Tributes to Brion Toss

RIGGER, HUSBAND, TEACHER, FRIEND …

by Scott Wilson & Ian Weedman

HONORING THE LIFE AND MEMORY OF THE EXTRAORDINARY BRION TOSS

It’s cliche to say that they just don’t make them like that anymore, but it’s been something we’ve heard often and from many sources in the days since Brion Toss passed away.

Brion was a Renaissance Man, with talents and interests ranging across the spectrum of human endeavor. Walking into his eclectic rigging loft beside Point Hudson Marina in Port Townsend on any given day, you might indeed find him fabricating standing rigging and tucking splices for a customer’s boat, engaged in the traditional business of rigging. But you might equally find him working on lightweight, fire-safe ways to secure helicopter seats for the U.S. Navy, or drumming up a storm on odd bits of hardware with staccato and hypnotic rhythms he came up with himself, or demonstrating a manual of arms with his katana, or paging through the latest science fiction thriller.

He did all of it with wit, wisdom, keen insight, and speaking and writing skills that put professional speakers and writers to shame. And all while serving as the most devoted husband on the planet; his love for and dedication to his bride, Christian, were the stuff of legend. There was no surer way to see a smile on that bearded face than to ask him for a story about her—and he had many.

Sometimes, it seemed entirely unfair to the rest of us that all that love, wisdom, talent, and knowledge be fused in one mortal soul.

And it makes it that much more unfair that mortality has now reached out and reclaimed that soul and all those talents.

But underlying all those things, Brion was one other thing: a teacher. And because of that, those gifts will live on.

He reached many people through his books, such as The Rigger’s Apprentice or Chapman’s Guide to Knots, or his famous

rigging workshops; but the teacher in him just never switched off, even in the most stressful of circumstances. One freezing February day in Port Hadlock, with the northerly whipping down past Kala Point along the fetch of Port Townsend to smash up against the sliver of beach next to Port Hadlock Marina, Christian’s family boat, the 98-foot, hundred-year-old, M/V Lotus, broke her mooring and went aground. Boat groundings are a bit like barn raisings in that the whole community turns out to pitch in with the salvage effort, and with a nearly hundred foot vessel ashore, that help came from all over: students from the Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building, the crew and captain of the Adventuress, various local marine tradesmen and sailors. And, of course, Brion, enlisted to the all-important task of building the system of bridles and tow lines to evenly distribute the massive forces that the tugs would impart on those old wooden bones. Around one in the morning, the tide inexorably rising, hammers and pumps sending up a clatter along the icy beach, a crowd formed around Lotus’s pitched over fantail. From the center of it, braced against the stern post, Brion’s stentorian tones emerged as he expounded on the relative merits of esoteric sling techniques like yippies and whoopies and their applications in modern cordage as he worked. Even under such stress, in such trying conditions, Brion’s most ingrained impulse was to share his knowledge with the community. Like many great teachers, he was also an avid learner. Brion came to rigging through knots. His fascination with puzzles drew him to the simultaneous complexity and simplicity of splices and knots, and his range of curiosity pulled him into the systems that could be built from them. But he was always sensible of having come into a larger and longer tradition, and respectful of his place in it. He learned it well; improved it where there was room; and shared it with others as best he could. Sharing it became integral to his conception of how to improve it, creating something unique that changed the rigging world forever.

He apprenticed under Nick Benton, whose First Rule of Rigging was firmly underlined by The Rigger’s Apprentice. While working with Nick, he once showed someone else how Nick had taught him to do something. Nick was upset that Brion had passed along what Nick had felt was a trade secret. Brion told him, “But if we share this with people, we get more work!”

His business reflected that mindset as well, a virtuous loop of teaching that led to more clients and more interesting problems to pit his mind against. He once wrote, “All of this activity makes for a rich and complex working environment that is, as far as I know, unique among rigging shops. I love it because it provides not just opportunities for interesting technical challenges, but also for interactions with some truly fascinating people, our clients.”

Even as the cancer progressed, he never stopped working. He would be the first one in to the shop and never failed to engage with clients and visitors and to bring all his passion for the business of rigging and all his other interests.

Brion with long-time apprentice, friend, and business partner, Ian Weedman.

Brion was still teaching, both in the rigorous and mathematical subjects of his chosen profession, but also in the larger, metaphysical realm. He never shied away from the reality of his diagnosis, but right up until the end, he spent his days full of the same passion and engagement as every other day of his life. He was showing us how to live a full and meaningful life even as his was fading.

He might have learned this from watching his friend and fellow legend in the sailing community, Freeman Pittman, pass away from ALS in 1996. Afterward, Brion wrote of him: “…imagine the most gracious, dynamic, caring, intelligent, and attentive friend you could ever have, and then somehow try to imagine that friend staying that way, while losing everything.”

But he might just as well have been describing himself.

That loss, for us, will only be for as much of him as we allow to fade. The tradition at Brion Toss Yacht Rigging will continue in Ian Weedman and his crew’s capable hands, “following the loads,” as Brion always said—making sailing safer and easier for sailors around the region.

Well-thumbed copies of The Rigger’s Apprentice stand on a thousand shelves aboard a thousand boats around the world. Brion left us with hundreds of pages of his beautifully articulated thoughts, thousands of sailors and riggers he trained or influenced, and many, many friends inspired by his warmth, passion, and courage.

