A Passage in Time 0393029972

Looks at the role of the schooner in Maine's maritime history, and describes a journey in Maine's coastal wate

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English Pages 209 [225] Year 1991

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A Passage in Time
 0393029972

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TIME

PETER H. SPECTRE PHOTOGRAPHS BY BENJAMIN MENDLOWITZ

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Our Schooner Along the Coast of Maine

Cruise of

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A Passage

in

Time

A Passage

in

Time

Along the Coast of Maine by Schooner

Peter H. Spectre

Photographs by Benjamin Mendlowitz

NORTON & COMPANY NEW YORK. LONDON

W. W.

Portions of this book, in significantly different form, have appeared

WoodenBoat Down

in

Le Chasse Maree, and Yankee magazines.

East.

,

Text copyright © 1991 by Peter H. Spectre Photographs co\ pright © 1991 by Benjamin Mendlowitz All rights reserved.

The

book

text of this

with the display

composed

is

Bauer Bodoni

in

Bodoni bold.

set in

Book design by Sherry Streeter Printed

in

Kongn

long o

I

First Edition

Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Spectre, Peter

A passage II.

Spectre

:

p.

1

1.

time along the coast of Maine by schooner photographs by Benjamin Mendlowitz. cm. in

:

ISBN 0-393-02997-2 Maine

1.

Historv



Views.

1.

3.

Peter

§45.00 and travel Anecdotes. 2. Schooners Maine Description and travel 1931 :

description

— Anecdotes.

/



Mendlowitz, Benjamin.



II.



— Maine—

Title.

1991 F19.6.S64 387.2'24'09741 dc20



91

-

ISBN 0-393-02997-2 \\

Vt

.

V

\\

.

1

2

be

Company,

6e

Company

Norton Norton

3

4

5

6

7

8

Inc.,

500

Fifth Avenue,

Ltd., 10 Coptic Street,

9

0

New

York, N.Y.

London

WC1A

IPl

1

0459 CIP

4

Contents

Acknowledgments

I

II

vi

About the Photographer

vii

One Vast Neighborhood

2

A Smoky

Sou’wester

1

by the Mile and Sawed Off

32

Lengths

HI

""Built

IV

Many Cargoes

48

Hie Turn

66

V VI VII VIII

IX

X XI XII

in

of the Tide

84

Fog Mulls and Black Pigs

A Town by the Edge “Oh,

How

of the Sea

She Scoons!”

Souvenirs of Another Age Sailors

and Islands

Another Link

A Passage

in

Bibliography

in the

Time

102 118 136 1

Chain

54

1^2

190

208

To Deborah and Eileen

;

A cknowledgments

The author and photographer would like to thank

the following for their assistance:

Captain James Sharp of the schooner Adventure., Captains Douglas and Linda Lee of

Ken and

the schooner Heritage ; Captains

Ellen Barnes of the schooner Stephen Taber.

Captain John Foss of the schooner American Eagle and Captain Stephen Cobb of the ;

schooner Mar}'

Day Meg Maiden and

members

Maine Windjammer Association.

of the

;

Roberta Greany of Designwrights: and

all

the

Jonathan Wilson of WoodenBoat magazine; Joseph Gribbins of Nautical Quarterly Patience Wales of Sail magazine; Dale Kuhnert and Davis azine;

Thomas

of

Down

East mag-

John Pierce of Yankee magazine; and Bernard and Michele Cadoret of Le Chasse

Maree magazine. Our special thanks go Howland III of Howland

to those 6c

Co.;

who helped

in the

production of

this

book: Llewellyn

James Mairs and Cecil Lyon of W.W. Norton; Kathleen

Brandes of Wordsworth Editorial Services; Sherry Streeter of Streeter Design; and Claire

Cramer of Mendlowitz Photography. Our extra-special thanks go to those who encouraged us while we worked on this Deborah Brewster, Will and Eachan Holloway, and Samuel and lannah project: Mendlowitz; and Eileen, Maureen, Nathan, and Emily Spectre. 1

Benjamin Mendlowitz Brooklin, Maine Peter

1 1.

Spectre

Camden, Maine

About the Photographer

I

first

met Benjamin Mendlowitz in

magazine

an

to illustrate

article

I

(lie late

1970s,

had written about antique marine

recent previous experience with a photographer

magazine. That fellow,

hundred exposures to

to

produce about It

1

was as

if

I

five

pulled together a handful to

pile,

five

most

another

article for

respected in the trade, took several

publishable prints.

had written

My

engines.

had been on another

who was well known and w ell

me. and told him so.

through the

when he was assigned by IVoodenlioat

It

seemed

terribly wasteful

hundred sentences and then searched

make

a short paragraph,

and

threw*

away

the rest.

The photographer assured me raphv business. it

was

was

It

that his routine

was

typical in the professional photog-

easier to grind film through the

to wait for a long, long

time for the right

camera and hope

moment

for the best than

The law

to trip the shutter.

averages virtually guaranteed that out of five hundred shots, one percent of them

of

had to

be good.

So

it

was therefore a refreshing change of pace to work with Benjamin Mendlow itz, who

approached the antique-engine assignment w ith a far

beyond what

1

had come

to expect.

level of care

Yet he did

this

and appreciation that went

without losing the enthusiasm

necessary to produce first-rate results. Mendlowitz was, above

each situation carefully, looking for the right

light,

all.

I

le

studied

the right angle, the right feeling that

would evoke the essence of the machinery being photographed machinery, old engines with brass carburetors and polished

enameled cylinder heads. He

unhurried.

—for that

steel

may not have exposed much film that

is

w hat

it

was,

connecting rods and day, but the shots he

took revealed those engines in splendid fashion: not only w hat they w ere, but also what they were about. In the late

In

photography, you can't ask for

1970s, Benjamin Mendlowitz was just getting started

He had grown up

phy.

much more than

in

New York

in

that.

marine photogra-

City, then attended Brandeis University in Boston,

w here he studied physics primarily and film secondarilv. He traveled while,

and afterward came back

company

produced

that

to

film strips

in

Europe

for a

Massachusetts, where he obtained a job with a small

and training

films for doctors

and

hospitals. Several

years later, he went out on his own. taking assignments where he could get them. In his travels he

few years

W

met Jonathan Wilson, who had founded WoodenBoat magazine

in

Maine a

earlier.

ilson recognized in

Mendlow itz a photographer who may have been in

of developing his talent but

built boats.

to reveal the singular

beauty of

Mendlow itz spent many summers on the New Jersey shore, w here hang around the boatyards and came to appreciate classically designed and

wooden boats. he loved to

w ho was nevertheless able

the early stages

\> a bov.

As a freelance photographer, he had taken photographs of some of the

International One-Design sailing class,

photography he could do

Which

at the time, his

if

he actually studied the

Maynard Bray photographing

endangered

much

specializing in marine

field!

With

to do.

encouragement of Wilson and

the

seemed

classic boats, the traditional watercraft that at the time

many

not an employee.

his associate

WoodenBoat magazine, Mendlowitz spent more and more time

of

work was featured extensively

species. His

so that

was not

lie

work rivaled that of photographers who were. Think of what

what he went on

is

and even though

in

to he

an

the pages of WoodenBoat —

so

readers thought he was the staff photographer, even though he was

As time passed, Mendlowitz saw

his

photographs published

in other

Sad and Nautical Quarterly. The latter w as noted for the excellence of its reproduction, which made good photographs look great and great ones, like Mendlow itz s, look extraordinary. And then, in l c)83. he published the ('(deonautical magazines as well, such as

dar of Wooden that

is

Boats., the first of

an annual edition of his best photographs

now' as classic as the boats

it

—a publication

features.

Marine photography has a long tradition, as long as the history of photography

Each era has produced

Cowes and

stars

—among them the successive generations of Bekens of

the Gibsons of the Scilly Isles;

of New' York;

been

its

W.B. Jackson of Massachusetts; Edw in Levick

and the Rosenfelds, father and son.

different,

boats. Not just

but

also of New' York. Their styles

these photographers shared a

all

by being able

itself.

to tell

common

The) understood

trait:

one boat type from another

may have

—a sloop from a cutter

or a schooner from a ketch. Bather, they understood the lines of boats, the shapes of boats, the

way boats moved

from study,

in a

seaway. Whether

do not know. But

I

I

this

understanding was intuitive or acquired

do know that such an appreciation allowed them

elevate their work from taking pictures of boats to creating images of boats as fine All of those

photographers

in

a general sense confined their

work

to

w hat

to

art. tliev

considered to be beautiful boats, and Benjamin Mendlowitz carries on in that tradition.

Not only the

is

Mendlowitz

—he

mood

also

is

selective in the shots

selective

to be the old classics or

Benjamin Mendlowitz

craft influenced

more than

and

all

of

tin*

lighting,

t

rest of

It

is

focus, the angle,

lie I

lis

subjects tend

by traditional design. A photograph b\

the result of a click of the camera.

pretty picture, attractively presented. color fidelity

— the

about the boats he chooses to photograph.

modern

is

he takes

more than depth

of field

It

is

more than

and sharp focus and

photography’s mechanics and techniques.

stated, the result of the photographer’s ability to

convey

to the

a

It

is.

simplv

viewer that he not onlv has

seen the boat through the lens of his camera, but also has understood what he has seen.

— Peter

1

1.

Spectre

/

A Passage

in

Time

,

One

I

Vast

Neighborhood

The era of [commercial] sail has gone, giving place to science and the quickened pulse of the present hut to many who saw and knew them ,

and

the passing of these old vessels

them

the resourceful

men who

sailed

tinged with sadness. In another decade or so, there will he no

is

memory

to

bring hack the cough of the donkey engine, the rattle of -

anchor chain, and the thundering of wind-filled canvas; none

remember

the leaning spars

and

to

the bellying topsails against the

blue sky or the looming of ghostly hulls through the fog. -

—John

Fog bisected

Coasters,

1970

in a

At the other, facing the bay, the air was thick with moisture.

cloudless, deep-blue sky.

of water ran

Wake of the

At one end, facing the mainland, the sun shone brightly

the island.

Standing by one tree

F. Leavitt,

dense spruce

in the

forest,

1

could barely see the next. Fine droplets

down the spruce needles, coalesced, and fell

to the

ground. Scarcely a breeze

stirred the branches. I

had rowed across the harbor, stepping ashore on the sunny

pulling

side of the

my skiff high up the shingled shore for protection against the rising tide.

painter to an ancient iron stake that years ago

had been driven

island,

little I

tied the

into the rock

by an

unknown soulmate, climbed the bank, and crossed the island on a wide path that had been cut through the woods by the crew of coastguardsmen who once manned the lighthouse out on the point.

This path and the lighthouse

monuments. A white

in the sun, filled with

The

were their

— Persons Are Warned Not Injure epitaph. One second was Coast Guard— was

sign with dark blue lettering

or Disturb any Property of the LJ.S.

invisible in the fog,

itself,

to

All

their

hope; the next

I

was

keeper’s house was empty, the

in

1

the gloom of the fog.

windows boarded up with

sheets of cardboard

painted gray. The steps that led to the kitchen door, rotting unevenly, had pulled awa\

from the building and were slowly moldering into the ground. Fvery minute or so the big foghorn, mounted on a granite plinth, groaned through the fog. It was an automaton:

nobody was

at

the switch.

and fog-sensing

I

was alone on

flies, '

and

transistors

devices.

“The sounds came

Compared to the bustle of the town at

Penobscot Bay

which

is

lies

midway along (he coast of Maine. Though people to the westward

to sav, residents of

Boston and the

coast as the mythical land of

and therefore “down

east.

New England

—regard

all

of the

All those

All places east of the

west of

bay are “to the

are “to the west ard.

it

— “one vast neighborhood, the center of things, the heart of the coast of Maine

is

Leavitt wrote in a

memory

accessible

as

is

Cape Cod Bay.

it

but a few

Wake of

significant in size as

—Casco, Muscongus, Blue

— look puny by comparison.

sail in

from Fort Point

to

John

Maine.

Hill,

Twenty

and Narragansett and makes

and even Passamaquoddy,

miles wide at the mouth,

Whitehead, and twenty-eight miles long (twenty-four miles longer stretch

” as

New England bays go. Though not nearly as large

nevertheless larger than Buzzards

is

The bay

the Coasters , the most entertainingly

of the last years of cargo -carrying commercial

Penobscot Bay

Maine competitors

of nostalgia in

fit

Maine

Mainers define the western edge of that

East,

edge of Penobscot Bay.

territory as the eastern east aid

“Down

rest of

if

Isle

to

its

name

au Haut

to

you include the

Bangor, the navigable part of the Penobscot River, which

drains into the northern neck of the bay),

it is

magnificent by anyone’s standards.

