Biography

Bob was born in 1907 to William Prothero and Marie Milan. ^[1] He married Mary Balmert. ^[2] Bob died in 1986. ^[3]

Bob and brother Frank married the Balmert sisters.

"Boat building was a competitive business and not lacking in healthy egos, but brothers Frank Prothero (1905-1996) and Bob Prothero Sr. (1907-1986) achieved near-legendary status among other shipwrights during their long careers in the Northwest. According to one source, the Prothero family started building ships in Wales in the late 1600s. The brothers' great-grandfather immigrated to America in 1870 and opened a boat and furniture shop on Lake Union. Their grandfather and father were also shipwrights and cabinet makers, and Frank started working at his father's Pacific Door and Manufacturing Company at age 10.

In 1927 Bob Prothero and Ernest McDonald opened the Prothero & McDonald Boat Company in a floating seaplane hangar, and Frank Prothero came aboard as shop foreman in 1930. In 1931 the brothers built for their own use the 42-foot schooner Allure, which they later sold to Johnny Weissmuller (1904-1984), an Olympic swimming Gold Medalist and [actor in the] movie Tarzan. So well built was the Allure that more than 85 years later she was still listed as active on the Registry of American Schooners.

McDonald left in 1942 and the name was changed to Prothero Boat Company. On paper, at least, Bob was the owner and Frank the foreman, and it would remain ever so. The longtime location of the Prothero yard was on Westlake Avenue N, a block south of the Grandy Boat Company. According to an anecdote that seems too good to not be true, a rite of passage for new apprentices at Grandys was to be sent scurrying down to Protheros to borrow "a bucket of steam or a board stretcher".

In about 30 years the Protheros built some 250 wooden boats, including fishing vessels, tugboats, and a number of beautifully crafted pleasure craft. They repaired thousands more, and were widely admired for their complete mastery of the shipwrights' art and the meticulous quality of their work. Like the others on Lake Union, the company spent much of its time during World War II building vessels for the military, including three 52-foot tugboats for the U.S. Army.

The Prothero brothers' last wooden sailboat, Peniel, a 42-foot pilothouse sloop designed by Bill Garden, was completed in 1956, and as of 2017 was being used for charter cruises in the San Juan Islands. Peniel was made in the traditional manner, with steam-bent oak frames, Alaska yellow cedar planking, ironbark in the keel, and a spruce mast and spars. In 1956 Frank Prothero also launched Alcyone, a 65-foot gaff-rigged schooner he built for his own use. Later owners would sail Alcyone across both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, and she has appeared regularly at Port Townsend's annual Wooden Boat Festival.

Bob Prothero sold the Westlake property to the Seattle Elks Club in 1959, but neither brother was ready for retirement. Frank worked as an independent shipwright for a few years and in 1965 started a labor of love, a 65-foot schooner, Glory of the Seas. This project was to incorporate the sum total of his skill, and he hand-crafted every detail. Nearly 30 years later he was still at it, but knew he probably would not live to complete the job. That didn't matter; in 1993 he told a reporter, "Every day I'm down here I get something done. How could I be happier than that?".

Bob Prothero started a new career as a marine surveyor and consultant. In 1981 he co-founded the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding in Port Townsend, ^[4] where he passed down his skills to a new generation of wood workers. His son, Robert Prothero Jr. (1929-2005), also a master shipwright, worked at his father's yard and for many years at Vic Franck's Boat Company." ^[5]

Sources

1. ↑ Washington Birth Records, 1869-1950: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VRM7-JV8
2. ↑ Washington, County Marriages, 1855-2008: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QPMG-B9GC
3. ↑ Washington Death Index, 1965-2014: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QLW9-KXY9
4. ↑ https://www.nwswb.edu/
5. ↑ https://www.historylink.org/file/20366

• United States Census, 1910: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MGJC-XNR
• United States Census, 1940: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K9SB-R61

Some of the boats

• Allure: http://classicsailboats.org/portfolio-view/frank-m-prothero-allure/
• Alcyone: https://www.woodenboat.com/register-wooden-boats/alcyone
• Glory of the Seas: https://www.thegloryoftheseas.org/

Other Seattle Area Boatbuilders and Designers

• John Anderson
• Norm Blanchard
• Norm Blanchard, Jr.
• Leigh Coolidge
• Frank Curtis
• Walt Curtis
• Al Curtis
• Otis Cutting
• Victor Arthur Franck
• Ruth Russell Franck
• Victor Russell Franck
• Bill Garden
• Ted Geary
• Lewis Grandy
• Earl Grandy
• Bill Grandy
• Tony Jensen
• Anchor Jensen
• Dewitt Jensen
• Harry Jones
• John McLean
• Frank Prothero
• Robert Prothero, Jr.
• Sivert Sagstad
• George Stebbins