In his honor, those of us who knew him, however briefly, carry the lessons he taught us and pass them on, and on, and on.

Photos courtesy of Brion’s beloved bride, Christian Gruyere. 17 JULY 2020

BRION TOSS Rigger, Writer, Raconteur, Inventor, Innovator, and Educator

Brion Toss slipped his earthly mooring on June 6th, surrounded by loved ones at the Port Townsend home he shared with his beloved wife, Christian. A massive circle of friends, family, by Carol Hasse and colleagues will miss his indomitable, risible, and kind spirit! The weeks since he passed have seen an outpouring of love and grateful remembrances from offshore sailors and customers from Dubai to Tasmania; and from the editors of Sail, Cruising World, Wooden Boat and Practical Sailor magazines to which he contributed. It’s all a testament to his legacy and renown, and the many gifts he’s given to the marine trades and anyone lucky enough to know him.

Brion’s accomplishments in his 69 years are awe-inspiring. He was devoted to his family, community, and chosen craft; and to sharing the knowledge, humor, and delight he found every day in his Point Hudson rigging loft, on the waterfront, or at his writing desk.

Brion’s itinerant radio announcer father and remarkably outgoing mother settled in Seattle in the late 1950s with their four precocious children. Brion’s siblings include a poet, a painter, and the engineer of the propulsion system of Paul Allen’s submersible. Brion and his brother Keith, who later trained as an opera singer, shared ballet lessons as children.

A 1969 graduate of Wallingford’s Lincoln High, Brion had “turned hippie” and eschewed college to chart his own course. He refused to sign up for the draft and spent time protesting the Vietnam War and marching for civil rights, playing the drums, and building stages for rock festivals.

For Brion, it was Ashley’s Book of Knots that proved most inspirational to his life’s work. The elegance, strength and specific utility of knots—and Brion’s natural ability to understand, replicate, and create them—led to self-employment selling and demonstrating fancy rope work at street fairs, Seattle’s Center for Wooden Boats, and Port Townsend’s first Wooden Boat Festivals.

In the heady days of the mid-70s renaissance for Northwest marine trades, sailmaker Emiliano Marino, boat builder David Jackson, and Brion Toss started businesses in Anacortes.

Though setting-up shop on the other side of the water, it was at Port Townsend’s second Wooden Boat Festival in 1978 that Brion met his mentor: Rhode Island traditional rigger, Nick Benton. Nick inspired Brion to pursue tall ship and yacht rigging, where Brion’s prodigious knotting and splicing skills

and experience (including long splicing a Seattle apartment building’s elevator cable) would serve well, and hopefully take him around the world.

Brion met his first wife, Maine sailmaker Robin Lincoln, when she was staffing a Wooden Boat magazine booth at the 1980 boat show at the King Dome. They married in Brooklin, where Brion set up a rigging shop.

Brion’s ensuing six years included four months rigging the three-masted barque Elissa in Galveston, and six months rigging and sailing the great tall ship Sea Cloud in Greece. In Maine, he rigged Arctic explorer schooner Bowdoin and local windjammers. He wrote articles, taught rigging classes for Wooden Boat magazine, and performed as “Mr. Knot” in the PBS TV series “Under Sail.”

There were pilgrimages to Nick Benton’s rig shop and to meet one of Clifford Ashley’s daughters at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Brion wrote much of his acclaimed first book, The Rigger’s Apprentice, during this period. He had accomplished so much, but his marriage was on the rocks. Following participation in the 1986 NYC Parade of Sail, Brion returned to the Pacific Northwest and set up his rigging shop in Point Hudson.

Brion’s business and brilliant apprentices have contributed enormously to Port Townsend’s marine trades’ renown, economy, and to Wooden Boat Festivals over the last 34 years. Brion wrote three more books, not including his nearly finished How to Rig Your Boat, and created more than 10 instructional DVDs.

He held hands-on seminars in his shop and lectured at Annapolis, Oakland and Seattle Boat Shows, and in Wooden Boat Festivals in Port Townsend, Homer, and Hobart.

Dearest to his heart was his bride, Christian Gruyere. She had hoped to apprentice with him, but instead became his wife of 26 years, an active part of the business, and constant companion on rigging jobs and lecture tours from Florida to France, and Alaska to Auckland.

Brion’s most recent tallship projects included rigging the schooner Sugartime in Hawaii and the full-scale replica of the Columbia Rediviva at Disneyland.

He attained a second degree black belt in Aikido, learned to play the marimba, entertained all with puns, and “Aye” was a dedicated keeper of the traditional nautical lexicon.

The uncertainty of Brion’s health inspired his local Northwest Maritime Center and Wooden Boat Foundation community to honor him with its first Maritime Hall of Fame award. It was bestowed with family and friends in his shop in early August, and again at Port Townsend’s 2019 Wooden Boat Festival.

Brion leaves a big void on the working waterfront, and in the hearts of his family and friends. But what we will miss most is his melodious booming laughter—the sound of his true delight wafting across the harbor, often from a masthead. Thank you for your many gifts, Brion Toss. Fair leads.