—the low land—from Route

the land, however

1,

From

which runs along most of the bay’s

western shore, and from the back roads of the eastern

side,

it

doesn’t look that large.

Too

many headlands and islands obstruct the view. To appreciate the size and sweep of Penobscot Bay from the land, you have to climb one of the many mountains along its edges, just as the young poet Edna St. Vincent Millay did years ago on the western shore:

where

All I could see from

Was I

three long mountains

and a wood

turned and looked the other way.

And saw So with

Of the

three islands in a bay.

my eyes

Back s

traced the line

/

horizon thin ,

Straight around

It

I stood

to

till

and fine. I was come

where I'd started from

best to study the layout of Penobscot

breeze

is

Bay on one of those

the Atlantic.

I

here w

smoke, but not so

ill

be no distortions

oozing

late as to

he dominant colors

green of the islands,

and oranges of

Mount 6

light

in the

warm-weather moisture out

into

atmosphere, no haziness on the horizon

up the edges of the islands or obscure the peak of Cadillac on Mount Desert, no fog

sitting like a glob of

I

days when a

blowing diagonally across the bay from the northwest, down out of Canada and

across the western mountains, pushing the last drop of

to fuzz

late fall

tin*

over the Fox Islands.

It

will

be too early for winter sea

bring cold that might keep you from lingering over the view.

be the ice blue of the sky, the deep purple of the bay, the dark

grays and tans of the rocky shore, and the flaming reds and yellows

hardwood forests climbing the sides of tin' hills and mountains. Mount Megunticook. or Bald Rock on the western shore. Waldo, halfway

the

Battie.

will

muck

A PASSAGE IX TIME

up the

down

toward Bangor. Caterpillar, on the eastern

river to

tlie*

southeast, a wild

Maine s mid-coast: Islesboro.

principal Castine.

au

side. or l-le

laut

1

ligh 1-land

I

and beautiful place around which -pread- the panorama of

Monhegan and Matinicus, \ inalhav en and North la\ en, Deer, and Metinic, and. farther down east. Mount Desert and Swan-: the towns of Rockland and Camden, Rockport. Belfa-t. Sear-port. Buck-port. the islands of

1

and Stonington: the Ea-t Bay and the

\\ e-t

from the northeast point of the compass around

Bav. and. along an arc that extend-

to the southwest, the wild vet

beckoning

Gulf of Maine and the Atlantic Ocean. But. as

of a

any

w

sailor

tell

ill

you. the best

way to get

mountain but from the deck of a boat or a

from the Atlantic, making your

a feel for the hay

ship.

landfall the lighthouse

first

i-

not from the peak

Meet the ba\ front seaward. Sail

southwestward from the Bav of Fundv. turning the corner

at

on Matinicus Rock.

Monhegan and Matinicus, through

Channel, into

vou come in on a cruising boat, you

stretch of the coast this side of the

commercial sensitivity,

vessel

vou

— a tanker, a

wind and the weather,

freighter, a fishing boat

If

the maritime heyday of

Maine

—the

Penobscot Bav

a

many

at

called Penobscot

Bav

their

in

in

am

Sear-port

Down Easter-, and

home.

craft,

rivers

and creeks that fed

into

it

sailing

naval vessel-, deepwater

one time that the waters w ere w hite with

huge highw ay of sail, with the

a

decade-

—once was crow ded with

passenger packets, fishing

on

historical

entire coast of Maine, for that matter

vessels. Coastal cargo carriers,

traders, so

infinite.

in the la-t

hundred

alone, when thev weren’t roaming the ocean- of the world in clippers.

and lumber schooners,

wo Bush

yon come

—and you have some

of the last centurv. hundreds of shipmasters, including almost a

bis coal

I

think you have discovered the last unspoiled

Canadian maritime provinces.

know why. during

will

will

downwind

to port, the -pruce-covered island- to

starboard, the choices for a snug anchorage out of the If

-ail

more open

the Muscle Ridge or the

Penobscot Bay. the mainland

\\ est

Sail

Roaring Bull Ledge off Lie

au Haut. Cruise down from Boston on an end-of-summer southwesterly: inside

in

sail-.

I

he hay w as

the secondary roads.

like

One

tow n w as connected to the next, one area of the ba\ to another, by a watery thoroughfare that

was

as familiar to the sailors

today’s travelers.

To grasp

who manned

the vessel- a- the Maine Turnpike

it

on the bay and

to

map of today’s over-

the complexity of the system, imagine a

land roads around Penobscot Bay and overlay

i-

it-

tributaries.

at the Penobscot was everywhere. To gra-p the quantity, consider that never mind sail, there w ere River port of Bangor which today rarely set's motor vesselin

Sail





more than 3.000 months.

incoming

On

lBbO

much longer than -i\ sailing ves-els made the port on an

arrivals during a navigation season that lasted not

the fourteenth of July in that year, sixty

tide in the

space of tw o hours. Every one of those ve-sels passed through Pen-

obscot Bay.

Consider the keeper of the lighthouse at

end of the approaches

to

Ow ls

I

lead, a high

headland that mark- the

West Penobscot Bay and the lower corner of the out-ide channel OV.

I

1-7

HOHI UX)I)

\ VJ( ,7 1

8

t

PASSAGE IX TIME

Ow

l*.

I

lead, (he

southern eorner of

Rockland Harbor on the western shore of

Penobscot Bay. The

Camden

Hills are

on

the horizon to the north. the

The keeper of

Ow Is

I

lead

I

.ight

counted 16.000 schooners passing

thi-

point in the year INTO,

w

liich

would average

out to almost

t\%

o

schooners an hour, day and night.

Pumpkin of

Island,

hundreds of

one

to

Rockland Harbor. In 1876, the keeper counted more than 16,000 schooners from

little

lookout,

.lust

other rigs

— sloops,

islands in the Penobscot

Bay region. Once

maintained by the

significant

Coast Cuard as an aid to navigation, the lighthouse, situated just inside l.ggemog-

gin Reach,

is

now

a private residence.

I

That figure does not include steamers or

brigs, brigantines, barques, etc.

is

sailing vessels with

— which no doubt also represented a

amount.

he keeper

unrealistic

schooners.

It

s

1876 count

from today

s

an hour, night and day.

is

an oft-quoted

perspective. After fair

weather and

all,

foul,

statistic,

though

may seem

it

a trifle

16,000 amounts to almost two schooners

summer and

winter.

Throw

in

the other

types of ships and boats and vou must be talking about a vessel passing the light about

every ten or fifteen minutes, which

10

A PASSAGE l\ TIME

is

possible but not likely.

What

is

more

likely

is

that

the lighthouse keeper stepped outside once an hour

and counted

same

—becalmed,

from the previous hour were

vessels

would be counted again But that

as

if it

still

were a different

not the point. There were so

s

latter part of the nineteenth

century that

be safe, halve the lightkeeper

4.000 schooners

in

s

there

it

the vessels in view.

If

the

— then each

example

for

vessel.

many was

sailing vessels

difficult to get

number. What the

hell,

—almost a dozen every day,

one year

halve all

on Penobscot Bay

in the

an accurate count. So to it

again.

That would be

year round! Never

mind

the

sailing vessels of other rigs.

By comparison, the Penobscot Bay of our time

is

Head Light

to inflate the figure

if

you wish

of commercial sailing vessels

sailing vessels

— and the number

day a century ago. But, contrary

money

you could climb the steps to Owls

or walk to the end of the Rockland breakwater or stand on the shore of the

Fox Islands Thorofare and count the

real

Even during

a very quiet place indeed.

the height of summer in the most ideal sailing conditions,

to the

—coasters that pay

— not a

lot,

their

but enough

to

will look

views of

on the coast of Maine, you

sail

—include the modern pleasure

way and

puny in comparison to the same

many who

will find in

craft

claim to have seen the death

your number several commercial

that of their owners

and crews by earning

keep alive a tradition that otherwise would be found

only in the pages of books and the halls of museums.

In the north

end of Rockland, the

largest

town on Penobscot Bay and

a major fishing port, there’s a grocery store called Jordan’s Market.

It's

until recent years

an unpretentious

establishment occupying the Crockett Block, a onetime fine old building that

rehabbed

what

I

in the early

mean.

to a style

thought to be tacky

a schizophrenic store, a cross

It’s

7-Eleven with a

1980s

fish

1950s

in the



if

was

you know

between a Depression-era catchall and a

market grafted onto the back. They carry the Portland and Boston

papers, beer by the bottle, a mixed bag of canned goods, slack-salted cod, haddock and the occasional halibut, and. in season,

smoked

bloaters.

There’s nothing remarkable

about the place except for a bronze plaque screwed to the outside wall next to the side door.

The

inscription reads: "

Fast Clipper Ship "Red Jacket Still

Holds

For Sailing

It

in

Sandy Hook In January,

orld

Speed Record

Voyage from

to

Liverpool

1854 13 Days, One Hour ,

Launched at George Thomas's Ship Rear of Crockett Block November 2, 1853 at 11 A.M. Yard

in

Asa Eldridge, Master

O.XE

I

I

ST Xt'JGUBOtUtOOD

1

1

;

.

It s

difficult to imagine.

Right here on this spot, right here where you can buy a 24-

inch Slim Jim, a six-pack of Budweiser. and (he latest edition of the National Enquirer

.

right next to a

shop where they

Canadian border any highway

lawn mowers; right on the curb of Route

fix

to the tip of Florida,

in the country,

shipwrights built the clipper

more used-car

perhaps the world

Red Jacket

lots

and fast-food restaurants than

—George

for a time the

—the

1

Thomas and

most famous ship

his

erew of

in the

Western

r

world, 251 feet long, 44 feet beam, 2,306 tons.

November 2, 1853. It was quite a morning. Thousands were on hand for the launching, more people than present-day Rockland sees for its annual Lobster Festival. There were celebrants from as far away as New York and Philadelphia this in a time when



would have taken an event of incredible importance

down

the

Maine coast so

select

for people to brave traveling

halfway

band playing and

There were speeches and

late in the year.

ceremonies and tours of the ship.

it

The after cabin was a stunning affair finished out with

rosewood, mahogany, zebrawood, black walnut, and satinwood and decorated

with gilded accents. The figurehead, surrounded with



himself

Sagoyewatha, chief of the Senecas, wearing

scrollwork,

gilt

his

trademark

was “Red Jacket

scarlet tunic given

by the British as a gesture of friendship.

The Red Jacket was by no means w as not

the only ship built in Rockland,

the only master builder to ply his trade there.

hundreds of ships and thousands of boats w ere that at various times

From

and George Thomas

the town’s founding in 1767,

built in scores of shipyards

—especially during the mid-

and boatshops

to late nineteenth century

waterfront from just above Jordan’s Market in the north end to

Head



lined the

Bay

of the

in the

south.

But that was then and

Rockland

is

this is

now. The

a restaurant- and-bar by that

the vessel in the Farnsworth

Museum

name down by

just off

passenger schooners berthed at the North

Main

used hubcaps

when compared

to the

in the

the

Street.

End Shipyard

between Jordan’s Market and the shop next door largest dealer in

Red Jacket Sears store and

closest thing to the

Oh,

wharf,

yes,

down

— the one that claims

Mate of Maine. These schooners

Red Jacket and

tiny in

comparison

and

to

in

a

a

the

today

s

model of

bunch little

of

road

be the second-

may be a

tad rustic

to the big four-, five-,

and

six-masted coal and lumber schooners of the turn of the century, but they nevertheless are a link in an

unbroken chain

coast of Maine.

12

1

PASSAGE

/A

TIME

that stretches

back

to the earliest sailing vessels

on the

"Oh. yes. and a hunch of

passenger schooners berthed at

the North l.nd Shipyard

wharf,

down

the

little

road

between .Iordan's Market

and the shop next door."

,

A Smoky

II

He was jovial,

kind hearted and a

is,

mister.

of a philosopher, hi one phrase he When l asked him if he liked the life afloat

,

summarized the he replied

Sou’wester

call of the sea.

