Dr. Alexander Graham Bell

Dr. Alexander Graham Bell

Bell Memorial, Ontario

The receiver was located by the river back and between the house and this point there was a coil representing five miles of wire. First of all some squeaking sounds were heard and finally a human voice could be faintly discerned. Other similar tests were carried out at this time.

In 1876 demonstrations on an exceedingly small scale were made at the Tutela Heights home. It was on August 5 th of that year that a few personal friends were invited to take part in the first public exposition.

The family settled at Tutela Heights, Brantford, Ont., and it was there that young Bell carried out his experiments with telephony. He used a human ear in his investigatory work.

Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, and widely known scientist and investigator, died at his home on Beinn Bhreagh Mountain, Baddeck, C. B., on Wednesday, aged 75 years. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1847, Dr. Alexander Graham Bell came to Canada in 1870 and later in 1872 he settled in Boston, where he was called to the chair of vocal physiology at Boston University, there introducing the system of visible speaking invented by his father, Alexander Melville Bell.

In these days when the nations of the world are bending every effort to increase their aerial fleets, it is interesting to note that the first airplane flight within the British Empire, with probably the first machine ever constructed within the Empire, took place in Canada on the shores of Bras d’Or Lake, near Baddeck, in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, this province having many other “firsts” to its credit. It was on a day in February, 1909, the 23 rd , that a rather weird contraption took off from the ground and flew through the air over the lake, which was covered with ice at the time, a distance of half a mile. The next day four and a half miles were covered at a height of 30 feet, and on March 10 th all previous records were broken when the machine flew 20 miles. Sounds puny in these days but at the time it was a momentous event. The machine was called the Silver Dart and was constructed in the workshop of the late Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, which he maintained at Baddeck in connection with his summer home there. These flights were made by J. A. D. McCurdy in association with F. W. Baldwin, now a member of the Nova Scotia legislature, and the late Lieutenant Selfridge of the United States Army for whom Selfridge airfield, near Detroit, is named. Five months later the machine cracked up at Petawawa military camp in Ontario when being flown by Baldwin in a demonstration before military authorities. The engine of the Silver Dart, states the Tourist Department of the Canadian National Railways, is now housed in the aeronautical museum recently established in the building of the National Research Council in Ottawa along with models of propellors carved by the late Dr. Graham Bell while working out methods of aerial propulsion.

THE REGISTER

Berwick, Nova Scotia

Thursday, November 8,
1956

Baddeck Boat-Building
Success Developed From Yacht For Bell

BADDECK, Nov. 6 – If the late Dr. Alexander
Graham Bell of telephone fame hadn’t wanted a yacht built it
would be unlikely that Baddeck would be boasting of the
Pinaud Yacht yard today. It was the great inventor’s decision
to have a yacht built at Baddeck and he invited Walter Pinaud
here to do it. Mr. Pinaud liked Baddeck so well he decided to
stay and that is why today in eastern States and many parts
of Canada the name Pinaud is synonomous with high quality
yachts.

This bit of local history dates back about a
half century when Dr. Bell, after gaining world fame through
his invention of the telephone, spent a number of months each
year at his palatial home near Baddeck carrying out inventive
experiments. At the same time Walter Pinaud and his two
brothers were building yachts in a yard near Sydney.

Even in the few years they had been in
Sydney, the Pinauds had established reputations as builders
of fine yachts. That was why Walter was selected by the
discriminating Dr. Bell to build a yacht for cruising on the
beautiful Bras d’Or Lakes and the rougher ocean waters
outside.

This event that ha its beginning by Mr.
Pinaud’s association with the famed inventor led to the
establishment of the Pinaud Yacht Yard and the solid
entrenchment of Baddeck as one of the leading centres for the
building of top quality yachts in the Atlantic provinces.

In the years that lay between the laying of
the keel for Dr. Bell’s yacht and the present day, Walter
Pinaud and his sons have built dozens of yachts – sail and
power, large and small.

