Nestled deep in the woods of Mt. Pickett, six miles from the closest viable boat launch—six miles down steep, narrow dirt roads riddled with switchbacks and trees—lies a slowly deteriorating, eighty-foot-long, fifty-ton ship. The ship is known as Aproximada, and it is the ephemeral remnant of a seemingly unfathomable dream by Orcas Islander App Applegate.
In the 1970s, Applegate, a retired physics and chemistry professor, began crafting the three-masted barkentine sailing vessel from Douglas firs on his own property. While most ships this size are built by a team of a hundred, App began his endeavor alone, designing Aproximada almost entirely by mathematics without blueprints. App relied solely on a hand calculator and reams of paper. And, what started as a project that in App's words, would be done in two years, became a thirty-year odyssey. His ultimate dream was to launch from Obstruction Pass one day and sail to Cuba.
Some might ask why someone, anyone, would decide to build a ship on an island in the middle of the woods at four hundred feet above sea level without knowing how the vessel would be transported to the coastal waterways. These factors never deterred App. In fact, even as the years then decades crawled past, this man (barely five-feet tall), never outgrew his idealism.
After word spread on the island that App was constructing the ship by himself, islanders showed up at his Mt. Pickett property, asking the simple question: Can I help? No one was ever turned away. Instead, they were invited aboard the Aproximada, treated to coffee and stories, and, yes, put to work. App's longtime companion, Rivkah Sweedler, who enjoyed what she refers to as shared-solitude with App for almost two decades, reflects fondly upon her time with him, "The journey was not the planned trip to launch and sail the ship. The real journey was the actual experience of working with App.”
In an era where the path of least resistance and shortcuts are preferred, App's story truly stands out. App and the Aproximada are reminders that we create our own world by the way we choose to see it, and there is power in perseverance. In the end, for those neighbors who worked side-by-side with the shipbuilder until his death at the age of 94, there were no regrets that the Aproximada never sailed the Salish Sea. Being a part of App Applegate’s dream was never about building a ship—it was about helping a neighbor build a dream.
—Essay by Samuel W. Gailey, from Ōde
To see a photo of App Applegate, read Ōde, and to learn more about App Applegate and his dream, watch the Orcas Island Film Festival winning short, “Aproximada,” by Kyle Carver & Dan Larson.
Behind-the-scenes photo of author Samuel W. Gailey exploring Aproximada in person. Thank you to Eric Morris for taking the time to show him around and for sharing stories about his own time with App Applegate. And, to Rivkah Sweedler, for fact-checking the essay.