“/Vo, I

hate

Yon give

Bat

it.

me

bit

/ can't keep

the choice of

away from

my wife

/ tell

it.

or the vessel,

—Frederick Sturgis Laurence on Captain of

tlxe

\X

it

take the vessel. illiam R. Kreger

four-masted schooner Sarah C. Ropes

We cast off about eleven o’clock Monday morning, the End Shipyard

I

yon what

last

passenger schooner to clear

The skipper had spent half the morning at the bank, arguing with the officers about a loan to carry him through the coming winter, when he planned to join another schoonerman in rebuilding an old vessel. “They re all jugheads, he muttered to himself as he dragged his charts out of their cases and spread them flat on the North

wharf.

the roof of the after cabinhouse, just forward of the wheel.

with

little

He weighted down the corners

leather pouches filled with lead shot, like beanbags.

The passengers, most

of

whom

had arrived the previous afternoon and evening,

amused themselves during the seemingly interminable wait by helping the mate and odd pieces of frayed rope used to pad the rigging so it galley hand make baggywrinkle won't wear holes in the pestering the cook. as they got

We

were

1

sails

— —or hanging around

drinking coffee and

in the galley,

spent the time exploring the schooner and studying

tin 4

other vessels

underway.

group of working schooners alongside any single

in the center of the largest

wharf on the coast of Maine, nestled together and rising and falling like a flock of ducks in the gentle swell of Rockland Harbor. The,/. & E. Biggin, a former oyster dredger built in

1927; the Isacw H. Evans, another oyster boat. 1886: the Lewis

schooner and freight

B.

French, a fishing

1871; the American Eagle, a fishing schooner. 1930; and the

carrier.

Heritage, a coasting schooner launched

Stephen Taber, a brick schooner, 1871

in

.

1

983. Over by the state ferry terminal was the

There

and the three-masted schooner Domino

may not have been as many working sailing vessels

had been when the lime industry was hauling

in

cordwooc

1

to lire

t

Ik*

kilns

in full

and

\nlhnniel Itowdilch,

a former yacht and fishing dragger. sets out

Three other passenger schooners were across the

harbor by the town landing: the Nathaniel Boir ditch, a former yacht and fishing dragger built in 1922, the Summertime, a double-ended pinky schooner launched especially for the passenger trade in 1986.

The

swing,

in

coast

week along

lie

to

(lie

— “the destination

nowhere I

Effect.

Rockland larbor as there

in particular.

goal an opportunity

escape whatever must

1

when wood-boats b\

a vast fleet ol schooners

for a

was I

the hundreds w ere

carry

mg aw ay casks

SMOK) SOI WESTER

•“>

1

he escaped and

live a

nineteenth-century

life in

the twentieth century."

of lime for Boston

and New York, but today, when a salty craft

of polyester resin

and

A

setting sail at once are nothing to sneeze at.

was taking place up the bay

similar scene

thought to be a boat built

glass strands shoveled into a mold, nine vessels authentically fitted

and

out in the old style

is

in

Camden, where four wooden schooners

(Mary Day, 1962; Roseway, 1925; Mercantile, 1916; Grace Bailey 1882; Mistress, 1960) and a steel ketch Angelique 1980) were getting underway, and in Rockport, where the ,

,

(

schooner Timberwind 1931, had slipped her

pilot

,

Our schooner wasn’t

the largest of the fleet (the

but she was one of the prettiest. feet

lines

She was 72

wide, and could carry 3,500 square

and was beating out of the harbor.

Domino

Effect held that distinction),

feet long, not including the bowsprit,

feet of

canvas on her two-masted

rig.

and 21

She had

white topsides accented with a dark-gray sheerstrake (the topmost plank on the hull),

white cabinhouse sides, buff on oiled decks

and

spars, a black iron steering wheel,

on the

a bronze star

and bottom, on

the horizontal surfaces such as the roofs of the houses,

all

the

flat

and a white bowsprit enlivened with

of the end. Other decorations included

two water casks on either

side of the

maroon

stars incised, top

mainmast, a carved nameboard

on the stern featuring an encircling rope, gilded, and trailboards that followed the sweep

bow up to the stem and were embellished with relief carvings of ivy,

of the

a pair of red roses.

Underway, she carried a

also gilded,

long, forest-green streamer at the

and

head of the

maintopmast.

A II.

coastal packet built near the

end of the

carried general cargo along the

of loads

now hauled

war she was

laid up, and, like so

fleet,

week-long tion

many

in particular, the goal

once been the hold

"staterooms. people.

an opportunity

live a

f

lip

after cabin

and

out of Rockland on

September, the destina-

paying passengers to escape

life in

put this delicately?

I

sails

the twentieth century.

—a

little tight.

the forecastle,

What had

between the two

partitioned into what the advertising brochure euphemistically termed

There were

six of these

Very friendly people.

a coin to determine

If

who

doubles and quadruples, with bunks for eighteen

you should ever find yourself with an enemy on a (a)

you

will sleep

will, of necessity,

up on deck

were two “staterooms” off the after cabin; the to the crew's

now

to late

for her

nineteenth-century

—how can — the area between the

windjammer, you can be sure that will

At the beginning of the

Rather, like most of the schooners in the Maine wind-

The accommodations were

—was

coal, salt, case goods, the type

of the coasting schooners that joined her, never

Monday through Saturday, mid-June

whatever must be escaped and

masts

—lumber,

she was converted to passenger-carrying and

cruises,

nowhere

Maine coast

War

century, our schooner, until World

over highways by tractor-trailer trucks.

returned to her original trade.

jammer

last

rest of the

become

friends, or (b)

in the lee of the longboat.

you

There

below-decks space was given over

accommodations (even more spartan than those of the passengers,

that

if

could be possible) and the galley. The bunks were narrow and the headroom was nonexistent

if

you were more than

six feet tall; the

turning-around space was

just

about

right

fora contortionist. Each passenger got two sheets and a pillowcase, two woolen blankets,

and

1

6

a bath towel.

A

PASSAGE IX TIME

Narrow bunks, adventurous headroom, the coziness of a cabin on a sailing vessel.

Schooner accommodations vary from spartan, with

wash basins issued each person,

to

to relatively

comfortable, with running

water

—perhaps hot.

perhaps

not.



There was running fresh water

in the galley for the

convenience of the dishwasher

who plied her trade in a corner between the wood-burning stove and boxes of provisions Each passenger was issued

but nowhere else on the vessel.

W

ater

and

a tin cup

a tin washbasin.

was obtained from the casks on deck, with long-handled dippers. Brushing one’s

was an adventure:

teeth before bed

totallv unavailable,

likewise, shaving in the

but getting a jar

full

of

gallev stove with the cook, the dishwasher, first priority.

The toilets

— “heads’

it

sense; instead, they were operated with a

meant competing

and the

in nautical

morning.

for space

coffee addicts,

parlance

water was not

lot

I

of

all

— didn’t flush

on top of the

whom

claimed

in the conventional

hand pump.

There were no television, no radio other than the skipper’s (which he guarded as closely as his navigational tools),

The Hoseu'ny

On

larger than 15 watts.

and a

collection of sheet

no wall-to-wall carpeting, no telephone, and no

the other hand, for entertainment there

music

in the after

— and

with ornate brass kerosene lanterns the skij >per. Dutton

cabin

—which,

was a

tiny

like the galley,

a small shelf with several

light

bulbs

pump

organ

was illuminated

books belonging

Navigation and Piloting., the American Practical Navigator

's

,

to

Sail-

ing Dens on the Penobscot Islands of the Mid-Maine Coast The History of American ,

,

Sailing Ships, that type of thing. For additional entertainment, there was on deck, built into a corner of the forward deckhouse, a

refrigerator

box w

minuscule shower

stall

about the

size of a

a single valve that released a spray of cold salt water with less

ith

pressure than a drinking-water fountain. In short,

our schooner was much the same as any other sailing vessel of fifty to a hundred

years ago. and the experience provided the passengers was ditto.

Well, almost but not

quite.

days of commercial

In the*

"The crew's

politely.

Sarah

C.

schooner accommodations were a tad

sail,

quarters,’

ripe, to

put

it

w rote Frederick Sturgis Laurence about the four-master

Ropes “...was a black greasy looking apartment with wooden bunks and a ,

stench that would knock you Hat.

I

wondered how' many human beings could be content

There were no show ers, no running water of any

to sleep there....

sort

on most coasting

member of the crew' w as responsible for his own bedding. He had to own blankets, towels, and sheets, but also his own mattress. The latter, ticking and straw', w as known as a “donkey’s breakfast. Each man hand-made

schooners, and each

bring not only his

made of his own or bought one

for a few Cents

from a

ship’s chandler.

When

the

bedbugs became

was thrown overboard and replaced with a new one. Nor were there any heads. On the small coasters there was, instead, a wooden bucket

too overwhelming, the mattress

The user drew water from over the side, set the bucket down in a quiet read bis mail or studied the Sears catalog, and then emptied the bucket

with a rope lanyard.

corner of the deck,

7

over the side. I

he arrangement w as more luxurious aboard the large schooners. According to Francis

("Bill

)

Bowker

in lllue

Water Coaster, a memoir of the author’s service before the mast

during the dying days of

18

A PASSAGE

l\

TIME

sail

on the east coast:

There was a seat attached to the bow on

planking for drainage. also an oil

was used

drum with

A

of old

[tile

the head

beam on

up the pipe. Under such conditions equipment. The

down with

lead pipe ran

a stick.

first

it

hand and the bucket of water

the

out. This

was kept

full

the port side.

It

was not

of salt water, all

so

right

w

ith

and

can

a paint

whid on

the

good when the

tin*

was

vessel

wind and water tended to blow right back amount of skill was necessary for safe operation wad up a ball of paper, stuff it into the pipe, and push sea. for the

a certain

was

act

When

down through

newspapers and magazines served for paper. There was

knocked

hard on the port tack and driving into a

it

A

port side.

lie

out water for flushing. This arrangement was

to dip

starboard side or aft of the

of this

t

to

came time

do the flushing, one would take the

to

Then, waiting

in (be other.

stick in

one

bow

into

until the vessel drove her

a sea, the stick w as jabbed down, the flushing w ater was thrown in at the same instant, and

way as the bows rose and a blast of wand blew back whatever

the operator dove back out of the

had not found

its

w av

into the sea.

The day was sunny and cool, gradually warming as the morning progressed. There w ere thin clouds in the west and haze building out in the hay, and the weatherman was talking about a front on Wednesday afternoon or night that might or might not be the leading edge of a tropical storm that conic! very well he

“We damn

well better be holed

up

upgraded

in a tight

to a hurricane.

harbor come Wednesday night,

the

skipper said, slapping the rim of the steering wheel.

Our schooner, like most other windjammers, didn’t have an auxiliary engine. There was, in fact, no pow er on the vessel other than a bank of batteries and an emergency generator for the lights and the radio, and a small, old-fashioned, one-lung “make-andbreak

engine for hoisting the anchor.

yawlboat, a heavily built craft

Pronounced “yawl-b’ot

fitted

On

the

with a big truck engine modified for marine use.

by the down-easters,

type were ship's boats, ship’s yaw

som when

So we w ere towed aw ay from the wharf by the

ls,

utility

it

was

so

named because

boats that were hung

in

the

first

davits over the tran-

Maine

coast, the

first

internal-combustion engines for auxiliary power were

yawlboats rather than the schooners themselves, because the owners, always

thinking of returnon investment, resented taking up valuable cargo space with "a

ities

its

not in use.

fitted in the

hunk

of

of iron.”

Over

years, the

tin*

of the coasting schooner.

It

powered yaw became one of the identifying peculiarl

remains

and partly out of a sense of tradition,

Once we were

in

use to this day. partly because

a condition

well out into the harbor, the

and brought her around against the schooner’s

it

does save space

w hose power cannot be underestimated.

mate

in

to tin* stern of the schooner,

flat stern.

the yawlboat dropped the towline

nosing the padded stem of the boat

Lines were rigged from the

bow

of the yawlboat up

around the after quarters of the schooner. With the yawl thus held and pushing at speed, the mate

left

goddam

a steath

her unattended and climbed up to the schooner to help raise the

The yawlboats engine became the schooner’s auxiliary [tower:

sails.

the skipper controlled both

vessels with the steering wheel.

I

SMOKY

SOI 'WESTER

1

()

.