As quality appears to be the keynote to
success in any business so it is with the Pinaud yard
nestling in a little cove within the shelter of scenic
Baddeck harbor. That quality that has become a hall-mark for
Pinaud-built yachts was reflected in the craft built for Dr.
Bell. So well pleased was the Bell family with the yacht that
Dr. Bell’s daughter and her husband, Dr. Gilbert Grosvenor,
now retired president of the National Geographic Society,
ordered a 54-foot yawl to be built at the Pinaud yard. That
yawl still sails. Years ago it was one of the craft which
took part in the races for the Coronation Trophy at Halifax.
Later Mr. Pinaud built a yacht for Dr. Grosvenor’s son, Dr.
Melville Grosvenor, assistant editor of the Nat-

(Continued on Page 8)

BADDECK BOAT-BUILDING SUCCESS
DEVELOPED FROM YACHT FOR BELL

(Continued from Page 1)

ional Geographic Magazine.

The founder of the Pinaud yard came from a
family long identified with the sea and ships. His father,
martin Pinaud fished out of Prince Edward Island and built
the boats from which he fished. Walter Pinaud’s two brothers,
John and Wilfred were boat designers and builders.

Walter Pinaud’s association with Dr. Bell was
a memorable one. He had a big hand in building the fastest
boat in the world of its day. That was during the First World
War when Dr. Bell designed the famous HD-4, a hydro-plane
type of boat that was propelled by an airplane engine. With
its throttle wide open it could skim over the water more than
70 miles an hour. It was designed as a motor torpedo boat but
the war ended before the experiment was completed.

As Mr. Pinaud’s sons grew, he instilled in
them an interest in the craft that he and his father before
him followed. It was an avocation that came to the boys
naturally. Today the pair of them, Ralph and Fred Pinaud are
actively associated with their father in the yacht yard. Even
Mr. Pinaud’s daughter
Catherine, couldn’t resist the lure of the sea and boats. She
is employed in the yard office and has the same appreciation
for the beauty of design and performance as her father and
brothers have.

The Pinauds build pleasure craft exclusively.
They range from sixty-foot yawls and motor cruisers to
sailing and power craft under 30 feet. One of the latter
types designed recently by the Pinaud family is a 27-foot
sloop. Their first one was built for R. A. Borden, grandson
of the late Sir Robert Borden, a Canadian prime minister
during the First World War. This sloop is becoming popular
with yachtsmen and the Pinauds are ready to produce more the
same type.

Many of their boats are built wholly of Nova
Scotia wood. Oak, for the most part, comprises the frame,
keel and stem. Mahogany planking is used in some of the more
expensive types.

At the time this article was being written,
the yard was building a 42-foot, twin-engined power cruiser
for yachtsman of Hamilton, Ont. Having sleeping
accommodations for six to eight people, this craft was
planked with mahogany and had a deck of teak wood.

The Pinaud yard has kept well in step with
mechanical progress. While the same methods of exacting
craftsmanship are employed, power tools of various kinds make
the task less laborsome.

As in the case of most boat building firms in
Nova Scotia where craftsmanship is a “must”, there
is little shifting in employment. The firm’s key men have
been in the yard for years. There is 78-year old Rod MacLean
for instance. “He’s still going strong as a general
ship’s carpenter, and I’d hate to have to follow him”,
Ralph Pinaud observed. He had the same thing to say for
Maurice Watson, another veteran employee who has contributed
his part in the maintenance of the yard’s high quality of
workmanship.

While Pinauds design many of their own boats,
they also build boats to the specifications submitted by
firms of architects and designers. For instance, not long ago
they completed a 36-foot auxiliary sloop for a Minnesota
doctor according to specifications drawn by the prominent
firm of designers and brokers, Philip Rhodes, Inc., of New
York. The firm of Eldridge McGuiness Inc., of Boston, is
another company for which Pinauds have built yachts.

All the Pinauds like their work. Ralph Pinaud
says there is a continuing demand for pleasure craft and the
yard expects to keep going straight ahead.

In addition to the satisfaction of enjoying a
growing reputation for quality-built yachts, the Pinauds feel
they are contributing something worthwhile to the community’s
economy. And they are. It’s “fresh money” they’re
bringing in – money that would be missed if there were no
boats to build.

While boat-building is their livelihood, boat
sailing is a hobby with the Pinaud family. The elder Pinaud
sails a 36-foot cutter and he doesn’t wish for a better hand
to handle a sheet or the helm than his daughter Catherine.
Ralph is an accomplished sailor, and Walter was an
international snipeboat champion.

It was the great Dr. Bell who lured Walter
Pinaud to Baddeck. That was another good thing the famous
inventor accomplished because it did put Baddeck and Pinaud
Yacht Yard on the map, as a place where really fine yachts
are built.