Gustavus with our klepper kayak.  For the first three years or so, Fritz traveled in the kayak either alone or with a friend up into Glacier Bay for two weeks each spring.  About this time we found ourselves moving up in the boat world.  We first rescued a small plywood skiff from a Juneau beach.  After two years, we acquired the 22-foot Soleglad, meaning sunset in Norwegian.  This scow sloop with lee-boards had been built by Manual from Haines in 1952, the year of Fritz’s birth. Fritz and my brother-in-law Jim  sailed it down Lynn Canal and Icy Strait to Gustavus.  We spent the summer when our oldest daughter Lena was two years old sailing and motoring all over Glacier Bay.

As a mother, then 28 years old, I found myself losing confidence in myself when afraid for the safety of my child.  I was no longer the 20-year-old sailing off on the ocean among men deck mates.  Now I felt responsible for others.  It surprised me as much as Fritz that I worried so much on the sea.  Though I never got seasick, living on a small sailboat in Glacier Bay I had to deal with my fear to enjoy life on the water.  I kept a small journal.

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Robert Ernest Luders entered the world on June 20, 1923, in Berkeley, CA.

Bob’s mother, Alma Vass,  had graduated from art school in San Francisco.  She was an entrepreneur and owned a design shop with two other women in the city.  She had been invited to study art in France.  Bob says, “Fortunately for us, that’s right when she met my father, so that was the end of her art career and the beginning of a family.”  It was not an easy choice, but one she thought about carefully.

Bob’s grandparents came from a well-to-do family in Lübeck, Germany.  They moved to London in the mid-1800s.  As tensions between the English and Germans grew, Bob’s grandparents were urged to go back to Germany, but they opted to stay in London instead.  The family was extremely wealthy.  They had become interested in gas lighting, put a significant amount of their money into it and lost their fortune.  So, “disgraced,” they packed everything up, including the grand piano, and shipped it to Texas, then overland to California.  Bob’s uncle had purchased land in Bakersfield, California, sight unseen. They lost two European manor houses and ended up in a tar paper shack.  Bob’s uncle disappeared and his grandfather took one look at the place and folded; he died shortly after that. Bob’s father, Ernest, was now responsible for his mother, his two sisters and himself. Bob says, “In those days, in wealthier families, as soon as you were born you were given a silver spoon with your name engraved on it.”  The highly educated wealthy class didn’t “work;” they managed their estates and businesses.  For Ernest, however, when things got tough, you did anything you could to provide for your family.

In Bakersfield,  they started a farm, raising strawberries and produce.  They even planted an orchard. Unfortunately, the water they had been promised wasn’t always available.  At one point, the little irrigation water they received simply ran into a hole in the sand.  Their solution was to plug the hole by “planting” Bob’s Aunt Anna. That hole was so large that Anna stood in it and they shoveled sand around her.  They added sand until Anna was covered up to her hips.  With the area now covered with sand, the water was forced to the plants.

Eventually, they had to abandon the farm.  The land was worthless.  Although oil had been found in Bakersfield, none came from their property.  The good news was that because of the land boom, they were able to get jobs at the land office in town.  Then, an old acquaintance from Germany suggested they go to San Francisco where Ernest could get a job with Schwabacker-Frey, a large company selling stationery, photographic supplies and various printed items.  Then came the earthquake of  1906.  The business was destroyed, so Bob’s father worked during the clean-up and reconstruction.

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