Like their cargo-carrying predecessors proverbial "man, boy, and a dog to

help with the heavy work

on the passengers

to help

— many of which went

and a make-and-break

hoisting, or “donkey,’ engine

— the windjammers are undermanned

handle the

Our schooner was no

sails.

with only the

to sea

for their size, reiving

No one was

exception.

coerced into hauling on the halyards and the sheets, but one look at the huge size of the

and the diminutive

sails

size of the

crew

—skipper, mate, cook, and galley hand—and

everybody on board, lubber or not, knew there would be no sailing without a

now and

little

sweat

The mainsail alone was 1,500 square feet and weighed 500 pounds! So with shouted encouragement from the mate “Hey, yah, heave!..., Hey, yah, heave! ...Now... drop it! and bellows of laughter at our clumsiness from the skipper, and a few cases of rope burn, we raised the sails, working from aft, forward. First the main, again.





then the fore, then the forestaysail, then the Just off the tip of the

and pulling

in a

off the engine. air in

jib.

Rockland breakwater, by the lighthouse, w

southwesterly breeze, the mate jumped

The

down

We w alked around

silence w-as shocking.

yawlboat and shut smelling the

in a daze,

blowing through the pine tar of the rigging and watching a pair of harbor

a field of Lobster-trap buoys to the east of the breakwater.

boat up into the stern davits with tackles, fo Iks,

we

re

bound

“Wherever,

for

.

stern,

seals at play

The crew hauled

and the mate

Perhaps Stonington, he figured.

the skipper added.

The point w as

r

salt

the yawl-

yelled, “That’s

it,

.

Haven, or Vinalhaven, care.

bow and

trimmed

ith all sails

into the

Isle

Or maybe North

au Haut, Monhegan. He didn’t know and nobody seemed

to take a cruise in the

w ake of the

coasters,

w here the wind took

to

us,

not according to schedule.

Swans Island?

“Maybe,’ the skipper

“All I’m thinking about right

said.

now

is

Wednesday night and a tight little hole protected from a gale in any direction. “And good holding bottom for the anchor, the mate said. “For two anchors if we have to,’ the skipper added. The mate w as a caricature of a sailor. He w as in his late tw enties or early thirties and wore his long, curly, blond hair in a ponytail. Sometimes when he was painting or working down in the lazarette a small compartment where he stowed his maintenance gear he w rapped his head in a red bandanna. le had wire-rim glasses held together in places with tape, forearms like Popeye s, multi-patched dungarees, big calluses on his hands, and a





1

rigger’s knife

w ith

a blade so sharp

had worked on schooners

it

could

slice

since he graduated

a tomato to one-sixteenth of an inch.

1

le

from high school, and he w as as competent

with a carpenter’s saw and a caulking mallet as he was with a marlinspike. 7

He and

the

skipper had been together so long they finished each other’s sentences. 1

he skipper, a native Mainer, w as one of those

been thirty-five or of

medium height,

men of indeterminate age.

forty-five: for that matter, he

could have been forty or

stocky, with black hair, a salt-and-pepper beard,

wore the same clothes

all

I

and a

le

could have

fifty.

He was

lively face.

I

le

the time: dungarees, dark-blue suspenders with white stripes,

red long johns peeking out from under a flannel shirt, sneakers, and, w hen the air turned

20

A PASSAGE

l\

TIME



maroon zip-up sweatshirt with black lettering on the back that said "Head le smoked cigars and pronounced schooner as "skunuah and slept in Schoonerman. his clothes, to the wonder of the. passengers. He kept up a constant stream of chatter: he woke up in the morning talking and went to bed at night talking and ohv iond\ relished cool, a

Sweating up the yaw lboat on the schooner

1

his role.

He was

storyteller,

part sailor, part actor, part coastal character, part boatbuilder. part

and part

of the flame.

1

le

embodiment

living

of the archetypal coasterman of the past, keeper

knew or had heard of everyone in

ship designers, builders, sailors, hangers-on

tin'

/..

/ 1 if!" in .

The

starboard-side gang

has

(lie

bow up and

i>

working on the

stern.

die

schooner with boundless

protects the stern of the

schooner when she

Gilkev

I

larbor

last

week,

he said, "and

(be

crowd on the port side

stem of the yaw Ihoat his

passion.

"We were out in

it-

The padding on

business, wherever they might be

— and he loved

./.

in

the e\ ening

i

I

rowed ashore

sMOki soi

ii/:sri:it

2

1

being pushed.

is

to see a friend of mine.

Camden

I

looked back at the schooner silhouetted in the sunset behind the

I

and couldn’t

fills

believe

how

beautiful she looked.

1

couldn

t

believe she

was

mine.

We were struck with the full force of the rising southwesterly breeze when we passed Owls Head

The wind was

Light.

fighting the ebbing tide,

and the

resulting steep

capped with white foam. Rather than turn down the bay and pound coastermen used

lump

to call “a

of a head-beat sea,

into

waves were

what the old

the skipper steered the vessel

diagonally across the bay to skirt the White Islands and Hurricane Island, off Vinalhaven’s

southwestern shore. The rigging on the windward

on the

sails,

side, taut

from the pressure of the wind

The schooner pitched now and

started to thrum.

again, throwing spray from

We picked up speed and charged like a thoroughbred for the first sea mark, the

her bow.

Some of the passengers, those with a natural affinity for sailing, skylarked around the deck. Others, made nervous by what to them was the strange motion buoy at Old

lorse Ledge.

windjammer

of a

the

I

in

her element, appeared uneasy; a handful were slightly green around

gills.

“This

sailing weather!

is

A smoky

the horizon?

the skipper yelled to

nobody

in particular.

“See the haze on

sou wester.

The southwesterly wind

prevails on the

Maine coast during the summer months,

blowing out of Massachusetts Bay toward the Bay of Fundy. The usual diurnal pattern is

light air in the

morning, a strong breeze

strongest southwesterly

is

deviation from southwest in a

The

in the evening.

almost always accompanied by a hazy atmosphere, hence the

Summer w ill

reference to smoke.

and calm

in the afternoon,

is

see an occasional westerly, but the

more normal

an easterly or southeasterly wind, usually wet but every once

while strong, steady, and dry.

Come winter, of Canada.

The

the northwest

wind

prevails

strongest northwesterly,

of an intense storm,

is

consequently become choked with

Vinalhaven

to

In the

winters of

is

ice,

dry blast out of the depths

bitter,

which usually

wake thereof. A

carries subzero cold in the

nicknamed the “Montreal Express,

winter dominated by northwesterlies

become icebound.

—a wild,

or

some variation

extremely cold, and most of the coastal waters

though only, rarely

floes

Penobscot Bay

1779-80 and 1875-76, however,

Bangor; daredevils could walk from

Camden

to

itself

the bay froze from

North Haven. Belfast

to

Castine.

The winter storms,

the legendary

northeast

and bring snow,

schooner

fleet lies

was

freezing rain,

ice,

gales,

it.

out of the east

and

tin'

Obviously, the passenger-

the days of cargo-carrying,

many

a dangerous business, winter coasting, especially in the later years,

when

at

it

in

year round.

economics virtually ensured that the vessels would be

and therefore 22

come

you name

low during the winter months, but

of the coasters kept It

sleet,

New England

least

able to handle the strain.

A PASSAGE IX TIME

Though

it

in

poor repair and undermanned,

would seem

that a schooner sailing



along the coast would he secure, in close proximity to harbors of refuge, such was not the case.

During any of the

thick

o'

common

Maine coast

vapor (sea smoke brought on by extremely cold

the land, unseen

fog, thick o'

air lying over

snow,

warmer water)

many rocks, half-tide ledges, and unpredictable currents.

wonder, then, that skippers of winter coasters had the reputation for being

Little

cautious

—thick o

by the schoonerman, became more dangerous than the towering seas of

the open ocean. There were too

ing

"thicks' of the

—perhaps overly cautious from the point of view of an owner who would be

money when

schooner hid behind a headland

his

los-

northwester or a

to wait out a

They knew all about the limitations of navigating with only a compass, a barometer, and the seats of their pants, even though most of the best skippers were famous for their “nose for the coast. (Some were northeast gale. But can anyone blame the coastermen?

even noted for their ability to predict changes feet, sore

elbows and knees, and ticks

knew about the consequences

in the

weather by reference

The

in the corners of their eyes.)

of being overconfident.

to corns

best of

The periodic North

storms provided plenty of evidence, the most famous being the

on their

them

also

Atlantic winter

“ Portland

Gale

of

November 26—27, 1898, when 456 lives were lost and l4l vessels were wrecked, including the steamer Portland which gave its name to the storm. ,

smoky southwester bears no Express. We were sailing hard and But a

in response to the

unintimidating

and the timbers

fast,

of the schooner

were groaning

heaving of the sea and the pressure of the wind, but

summer sailing,

The wind was

relationship to the Portland Gale or the Montreal

lighthouses, headlands,

agony of a hang-on-to-your-hats winter struggle.

not the

steady, not squally,

was

this

and

and prominent

the skipper

islands

—were

s

navigational marks

visible a long

way

—buoys,

off.

The galley hand came staggering on deck with an armload of dishes and covered bowls and eating utensils, followed by the cook carrying a steaming caldron of fish chowder. It was lunchtime. In celebration of the occasion and to summon passengers from down below, the skipper gave a pull on the ship’s bronze

“Fish chowder,’ he announced,

bell.

“the best on the coast of Maine.

There have been many claims

who makes

the best.

Mystery has risen

made

chowder over the

for fish

Kenneth Roberts, the

like a fog

around Maine

novelist,

fish

and

it's

anyone’s guess

once wrote:

chowder. Some cooks argue that

ii

can

properly without soiling eight or ten stew-pans, dishes and cauldrons.

pontifically

announce that

salt

pork should never be used; hut

only should he used, but should be tried out separately, the pork scraps

added

to the stew.

There

is

tin*

chowder.

I’m not sure

many contend

liquid fat

juice

hi'

that pork not .

which

insists that

from them used as

a basis

.

how many pans, dishes, and caldrons our cook used, or

was involved, but

t

A few

thrown aw a\ and onl\

also a large school of thought

the head and backbone must be boiled separately, and the for the

years,

it

was a

fantastically



good chowder

thick, fishy,

I

il

and how

and

hot.

salt

W

pork

e ate in

SMOk) SOI HESTkH

23

W eather permitting, lunch

served ul

is

fresco, with the top of

the cabinhouse ser>ing

as a buffet table.

The

skipper has stepped

away from the wheel moment to grab

for a

a quick mouthful

take a look at the

at the

same I

chart

time.

yaw boat

is

and

The

rigged

astern to help push the

schooner

in the

light airs.

2 -+

1

PASS \GE

l\

TIME

the lee of the cabinhouse, wit li a clear view of Vinalhaven and

1

lurricarie islands, a

couple

of miles away.

\

inalhaven, the largest of the Fox Islands, once was one of the country’s leading producers

of building stone.

Like several of the islands of lower Penobscot Bav

Deer, Crotch, and others



it

—Dix.

1

lurricane.

had an almost unlimited supply of granite that was

suited to large-scale construction.

It

also

had the proper deepwater harbors

ideally

for shipping

the stone.

The

first

quarry on Vinalhaven, a small one, was established

the 1820s: by the

in

middle of the century, there were about a dozen small operations, working sometimes, closed often. But the building

boom

along the eastern seaboard following the Civil

War

dramatically changed what essentially had been a cottage industry. In 1871. Joseph R.

Bodwell, a onetime governor of Maine, amalgamated several of the quarries into the

Bodwell Granite Company, and Vinalhaven became a serious producer of stone until the

company went out of business in 1919. Vinalhaven stone was used in hundreds of buildings, among them the Brooklyn Bridge; the Pilgrims Monument in Plymouth. Massachusetts; and Grant City.

that

The main quarry, was considered

be

to

So, too, the granite

s

Tomb and the

just outside

among

Cathedral of

Museum

John the Divine

New

in

ork

\

the finest stone found anywhere in the United States.

from nearby Hurricane

country, including the

St.

Carvers Harbor, yielded a grade of blue-gray granite

Island,

which can now be found

of Fine Arts in Boston, the

the Treasury Department in Washington,

over the

in

New York,

in

Annapolis.

Customs House

and the U.S. Naval Academy

all

When the island was bought for a mere fifty dollars by General Davis Tillson of Rockland, who

established the Hurricane quarries in the early 1870s, there were only a handful of

had a regular town of perhaps 2,000 people, with boardinghouses, a school, a dance ball, and a church. It was a company

residents, but in short order the island

several stores,

town, run with an iron

fist

by General Tillson

—known by

Swedish, and Yankee laborers as the “Lord of the

Isles,’

tin 1

Finnish, Scottish, Irish,

and by the

skilled Italian stone-

cutters as “ Bombasto Furioso.

