THE STORY BEHIND GUNDALOW

The last remaining gundalow is an iconic part of the Portsmouth, New Hampshire shoreline.  With its stump mast and tall lateen sail, the unique shape of the gundalow is instantly recognizable among the other ships in the harbor.  The current gundalow, Piscataqua, was recently constructed by the non-profit Gundalow Company and shares its name with the river on which it does much of its travels.

The triangular canvas sail of the gundalow was a familiar sight that we would point out to our two young children on walks across the Memorial Bridge from Kittery, Maine into Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  Their heads would turn in unison at our shout of “Look kids, the gundalow!”  We would watch the distinctive wooden boat sailing majestically on the fast currents below, transporting our imagination back to the days before airplanes, cars, and even railroads.  Gundalows were used up until the late 1800s as the delivery trucks and tractor trailers of history, transporting cargo and passengers to the towns around the Seacoast.  With a flat bottom and wide beam, gundalows were not as glamorous as the fancier schooners and clippers, but they could travel over the mud flats that were dangerous to the deep water sailing ships.

I learned that, in addition to operating the gundalow as part of its mission to protect the Piscataqua region’s marine heritage and environment, the Gundalow Company also offered a fantastic series of children’s summer camps.  Our kids learned to kayak in quiet estuarine coves and explored the diverse ecosystem along the Piscataqua River through the River Rats camps operated by the Gundalow Company.  Because our children enjoyed the camps so much, my wife joined their parental advisory group to help with their programs.

On a cold night in January 2020, my wife returned home from one of the group meetings and asked if I would be interested in designing a board game.  On rainy days, she explained, the summer camp was looking for some activities that the children could do indoors, out of the bad weather.  A board game about gundalows would be perfect for the camp.  Maybe I could even build some of the history of this area into the game.  Her suggestion planted a seed of creativity in my head; in the beginning of February, I started to sketch out my thoughts on what would ultimately become Gundalow.

I soon realized that the gundalow operations could be effectively integrated into a game that would not only be faithful to history, but would also be a lot of fun to play.  My nights and weekends were suddenly consumed by game design and construction, to the point where I found myself scribbling frantically in my notebook during our February family vacation.  Using cardstock and pieces scavenged from other board games, I cobbled together a rough prototype for testing with friends and family (reactions from my kids were good indications as to whether the game was on the right track or not).  Working as quickly as I could, I figured that I could get some actual copies ready for the Gundalow Company’s camp season that summer.  I managed to finish a formal draft for actual publication and breathed a sigh of relief after uploading the game to the publisher on March 15, 2020.

Then the world fell apart.  The coronavirus pandemic spread rapidly around the globe, shutting down schools and businesses and upending the pre-pandemic world that we took for granted.  To protect their own employees (and their families), the publisher stopped operations for several weeks.  Upon re-opening, the normal production schedules were justifiably slowed and delayed.  Instead of having the draft in April as I hoped, my first draft didn’t arrive until the end of May.  The camp season was also in disarray, and although the Gundalow Company ultimately opened some of its camp programs that summer, it was not feasible to operate under normal conditions.  Sadly, Gundalow would not make its debut in the Gundalow Company’s summer camps in 2020.

When life hands you lemons, it’s time to press some lemonade.  Now I had more time to refine and expand the ideas in my head.  In testing the game, I worried that the original design might be a bit too complicated for the younger kids at the summer camps.  So rather than adjust the game that I found to be a lot of fun to play, I realized that I could make a simpler version of the game that used many of the same pieces.  Another board game – Gundalow Kids – was born.  With the additional time for playtesting, my kids noted that they liked to “go fast” around the board.  That lead to an expansion - Gundalow Beginnings.  I also had more time to build on an idea about passengers from a friend who helped me playtest the game, culminating in the Gundalow Destinations expansion.  By the middle of June 2020, instead of a single board game, there was now a base game and three expansions (actually two base games, since I decided to make Gundalow Kids into a stand-alone game in addition to an expansion version).

Gundalow was now much larger than I ever anticipated.  The original plan of making a simple board game for kids to play at summer camp on rainy days was transformed, for the better.  My main goal in setting out was to ultimately help the Gundalow Company (a fantastic non-profit organization), and therefore a portion of the profit from each sale will be donated to the Gundalow Company.  I encourage you to visit their website at https://www.gundalow.org/ and consider supporting their mission.