Bob Tiedemann has always hated seeing wooden boats die. As a kid in Connecticut, he found great pleasure sneaking into boat yards and crawling around the old-timers.

"Then I'd come back to see my favorite derelict and it would be in the back 40, a pile of timber, and they'd be hauling the keel off to the scrap yard," he lamented.

Cruising the New England coast aboard his family's 54-foot yawl in his teens and 20s, he saw more grand old ladies meet ignominious ends. Among the wrecks and ruins, he found a career and a lifelong commitment to yacht preservation.

In her earlier life, Pam was a commuter and rum runner. Seascope restored her for day charters or as a tender for the company's two 12-meters.

"There's something very romantic about them," he said of wooden yachts. -They have a personality, a character, a warmth you don't find in newer boats."

In 1976, Tiedemann founded Seascope Yacht Charters to restore, maintain and manage Gleam, a 1937-vintage12-Meter sailing yacht. The Seascope fleet now includes the Tiedemann family's 54-foot mahogany Alden yawl, Mariner, built in 1950; the 12 Meter Northern Light, built in 1938; the 62-foot, 1921vintage commuter and rum runner Pam; and another commuter and rum runner called L'Allegro, built in 1918, which is in Tiedemann's back yard awaiting restoration. In partnership with his wife, Elizabeth, he has built a charter business in Newport that caters primarily to corporate clients who charter the Twelves. Pam is available for charter around Newport or as a tender for the Twelves.

The foundation of the 52-year-old Tiedemann's love of old boats and preservation was built in the cockpit of Mariner. At 15, he persuaded his father, a naval architect, to buy the yawl, which the family used for cruising. Tiedemann earned an engineering degree in college, intending to follow in his father's footsteps. He worked for his father part time in school, but summers were focused on doing charters with Mariner. After a few years, he decided to try to make a living chartering full time.

"I thought it would be great fun to have a classic boat, sail it around, make enough to survive and save boats in the process," he said.

His father helped him borrow the money to buy Gleam, which needed work, but was not a derelict. He brought her back to Newport, and his formal career in classic yacht charter was born.

Tiedemann found Northern Light under water in Lake Michigan. Today, the yacht is fully restored and available for charter in Newport, RI.

Tiedemann found Northern Light under water in Michigan in the mid1980s. Her owner had abandoned her, and she had sunk in a marina in Holland. He spent two winters traveling between Newport and Holland raising her and getting her in shape. Then he sailed her through the Great Lakes and down the canals into the Hudson just in time to make a charter commitment for the Statue of Liberty centennial.

He acquired Pam in Florida in 1989, as a tender to complement the Twelves. She was built for Herrington Walker, son of Hiram Walker, the distiller. She was built at Great Lakes Boatbuilding, which built many commuters for automotive industry leaders.

Along the way, he bought and sold several classic yachts and helped found the Museum of Yachting. Part of the inspiration for the museum was the disturbing number of boats he saw being cut up.

Tiedemarm is a hands-on preservationist. He has participated personally in all the Seascope restorations. He tries to keep the restorations true to original. The charter business funds the restoration and maintenance of the yachts and puts food on the table.

"Every cent I've ever made has come out of these boats," he said. "I never thought I'd be able to make a living, but it's been even more successful than I expected it to be."

The sight of Gleam and Northern Light sailing in and out of Newport on summer evenings evokes the decades when that city hosted the America's Cup regattas and when yacht racing was the province of gentlemen whose pride and competitive spirit outweighed commercial concerns. Nowadays, Tiedemann's company channels that competitive spirit into team-building and corporate bonding. Companies can send top executives out for a 12-Meter match race on Gleam and Northern Light for about $5,000. By arranging the charter of additional power and sailing yachts, Seascope has handled groups of up to 500.

Tiedemann's preservation of the 12-Meter is generally acknowledged to have been what spawned the recent resurgence of the class, especially in Europe. Thirty-seven 12 Meters, many freshly restored and refurbished, including Northern Light and Gleam, competed at the America's Cup jubilee regatta in 2001. The sight was responsible for many moist eyes.

Tiedemann is proud of the impact he's had on the 12 Meter class and the broader yacht preservation movement, but he's concerned America is lagging behind Europe in preservation efforts. He'd like to see more American classics remain on these shores, and he's committed for the duration.

"It's an all-consuming passion," he said. "I can't imagine doing anything else."