The

quarries on Vinalhaven and

islands,

were hotbeds

their manipulations

organizers, try for

its

1

lurricane, as well as

of radical politics;

and

exploitations,

and Penobscot Bay, of all

on most of the other quarrying

the behavior of the owners,

saw

places,

to that.

It

was

fertile territory for

when

for

union

w as therefore w ell known around the coun-

periodic labor wars, the most famous of which took place

of the Lockout, ”

who w ere noted

in

the Granite Manufacturers Association fought

1892. “The Year

dim

to

break the

principal stonecutters union.

But

it

wasn’t the labor movement that torpedoed the island quarry industn

It

was

simple economics: Other building materials from other places came into favor, and b\

World War were

I

the quarries

in serious decline.

on Vinalhaven and

Today,

all

I

lurricane

and everywhere

else

on the ba\

the island quarries are silent. w ith the exception of a

I

SMOK) SOI HEs llJt

now Outward

small operation on Crotch Island, next to the Deer Island Thorofare. Vinalhaven

primarih an island of fishermen; Hurricane

bound School, a camp

the base of operations for the

is

for wilderness survival training.

he development of the quarries and their success at the height of their operations

I

depended on

coasting vessels

tin*



at first

easier to rig the derricks for loading

small sloops, which were favored because

and unloading the stone, and.

accommodate

il

was

in the later vears. larger

schooners. (Most so-called stone schooners carried their mainmasts farther to

is

aft

than usual

of

them were

the derricks.)

Schooners were built specifically for hauling stone, but

many

just as

converted from other uses, such as carrying lumber and cordwood. The Deer Isle quarries

—among them the Accumulator, the the extremes of the and the Black Warrior— too used up

were noted for their converted fishing schooners

Cordova the Valparaiso ,

fishing

for

,

banks but with enough

couldn't be too used up. After

life left

all.

nothing sinks faster than a

deckbeams with paving blocks and building

A

stone.

known on the bay as a “stone drogher, was a strange sight: looked much like a sinking ship. “I have seen th e Annie & Reuben

loaded stone schooner,

to the untutored eye

wit li

A stone schooner, however, wooden vessel packed to the

for the stone trade.

it

something over 200 tons of stone aboard, wrote John Leavitt, “lying at Crotch Island

wharf with the water flowing through the scuppers

main hatch coaming over

the deck.

schooners resembled half-tide ledges

battened

The

down and

pumps going

when

built in the state

at sea,

Loaded

calm.

flat

and

it

in

such fashion, the

sure the hatches were well

is

—indeed, one of the

—was the Anna Sophia, launched

the last coaster to haul stone

an inch or more on the

steadily the entire trip.

stone drogher built in Maine

last

any tvpe

the

This in a

to the height of

was the Annie

A*

cargo vessels of

last sailing

in Dennysville in

1923. But

Reuben, which carried on into World

Owned by the John

War

II.

alternating stone with scrap iron for the war effort.

in

Stonington and built in Bath in 1891, she was wide, stout, and massively put together

to stand

up

to the heaviest loads,

was from Penobscot Bay down England ports. She was

well

most stowed

to Boston,

in the hold,

some on deck.

I

hough

If

lie

schooners

usual run

New

&

Reuben

to

be a

she was in port, they* knew a storm was on the way.

a few schooners like the

quarries declined.

steam and

ler

known in Portland, as she used that citv as a harbor of refuge.

well into the twentieth centurv, t

1

though on occasion she called on other

Residents with a view of the Portland roadstead considered the Annie

barometer:

Goss quarries

L.

Anna Sophia and

the Annie

Reuben carried stone

most of the stone droghers went out of business long before

They were forced out by a more

diesel tugboats

&

towing barges with

reliable

much more

means

of transportation:

capacity than the largest

in the trade.

Midafternoon found u^ barreling n along n with the wind almost dead astern and the seas building behind ib with broad, foaming crests.

26

I

/’I" I GE

l\

TIMl

The

stern of he schooner t

would

sink into

the trough, seemingly sucked

down by

would race forward, gaining height skipper

s

head. Just

when

seemed

until the crest

appeared that

it

and then the face of the next wave

a giant straw,

tin*

be above the

to

wave would break over the

level of the

afterdeck, the

would

lift and the wave would pass under the hull, providing a momentary boost to the vessel s already considerable speed. The sensation was rather like

stern of the schooner

mating with an

that of a roller coaster

were sailing

e

eastward off the south end of

to the

by some Maine natives and

Holt

elevator.

explorer Samuel de Champlain,

"Isle a

Ho bv

Isle

the rest).

who was impressed bv

an

the island

.

a population of as the island visitors

The

is

many

as 800. but

naming

number

that

Isle

live

it

"Sorico.

skipper, at the wheel,

to this

was riding

after

an Haut once had

Much

there now.

part of the Acadia National Park svstem. though few of the park

each year find their way out

o

height (543 feet at the

s

and boatbuilders.

nowhere near

"Isle

The name came from French

peak), though in 1014 Captain John Smith was less impressed, the Indians. Historically an island of fishermen

(pronounced

lain

1

s

of

4 million

wild and lonely place.

high.

He

steered while he talked, talked while

he checked his position on the chart, threw his shoulders back, pushed out his stomach,

and bellowed

at the

mate

to lash

down

seaway. His eves were constantly

in

the boarding ladder before

motion

—checking the

sails,

it

came

adrift in this

the compass, the next

who striker. He

buov, the security of the vawlboat. and the passengers up forward by the bowsprit,

were leaning over the told

watch rainbows

rail to

spray under the dolphin

in the

one story after another, whether anyone was listening or not. almost an unconscious,

He would

habitual act.

tell

stories within stories,

and more

stories within

those,

interrupting himself from time to time with orders or merely thoughts involving the

operation of the schooner.

stool

by the wheel. (The passengers could already be divided

hung around

the wheel listening to the skipper,

Harbor, and if you land a boat deep in tarn, a

mountain

Then over

lake.

who w as

he said to one of the passengers

"See that cove over there?

and those who

and climb up

it

there

is



1

into

ley!

into the

\\ ill

two

seated on a low

ty

pes: those

you

hills,

II

find a beautiful

someone ask the cook



Head

"That’s

didn't.)

w ho

to

send up

and one of those toll-house cookies? Eastern lead and then just off it i> a little island. That’s called Eastern Ear. and then there’s Eastern Ear Ledge, where you can see the buoy. There isn t a buov on the ledge at the mouth of lead larbor and dun e

a cup of coffee

1

I

1

ought to be it.

now

—Slack

cleat

it,

coil

off it

on that sheet for a second. ..a

nicelv

— because

Dillinger look like a choirboy.

Burnt Coat.

Aw.

though Cape Ann it

got that

hell.

I

itself is

name from a

ll

it's

a vicious

I'm wondering

worn about

if

lick its ass.

We

could jibe

Dammit, in this

...It’s

Cape Aimer,

tell



I

more. ..a

to put into

called

more. ..that

laid in

>

makes

Erenchboro or

Cape Ann Ledge, even

on that sheet a hair

a Gloucester fishing hit

bit

spot with a record that

we ought

that later.

passage along the coast during the w inter that got

can

little

hundreds of miles from here

schooner, a

little bit

—but

schooner making

a

by a snow squall faster than a cat

that passenger not to stand

up on

seaway and the boom would knock him

t

lie

cabinhouse

right to

i

just

now

kingdom come.

sunk) sot

n is

mt

07

28

\

PASSAGE I\ TIME

Captain Jim Sharp of the idrenture studies the

schooner Mary Day. The

owners of some of the

Maine schooners choose scheme and slick

a color to

it.

Others prefer change

for the

sake of change.

The Mary Day has been various!) white, black,

and

buff.



Anyway, quite a few

saw her near the ledge before the

squall hit, then there

and they couldn’t see a thing, then she cleared up and,

total whiteout

The

islanders

squall lasted ten minutes on the outside.

Did she

Jesus!

was

no schooner.

Nobody knows.

strike the ledge?

know her name, but they were knew a Cape Anner when they saw one, so from that point on they called the place Cape Ann Ledge Hey! Ask the mate to bring me my binoculars.” The mate came aft and draped himself over the mainsheet, taut from the power of the

They

didn’t find a trace of that schooner, they didn’t even

fishermen and



wind against the deep-bellied mainsail, and bantered with the skipper over possible anchorages for the evening. The choices were unlimited. From our position, there were easily twenty-five

two-hour

sail.

and

was

that

whispered

in

good

possibilities within

an hour’s easy

But the skipper quickly zeroed

(“He hopes there

that.

in

in past Seal

and twice

many

that

be other schooners in Burnt Coat,

II

in a

on Burnt Coat Harbor on Swans Island,

an aside, “and even though he won’t admit

So we sailed

sail

it

mate

the

show off.

out loud, he wants to

)

Ledge and Heron Island and took the passage between

Brimstone and Green islands. The afternoon was getting on and the southwest wind, true to form,

was decreasing

entrance to Burnt Coat,

in strength.

we caught an

But just as we reached the errant blast of

wind

bell

buoy marking the

that heeled the schooner over

and just as suddenly let up. There was the sound of crashing pots and pans below, followed by profanity from the cook. (“Such a lobsterman

in

a green dory

little

—probably the

the skipper said in

lady,

last of his

looked up from his labor and waved to the skipper, “I

breed to haul traps

mock

in a

A

shock.)

rowing craft

who laughed and yelled back

him,

at

think our supper just turned into stew.

The haziness

started to clear

and the wind dropped, and by the time we had turned the

corner by the harbor light and glided into the anchorage, the air was like crystal and the

water

s

surface

was

off the village.

like glass.

We

The schooner Mary Day out of Camden was anchored

sailed right past, the skipper looking

anywhere but

at

her and

pretending she wasn’t even there, rounded up into the barest breath of wind that was

and dropped the anchor. While we furled the skipper said, “That was too easy.

sails

and

set the

In the height of the

schooner

them

in,

you get

all sorts

of opportunities to

summer, there would be

show

off.

straight for the shore, scare the bejesus out of the

passengers, wheel the bugger around, drop the anchor on the

Thev

11

remember who you

left,

awning for the evening, the

yachts and schooners scattered through here, not to mention fishing boats. last

just

If

several

you

re

the

You weave right in through other guys and your own fly,

and bring her up

short.

are.

Supper, after an exhilarating day

at sea,

was magnificent, a

far cry

from the Monday-

evening meal on the schooner Albert F. Paul recorded by Janies Smith McCullough

in

1933: “Sardines, cold corned beef (very bad), fried potatoes, bread and butter, dried apricots, cookies,

and

tea.

Ours was a heroic feast, with homemade vegetable soup,

chicken, peas, carrots, freshly baked

30

A PASSAGE l\ TIME

rolls still

steaming from

tin*

roast

oven, garden salad,

-

walnut cake, coffee,

works. The cook tipped

tea, the

and the galley hand had put together tin halks of \\

split

maple and oak and the occasional alder

oodstove cooking.

lor several years

for fast heat.

on the passenger-schooner Adventure.

box on the top

shelf.

\\

hat to a standing ovation: she

who w as cook

according to Dee Carstarphen,

a challenge,

“It is

cake in the oven, dust your hands and that (ire

Iter

entire feast with only a cast-iron stove fueled w ith

1

that

s

"If

— w rong!

hen that cake browns,

it

von think vou can

The

hottest spot

is

slide

vour

next to the

must be turned, then moved awa\

from the hot spot and finished up on the lower shelf to brown the bottom. No heat indicator or timer can help you here.

They

call the result

these days,

and

in

You

the temperature

feel

"schooner food,

essence

it is

virtually a generic

good old down-home chow

arrangements, no reliance on exotic

fruits

in \\

— the type of food you

yoming, Pop

s

get in

Diner down in

term along

fish,

tin*

spices

the kerosene lamps glowing,

his rigging knife,

that

bread, coffee, pudding,

summer

lumber camps in the Maine woods, chuck wagons out

Warw ick, Rhode

Island.

Food w ith

gusto.

hen vou

\\

and

lit*

t

mate

you know you’ve had a meal

slicing off

the

another slab of carrot cake with

—neither the

salt

meat or

salt fish

in

some of the tony restaurants ashore. What you need afterward

is

a

little

So took the skippers personal Whitehall pulling boat, a delicate little thing w I

bladed oars and bronze oarlocks, out for a row around the harbor, the reflected in the dark

mate and the

lifeboat

rowed

burgoo

falls for

before,

tall

exercise.

ith

spoon

spruce trees

w ater and a brace of deer grazing in a fisherman’s yard. Meanw hile,

galley

hand lowered

the seine boat over the side of the schooner with the

any of the passengers who wished

and the boat clattered

From across the harbor on I

in

was standard on the old coasting schooners nor the teeny-weeny nourellc cuisine

snacks

the

little

from specialty shops,

stand up after supper in the galley of a schooner with the smell of percolating coffee air.

it.

Maine

coast of

—no fancy sauces, no cute

and vegetables and

no fad-foods-of-the-month here. Meat, potatoes,

squash

and develop a gut sense about

off to the

the Minturn side

1

to

go ashore. Few of them had ever

darkening village

could see them

st

like a

rolling

wounded

up the single

insect. st

reel.

could see the skipper, the mate, the cook, and the galley hand sharing a jug of wine on

the

main cabin house of the schooner,

the purple skv over

I

larbor Island,

I

could see the huge orange

and could hear I

moon

rising through

the tide rising over the mussels bed>.

I

SMOKY

SOI HESTER

3

1

and

“Built by the Mile

Ill

Sawed Off in Lengths” The large Eastern coasting schooner was

was on

the one



When of

I

\\

irreversibly

still

,

committed

to

a future of cast

tied to traditions of ages past.

illiam H. Bunting. Steamers. Schooners. Cutters

was a boy, growing up on Cape Cod

my spare time

symbolic of

,

hand

changes while on the other

many ways

War and World War One when American

the period between the Civil society

in

in the 19-+0s

hanging around the waterfront.

between the pursuit of a higher

calling,

I

and 1950s.

tV-

Sloops

spent a good part

I

was a schizophrenic adolescent, torn

such as social service or the

arts,

and nautical

monomania. Would be a doctor or a clam digger, a concert violinist or a merchant mariner? It was a difficult time, made all the more difficult by the sights and sounds and Provincetown, Chatham. Harwich. Woods Hole. \ ineyard smells of certain harbors Haven, New Bedford and the vision of sails on the horizon off Peaked Iill. the Chatham I





bars, I

Monomov. and

1

the Elizabeth Islands.

was an incurable romantic who spent

the shore of

W

ellfleet

tumbledown wharves cation tables.

I

Harbor and the

much

time studying the wooden hulks up on

fishing draggers unloading their catches

of Provincetown as

by the

did reading Caesar and memorizing multipli-

I

could conjugate verbs and play "The Flight of the Bumblebee" on the

violin: cull littleneeks. cherrystones,

the difference between eastern-

Every once

as

in a

while in

and chowder quahogs with

and western-rigged draggers

my longshore travels

I

my

eyes closed: and

tell

at five miles.

would come across

a coasting

schooner

backwater or falling apart next to a wharf or waiting to be junked, sold foreign, or converted to a fried-clam takeout or some such thing. It was a crushing sight for a nautical monomaniac, proof positive that was born too late for the Great Age of Sail. laid

up in

a

Sail, that

rather pathetic collection of aging

dark period between the world war* when a

and economically marginal

vessels tried, with

little

success, to compete with the efficiencies and conveniences of the engine-powered vessel

same

time.

I

found those tired old vessels inspiring. Many of them had lived

I

Reach. A rare sight these days, such a

gathering of coasters would have

in the early

decades

of this century.

through the years of America’s maritime ascendancv:

if

they could speak. the\ could talk

would never experience, events could only read about in history book-'. remember, for example, coming across the almost-sunken Alice S. II entworth in W ood-

about things

in a

been commonplace

and the trucking industry. Yet at the

rendezvous

cove off Eggenioggin

I

I

had even missed the Lesser Age of

A windjammer

I

I

-lit

ILT BY THE MILE AM) SAWED OEE

l\

LEKCTHS'

33

That's the Grace

Hailey in the fore-

ground.

I

lole.

Launched a hundred years

had helped build New York

earlier, in

1863, right in the heart of the Civil War, she

City, carrying bricks on the

Hudson from

the brickyards

downriver. Later she went east to Maine, where she joined

upriver to the construction

sites

the general cargo trade.

Her homeports were variously Wells, Kennebunk, Portland,

Vineyard Haven, and

New

Bedford, and under the stewardship of Captains Arthur

Stevens of Maine and Zebulon N. Tilton of Martha’s Vineyard, she was an institution

New England

along the

Skippered by Captains Frederick Guild and Havilah

coast.

Hawkins, she had carried passengers around Penobscot Bay

in the early years of the

Maine windjammer trade. She had seen the passage of generations

my grandfather’s father was a young man — and there she

— she was young when

lay before

my very own eyes in

Woods Hole, as broken down as a farm horse just this side of the glue factory. The scum may have been rising in her bilges and the moss may have been growing in the seams of her deck planking, but she was

still

the physical evidence of a vital part of America’s

maritime past.



The northeast coasting trade of old the hauling of cargo from one port to another in wooden sailing vessels never had the romance of carrying tea from China or wool from Australia or ivory from Africa, but it did have a peculiar hold on the psyches of some sailors, perhaps because it could be so exciting on the one hand and so mundane on the other. The yin and yang of the sailor s world. There would be periods of fast, pulse-



pounding

sailing in a

near gale juxtaposed with quiet interludes in out-of-the-way ports,

tricky navigation in the fog followed sailing

may have

by wild weekends in Boston or New York. Deepwater

provided greater rewards in strange lands and exotic ports, but

it

involved days, weeks, months of boredom and sometimes terror on the empty ocean to get there.

usually was only a





moments and, occasionally, its terror but the few days away, and any seaman could live through that.

Coasting had

its

dull

next port

To the coastermen, the land was as important as the sea:, home could be both the ship and the shore. Many were the sailors who split their time between a farm with cows, chickens, horses, and goats, and a ^chooner making short hops up and down the coast. (There were several sailors, for that matter, who took the farm with them. John Leavitt remembered a skipper who sailed with both his family and his livestock: “The former forecastle of his old packet, vacated when the deck hoisting engine replaced the larger crews, was a combination pigpen to as the floating barnyard.

The

first

produce

It

and henhouse, and the schooner was generally

was claimed she was recognizable

coastermen were seagoing farmers,

in small craft (such as longboats

villages to the developing seaports

the regular business of coasting

would

call

on

necessities of

34

t

lit-

life

A PASSAGE l\

in a fog

by

referred

the- smell.

)

New England colonials who carried their

and shallops) from saltwater farms and outlying

engaged

in foreign

commerce. As early as the 1670s,

had been established, involving specialized

vessels that

various settlements to load cargoes for foreign trade in exchange for the

and

HUE

to carry passengers along the coast in a time

when overland

travel,

while not totally impossible, was at best extremely difficult. By the Revolutionary

was a

there

smacks,

vast fleet of coasting vessels

etc.

— working not

Maine. Massachusetts, and

and many

rivers

of the

to the Caribbean,

just

what

New

\ ork.

medium and

—packets, general

is

now Maine,

The coasting

with eastern coasters dominating trade

it

among

series of

in the latter

region even after

development of the new

nited States,

l

w ell as w ith foreign

states as

sailing ships carried cargo across the oceans: coasting vessels carried

the states. So important

was the

latter

and

so lucrative

was the business that

In IT’S?, a

tonnage tax was passed that discriminated against

foreign vessels in domestic commerce. Later, the

Embargo Act of 808 and

American

the

1

Navigation Act of 181^ forbade foreign-flag vessels from trading between ports l

A

nited States.

British ship, for example, could deliver a cargo

but could not load another cargo

from

The peacetime,

in

Boston and earn

came during

this exclusionarv policy

\\

in relation to foreign

ar

it

to

New

from London

\ ork.

to

in

the

Boston

(The only deviation

the world w ars as an emergency measure.)

post- Revolutionary years

again after the Civil



especially those after the

\\

ar of 1812

and

—witnessed an explosion of domestic waterborne commerce

commerce. (Some claimed protectionism was the cause: Since

more heavib

in

As the years passed, the proportion of the American merchant marine devoted

to

Americans had a monopoly on domestic commerce, they tended that.)

a

laws w as passed by the new nation to reserve the coasting trade for American

and American crews.

vessels

of the large

technicallv foreign.

trade, in fact, w as essential to the

Deepwater

all

This network extended from Canada

small ones.

w hose economy depended on trade among the individual nations.

carrier-', fish

or Maine and Massachusetts, or

but the entire east coast, including

when such commerce w as

the Revolution,

lumber

traders,

ar.

\\

to invest

the coasting trade increased, w hile that involved in foreign trade decreased. In

1

888. the

total

tonnage of coasting vessels exceeded that of American foreign-trading vessels for the

first

time, the gap increasing as the decades passed: by the turn of the century, coasting

tonnage was

five

times the foreign tonnage.

But for sailors there was a problem.

\\

it

bin the coastal fleet

itself,

bellwether developed during the nineteenth century: Sail was giving in the twentieth century, to diesel.

slightly

ahead of

sail: in

1907.

later,

when

fleet of ovster

It

was



a

is

to

steam and.

of the century, mechanical

power was

the greatest

amount

of coastal sail tonnage in the

sail still

w ith the exception of a handful of passenger foreign

way

statistical

amounted to less than -+0 percent of the total. Four the percentage of sail was so small as to be hardly worth calculating. Today,

United States was recorded, decades

By the turn

another

vessels

around the coasts and a dwindling

dredgers on Chesapeake Bay. commercial

sail

in

America



coastal or

dead.

grand old time while

it

of the United States, primarily

lasted.

on the

The major, minor, and even inconsequential

east coast but elsewhere as

ports

w ell, including the ( h eat

Lakes, were awash with sailing vessels during the nineteenth centurv and earlv decades

-Bl

U.T H) THE MILE

I

M) SMIEI) OEF

l\

EE\GTIIS'

35

wr'

Nobody has compiled an accurate count of the numbers and probabb but anyone who has read contemporary descriptions written by the few

of the twentieth.

nobody

will,

people w ho paid attention to such things as 1

w as so commonplace) or

it

905, w

understand.

ill

Port land

I

public notice w as given the coasting

seen photographs of eastern harbors

lias

say,

in.

fleet,

1882 or

have on hand, for example, a photograph of a small corner of

larbor on a windless

1

(little

summer day at

coasting schooners are awaiting a breeze.

the turn of the century: Sixteen two-masted

In William Bunting’s Portrait of a Port

magnificent photograph of Boston Harbor on a typical day

more than eighty coasting

vessels

—from

is

a

in the early 1870s show ing

sloops through multimasted schooners



at

anchor. Charlie York, a fisherman from Ilarpswell. Maine,

remembered

similar scenes along

the coast in the early decades of this century:

Outside

I

or pavin

lalf-\\

av Rock vou might see coasters with barrels

of lime

from Thomaston. granite

stone from Vinalhaven, ice from the Kennebec, lumber

and

laths or

Aroostook

potatoes from Bangor, Stark and Baldwin apples from saltwater farms, cordwood from villages along the shore. lavin’

up

in

some

square mile, white

Though Boston larbor on a I

typical

day

It

was

safe harbor. sails

vessels of

a pretty sight after a storm, I’ve

after

when

them

the schooners

vessels within

had been

an area of

a

spread to the wind, standin out across Casco Bay.

all rigs

served as coasters

brigantines, barks, barkentines,

in the

seen thirty or forty of

little

and

ships

—including square-riggers such as

— the

about 1840 w as the schooner. By the

late

rig of choice

brigs,

on the eastern seaboard

nineteenth century, almost

all

coasters

latter part of the

nineteenth century,

were schooner-rigged, and during the

with perhaps eighty

was universal. There were several reasons

coasting vessels at

anchor, to

the

Wharf

left.

in

India

ong Wharf

l

was simpler than the square

rig,

years of the cargo-carrying era, the schooner for this, all

requiring

than a comparably sized square-rigger.

A

based on economics: The schooner

less rope,

fewer spars, and

less

hardware

simpler rig required fewer sailors to handle the

Central

the middle,

\\

rig

last

harf to the right.

vessel.

And. most important, the schooner

schooners could

sail closer to

the wind, which

rig

was more weatherly than the square

meant they generally could make better time

along the coast and could be maneuvered more easily in

36

A PASSACE l\ TIME

rig:

riv

ers

and harbors and other tight

.

waterways.

therefore produce

Of course,

in

count for much.

When

more income and keep a

trips per year at less

larger proportion of

s

expense and

it.

much

competition with steamships, which were

coasting schooner

ample space

make more

In short, schooners could

in

evidence during the

zenith, the schooner’s strengths vis-a-vis the square-rigger’s didn’t

What

did count was no engineroom and no fuel hunkers and therefore

in the hull for cargo,

and no

The wind,

fuel bill to pay.

after

all.

was

free.

time and speed and regularity of delivery were of the essence, steamers had a

tremendous advantage over coasting schooners, but when

it

came

to hauling

bulk cargo,

—cargoes that would be as fresh whenever thev were delivered, now or a week from now — the schooner was king. The steamers took most of

such as coal and lumber

the passengers

just

and the high-grade

the schooners carried the

raw

freight (the perishables

and the manufactured goods);

materials.

The age of the coasting schooner, when viewed from afar, can best be described in general terms as a period of a century and a half that was bracketed by an era of small two-masted schooners at the beginning and the end, and dominated by huge multimasted schooners in the

middle. What’s more,

it

was an era during which the absolute

limits of the size,

power, and economics of the wooden hull were tested, and tested, and tested again and again.

How big could a schooner be? How many masts could she carry?

the rig be

made? What were the risks

in

building

wooden vessels

1

low simple could

so huge that they

pushed

the outer limits of the engineering knowledge of the time?

One was rather deep, much like that of the medium clippers designed for ocean passages. (Many of the deep-bodied schooners actuallv sailed foreign besides trading coastwise.) The other was quite shallow In general,

and wide

two tvpes of schooner

hull

to enable the vessels to carry

coast, especially the shoals

were

in favor.

deck loads and

around Cape Cod and, of course, the less-than-deepwater

harbors of the mid-Atlantic states and the South. Most, but not fitted

the thin waters of the

sail safely in

of the latter type were

all.

with centerboards so the vessels could get a better grip on the water. For example,

was very shallow

the five-master Governor Arnes, a very large coasting schooner, relation to her length to be offset

and therefore w as

from the centerline of the

fitted

with a centerboard. (One of her masts had

hull to

make room

for the

massive centerboard

trunk, giving the Awes an odd look when viewed from dead forward or In the early

in

aft.)

days of the schooner era, when the two-master was the archetypal coaster,

the practical dimensions of the hull were determined by the size of the

schooner owners tried to compete with steam the only way they could capacity of their vessels to carry bulk cargoes

sails.

As the

— by increasing the

— they came up against the central matter

The larger the hull, the larger the sail area required to drive it: the larger the foreand-aft sails, the more difficult they were to reef or furl in a blow There w as a point in its size when the two-masted schooner was too dangerous for its crew A smart builder, name unknown, developed a solution and in the process opened a gate

of safety:

.

~m

'll.

T BY

Till:

MILE A M) SMI El) Oil

l\

LLXGTHS "

37

38

I

PASSAGE

l\

TIME

"

in

schooner design consciousness that wouldn

by increasing the number of

be closed until after

by increasing the

increase the sail area of larger schooners it

t

and the number

sails

Wor Id

W ar

Don't

I:

size of the individual sails;

So the small two-master

of masts.

evolved into the large three-master and then the larger four-master, the even larger master, and the mammoth six-master. By the time coastal after the turn of the century, a

do

live-

had reached its apogee, just

sail

seven-masted behemoth, the Thomas

IV.

Lawson had been ,

launched.

As

in all

matters nautical, there has been endless disagreement about the origin of the

three-masted schooner. Most historians suggest that the rig dates from the 1820s or

first

1830s; certainly there are several shipbuilding towns that can point to a three-master

having been built there during that period. Residents of Mathews County, Virginia, the three-masted schooner Pocahontas of

small three-masters, the Aurora and the

1

827. Ellsworth, Maine, stakes

Fame

,

its

recall

claim on two

of 1831.

Yet according to Howard Chapelle, one of the foremost historians of naval architecture, the rig goes

back

to the very

before the schooner

came

to

beginning of the nineteenth century or even

earlier,

long

dominate the coasting trade. There are other observers who

would make the claim that the modern three-master was invented much

later:

mid-

century or even after the Civil War. George Wasson, for example, suggested that the David

Hasson, first,

built

by

his

grandfather on Penobscot Bay

three-master built in

New England.

all

old-fashioned topsail schooners

to fore-and-aft sails

on

modern schooner

that

is



coasters

is

came

,

that

owners’ pleasure.

more than

French. 920 tons, built

In

it,

1883 alone,

half of those in

in

many

New England. The for

in

known, three-masted

tasteless fashion),

Amanda

K. Jones.

to their simplicity of rig.

largest

built

on the

was the Bradford

C.

beauty and balance of proportion,

its

In a letter

Please note the initial

would he incomplete. Almost Hopkins,

well

you want. The core

1884.

home,

at

letter,

A.J.

Green, an Englishman,

Bucksport, Maine,

neighbor arrived a few days ago. a handsome “down

abominably

addition

of the two-masters nor the out-of-scale excess of

and seven-posters.

called the Susie P. Oliver.

.

became

all

138 three-masters were

at least

described a typical three-master of 272 tons built

P

three-master

first

Kennebunkport, Maine,

having neither the chunkiness of the four-, five-, six-,

in

they were “built by the mile and sawed off in lengths

The down-east three-master was known

...A

they carried scjuaresails

is,

shipways by the hundreds, reaching their peak during the 1880s,

off the

Atlantic coast,

admitted

Aurora and the Fame but maintained

that once the advantages of the type

when, as a saying of the time had to suit the

le

must be rigged fore-and-aft.)

Argue about the where and the when of the of the matter

I

not the

(One of the fundamentals of the definition of a

their foremasts. all sails

first, if

But Wasson was splitting hairs.

that there were earlier three-masters, such as the

they were

1867, was one of the

in

1

east’

in

1882:

The archetypal schooner (three masted)

without which an American

coaster of both

name

early

all American vessels are named after some individual (an and every name must of necessity include the initial, as Joel

They

they can

sail

are great institutions, these a vessel of

"

same schooners,

000 tons capacity with

Bl ILT

It)

Tin:

MILE

I

AD

eight

SAILED Oil

for

hands

l\

later

I

lie

days

of the schooner era.

This

owing

is

the Stephen

Tuber out of Itockland.

all told.

LEXGTIIS

and

39

The\

sail well, shift

without ballast, use but

draught. Perhaps the

schooner alongside of us feet, tht* little

Mertola

s

is

much

less

being twenty-nine

depth would make them very

but they seem to get along

by seven

feet: large

skittish in a

side of his etc.

is

their

enormous beam. This

and undoubtedly feet,

thirty-live

is

much breadth

that so

my

with spare rooms off



foam

like

sail

Their cabin

balls.

sea-faring friends, a skipper having

all in

his

it:

own

a

bedroom abaft, w hile on

quarters;

ten feet (lit'

fore

a cabin, ten by twelve; w ith mates berths, pantry, stew ard's room,

side.

Although schooners w ere

on

built

all

coasts,

most of the major shipyards were

England, with the center of activity being the state of Maine.

In such

hammers, adzes, and caulking mallets was part

the din of saws,

especially after the Civil

War, when the bulk of the coasting

a seafaring tradition going

back

to the first

steep shores (just the thing for launching

white

huge

settlers,

vessels),

— they loved

to build ships,

w as

New'

in

between,

of the local scene,

constructed.

Maine

deepwater harbors with

and a

skilled labor force of

men who didn’t and they didn’t charge an arm and a leg for

shipwrights, caulkers, blacksmiths, dubbers, loftsmen,

merely build ships

fleet

in

towns as Bath,

Yarmouth. Waldoboro, Rockland, Camden, Searsport, Ellsworth, and those

had

with so

seaw ay, and be terribly severe on the masts,

bathroom and companion way

bulkhead

on each

by ten

eye

s

rarely exceed thirteen feet in is

One would think

accommodations make me quite envious. Imagine, a private sitting-room, ten feet

and

gear,

tonnage than the Mertola but her beam feet.

right,

all

little

that strikes a stranger

first tiling

and

riggers,

the privilege. I nt

i 1

the 1880s, the

Maine shipyards specializing

in large

w ooden

vessels concentrated

on deepwater square-riggers, the clippers during their intense but brief maritime heyday in

medium clippers, the Maine style of which “Down Easters. But after the Civil War insurance

midcentury, and then the more practical

came to lie known around the world as rates

were higher for wooden ships

making them

less

competitive.

in foreign

commerce than

for those of iron

Faced with declining orders

for their

and

steel,

most important

product, the Maine yards shifted their attention to multimasted coasting schooners.

Maine

at the

technological improvements in the shipbuilding industry were least of

which was the steam-powered windlass. The

b\ the invention

used

first

was the three-master Charles A. Briggs

to hoist the sails, raise the

the bilges. Jobs that

in

to

first

worked

of the

out, not the

coasting schooner to be favored

1879. The steam windlass was

heavy anchor, load and discharge cargo, and even

had previously required a large crew of

needed only a handful, and the main remaining barrier schooners

many

time was a land of maritime innovation, a place where

sailors

pump

and stevedores now

to constructing ever-larger

— the operating expense of a large crew—was eliminated. Schooners

in the

200-

800-foot range became common. Square-riggers of that size would have required crews

of up to 100

men: the schooners scraped by with

Perhaps the

first

three-masted schooner can

fifteen or fewer, including the officers. t

be attributed to the state of Maine,

though nobody has been able to prove convincingly otherwise, but the four-,

40

I

PASSAGE IX TIME

five-,

and

six-

The Domino at

Effect ex- Victory Chimes, ,

anchor with her awnings rigged.

The

last

three-masted schooner on

the roast, she

was

Iniilt in

Bethel, Delaware, as the

1900

in

Edwin and

Monde. Her proportions are not nearly as elegant as the classic threemasters. as she was designed to be

able to

fit

through the Chesapeake

and Delaw are Canal.

masters can be. The

four-master, the William L. White was built in Bath in 1879,

first

,

By

the year of the steam windlass. built in 1921.

approximately 460 had been constructed, the vast majority

The

largest, at

first

five-master, the Governor Ames,

all

more than 2,000

Chase was

the time the last four-master, th ejosiah B.

was

tons, the Northland,

was

in

1

888.

,

Maine yards. in

1906. The

A total

of fifty-six,

Rockland

built in

Waldoboro

built in

in

but four built in Maine, were constructed before the big-schooner era ended. T he

was launched

six-master, the George W. Wells,

in

Camden

nine six-masters, seven were constructed at the Percy

total of

& Small Shipyard in Bath, including

Wyoming which could carry

the largest of all, the great

1900. Of the grand

in

first

,

Shipbuilding innovations notwithstanding, there

a single load of 6,000 tons of coal. a practical limit to the size of

is

wooden hulls, and the six-masters reached it. Some would say they exceeded it. They were so large, in fact, that the shipwrights had to go to great lengths to reinforce the schooner’s structures to keep less

them from hogging

—a condition

in

buoyancy than the middle, would tend over time

which the ends of the

to

with

droop from their own weight. A

massive, reinforced backbone was required; in addition, the sheer

sweep of the topsides

vessel,

— the

fore-and-aft

—was accentuated so the ends, when they did droop, wouldn’t

produce a reverse sheer, spoiling the schooner’s looks and, more important, reducing her seakeeping

abilities.

They were magnificent to

it,

they were too much, too

transport of bulk cargoes to

handle in certain

uneconomical in

late.

Designed to be the

—coal and lumber,

for the

critical situations, especially

just a

when you get right down word in the efficient, cheap

vessels, the six-masted coasters, but last

most part

when

— they proved

sailing light,

to

be difficult

and they became

few years time. What’s more, they and the other multimasted Their construction consumed mountains of

schooners became too expensive to build.

wood, and much of the premium stock that was required had

to

be hauled by other

Oak for the frames came from all over the eastern seaboard, hard pine for the planking came from the South, hackmatack for the knees came from Nova Scotia, and pine for the masts and spars came from as far away as Oregon. Shipyard schooners over long distances.

labor

may

The George j

still

have been cheap, but materials no longer were.

era of the six-master lasted a If

ust after

.

Wells to the burning of th&EdwardJ. Lawrence, the last of the type, at Portland

Christmas,

1

925. Business for all of the big multimasted coasting schooners was

dead by that time; indeed, freighters

mere quarter of a century from the launching of the

and

colliers that

it

w as

in serious decline before 1910.

Pushed aside by steam

could virtually guarantee delivery of their cargoes on time,

every time, they had become dinosaurs of the coast.

In the new, twentieth century,

shipowners soon discovered that time was more important than cheap cargo people were willing to pay a left little

room

and were converted

to the very

competition for their

A PASSAGE 1\ TIME

built.

sisters.

Many

the quickening pace ashore

w ere

up

just a

Later, in the 1930s, quite a few had their rigs cut

down

for the casuals of the sea.

few years after they were

42

premium for prompt delivery, that

fees, that

of the big schooners

laid

tug-towed barges that had provided such devastating

They made

a forlorn sight, their once-beautiful hulls

Coasting

schooners

anchor fall

at

in the

of 1900 in

Boston's outer

harbor, awaiting their turn at the

docks. The five-

masters

in the

foreground are (left)

C.

I

lie

W illiam

Carnegie of

Portland and the Jennie French Fatter of

New

York. They are

deeply laden with coal.

blackened with coal dust. lying against loading wharves long strings behind powerful coastal tugs

in

the

in

Norfolk.

\ irginia:

Cape Cod Canal: moored

tethered

in

to stake boats

in eastern ports.

There was a brief flurry of activity for the coasting schooners during every thing that floated (some just barelv) w as pressed into service. coastal

and deepwater, forced

opportunity to

make

types, including

all

a quick

freight rates higher

killing.

\\

orld

ar

\\

when

I.

Shortages of ships,

and higher, and investors saw an

Shipyards across the nation cranked out vessels of

hundreds of schooners

— more than a hundred four-masters

in the

period 1916 to 1920, for example.

But the the

boom didn

bottom

for coal

fell

t

last.

I

he wartime shortage of ships became a peacetime glut, and

out of the schooner trade in the space of a year. In 1920. the freight rate

from Norfolk to Boston was three dollars a ton;

Age of Coastal

Sail

was

it

was a dollar. The Great

over.

Enter the Lesser Age. for while by definition

some things take longer

1921.

in

to pass

than others.

in a progressive society all things 'I

must

ears ago. mechanical tractors yvere proven

to be economically superior to beasts of burden, but even today a few farmers their fields with draft horses.

In the

made

ith reins in their

in

plow

Boston, for example, there w ere peddlers and

hands. There

in coastal sail after \\ orld \\

still

1940s and 1950s. motor trucks had long since been

proven better than horses and w agons, yet junk pickers w

pass,

ar

1.

may no

but there

yy

longer have been big money to as small

nt ilt R] mi:

i

///./.

money

tv/;

s

i

///;/;

,

lx*

and hundreds of

on

i\

u:\otiis~

43

-+-+

)

PASSAGE

l\

TIME

The Stephen Taber (left) and Mary Day (right) in a

calm,

being pushed along slow ly by their

yawlboats. The Taber, built in 1871, is

one of the oldest

commercial sailing vessels in America.

The Mary Day, in 1961.

is

built

one of a

handful of schooners built especially for

the passenger trade.

schooners

in

>iill

sound condition could he had

for a song.

There were also two classes of

who were so set

people indispensable to a lingering marginal trade: those

would never change, no matter what; and those whose vision was

the\

romantic haze that economics had Not that you couldn't

do with the way they chose

to

little

in their

ways

that

so clouded with a to

make

a living.

make a living in coasting schooners after the war. There still were

cargoes for some of the larger schooners that hung on into the 1930s: lumber, coal for the

communities served by neither the railroads nor the tug-barge combinations, fishing fleets, that type of thing. if

If

an owner bought

bis

schooner

the

salt for

at a creditor’s auction;

he skimped on maintenance, making only those repairs affecting the ability of the vessel

to stav afloat

elsewhere or

and forgetting about the

who

didn’t

to escape to the sea

hod

carriers;

brow beat

if

rest; if

he hired sailors

couldn’t get a job

want a job elsewhere or who were young and driven by the urge

and therefore would accept w ages considered substandard by indigent

he pinched every penny he got from the miserly shipping agents;

his skipper to get

prudent mariners thought a paying proposition.

if

he

underway and stay underway whatever the weather, whether

it

foolhardy or not, he just might be able to

Nothing

like the

make schoonering

kind of money the owners had been making

two decades of the nineteenth century, but enough

last

who

to get by.

It

was

difficult,

in the

but

it

could be done.

The Great Depression, however, finally did them up

laid

iu

The remaining big schooners w ere

in.

the hopes of better days that never came, or sold at auction to be stripped and

converted to restaurants or nightclubs or other pie-in-the-sky schemes. The Charles Stanford, built during the

boom

years of

$5,000. Nine schooners from the

went bankrupt It

1931, w ent for

less

the

1

for

$100,000, sold

in

1931 for

New England Maritime Company, which

than $14,000. That’s $1,500 a schooner.

no piece of cake. While they had suffrom arrested development during the years of the huge four-, five- and six-posters,

was easier for the smaller schooners, though

fered

the

in

fleet of

World War

I).

little

two- and three-masters w ere

still

making their w ay along the coast, especially era, traditionally die hard. They specialized

still

Maine, where old ways, no matter the

in

in

forgotten cargoes to ports so obscure that even the burgeoning trucking industry couldn

be bothered. Cans to the sardine packers, factories, staples to the little

towns

in tin hinterlands 1

and creeks, scrap metal to the dealers metropolises near and

far.

The

the fish plants,

salt to

little

in

pulpwood

to the

connected to the sea by

t

paper

tidal rivers

Boston, Providence, New’ York, and other

coasters were cheap to

buy and cheaper

to operate,

requiring only a few able-bodied hands and minimal fuel for the make-and-break donkey

engines powering the w inches, their only nod to

Few two- or three-masters were

built after the

modern

times.

turn of the century, and only a handful

W orld \\ ar here were too mam used schooners available at too cheap a price to make new const ruction economically feasible. \\ hv build a new schooner when you could after

I.

I

have vour pick of the older ones all

few hundred dollars, drive her hard

used up. throw her away, buy another one. and do I

-+6

for a

he

I

lii-'t

cargo-cam ing coasting schooner built

PASSAGE

l\

TIME

iu

it

all

until she

was

over again?

the state of Maine, an act of faith

il

ever there was one, was

t

Endeavor, a two-master launched in Stonington

lie

(Actually, there was another, the John

before she could deliver her

first

Leavitt, built at Thoinaston in 1979, but she sank

F.

The Endeavor was skippered by

cargo.)

whose previous schooner, the Enterprise eventually was converted salt fish to

Albert Shepard,

to a cruise schooner.

,

She carried

1938.

in

Gloucester from the ports of down-east Maine,

salt

and

coal

from

Portland to out-of-the-way down-east communities and some of the isolated islands, and

any other cargoes she could cadge together. Not that many cargoes were available; not that there

was much competition

for those that were.

The majority of the small schooners ancient.

The

left

oldest in active use before

in the trade

World War

I

were

old,

and some were positively

was the schooner Polly a ,

little

48-

ton two-master built as a sloop in 1805 at Amesbury, Massachusetts. She had an old-

fashioned high poop deck and bluff bows, and it was rumored she had served as a privateer

during the

War of 1812

(subsequent research suggests that was unlikely). She was rebuilt

as a schooner in Blue Hill, Maine, in 1861.

Connecticut to Maine, although her setts

that

last

coast from

years seem to have been primarily in Massachu-

and Maine waters. She carried lumber, pulpwood,

lime, stone,

and anything

else

would keep her going.

Most of the oldest schooners

at

work between the world wars were

1800s; a few were pushing the century mark

them were the William C.

and worked the New England

II.

built in the

mid-

when they carried their last cargoes. Among

Jewell launched at Nyack, ,

New

York,

in

1853; the William

Pendleton Westerly, Rhode Island, 1857; the William Keene, Damariscotta, Maine, ,

1866.

New

York,

1871. Originally a Hudson River brick schooner, the 63-foot Ta her eventually

came

And then in

to

there

was the venerable Stephen Taber, launched

Maine and carried general cargoes

was

hogged

a tired old vessel with a

Captain Fred

in

the Penobscot

sheer, a

Bay

in

By the mid- 1 930s, she

region.

prime candidate

Glen wood,

for a

mudflat burial. But

Wood of Orland, Maine, was looking for a vessel, and the Taber was Wood took a chance and rebuilt her himself on the shore near the

available cheap, so

mouth in the to

of the Penobscot River. Until

bay

to the

1

9-1-3,

the Taber carried

paper mills on the Penobscot River,

until

pulpwood from

even that

mundane

the islands

task proved

be unprofitable and she had to find another. She was bought by Captain Frederick

Guild of Castine

in

1946 and converted to the passenger trade

former bricker, the Alice

S.

company with her fellow

Wentworth.

The Stephen Taber works vessel in the United States

in

the bay to this day, not quite the oldest commercial sailing

— the Lewis

R.

French beats her by a few months

the oldest in continuous service, an achievement that puts her

master Governor Ames and the six-master of the Golden

B.

If

homing and

all

— but definitelv

way ahead

of the five-

the rest of the great schooners

Age O of Coasting. o

in IFF ID THE MILE

I

\l)

SMI LI) OFF

l\

LFXQTHS "

4

.



,

Many Cargoes

IV

.

always had a contented feeling when coming back

../

which once

away from land became

a

little

to the quiet ship

world oj her own.

,

Politics

murder weddings and deaths meant as little to us as the breakfast food ads the skipper would listen to while tuning in for his morning weather report. We were healthy, usually happy ... and there was always plenty of work aside from steering and handling sail to keep us out of mischief. ,

—Francis E. Bowker, Blue Water Coaster

I awoke

early

Tuesday morning,

just before

of the quarterdeck, next to the binnacle.

the skipper? the

footfall directly

distance

With the exception of the insomniac on deck

mate checking the painter of the rowboat trailing off astern? a passenger

watching the morning stars?

— no one

else

was up and about.

and water gurgling against the oak planking next

to

I

could hear gulls in the

my ear.

As time passed and

broke, a shaft of light from a thick prism of glass set in a bronze ring partially

illuminated the tiny compartment;

my boots

the bunk,

A nearby

could see

I

my yellow foulweather jacket at the foot of

by the door, the washbasin on a stand up

fishing boat fired

becoming louder and louder it

sound of a

to the

My cabin was in the after quarter of the schooner; the overhead was the underside

above.

dawn

dawn,

as

it

its

in the corner.

engine and got underway, the

thump

of

its

pistons

passed along our starboard side and softer and softer as

receded into the distance. The schooner rolled slightly from the wake and then settled

The

back.

sensation

was of an incredibly comfortable

easiness, untroubled quiescence,

the paradox of motion in a state of motionlessness.

There’s magic in the early morning aboard a coasting schooner in a quiet anchorage.

“...Waking

in the

morning

is

different

from what

it is

ashore,’'

wrote John Leavitt.

He

“The schooner slightly

continued:

There

is

no struggling up uncomprehendingly from the maze of

dered. Wakefulness comes, slow or fast, with the dawn, of familiar sounds

hum

of

wind

and

smells.

in the rigging.

If

There there

is

is

the

and with

muted lapping

much

sleep, it,

wake and then settled back. The sensation

sodden and bewil-

was

the pleasant awareness

of water against the hull

tells of

it.

The

lingering scent of

and the

untroubled quiescence. the paradox of

wood smoke

motion

mingles with the smell of pine and spruce lumber, spiced with a whiff of Stockholm tar from the

oakum and marlin stowed

of an incredibly

comfortable easiness,

wind, the slapping of the halyards against the

mast and the rumble of the taut anchor chain

in a state of

motionlessness.”

The American

in the lockers.

MANY CARGOES

rolled

from the

49

Eagle.

a

I

the

pulled on

my

grabbed a peach from a bowl

clothes,

companion way ladder to the deck.

of a

behind Minturn,

hill

We

had no wind. The sun was climbing the back

and

rays gilding the topmasts

its

main cabin, and climbed

in the

reflecting off the second-story

town of Swans Island. There was dew on and a giant cobweb on the varnished skylight and verdigris on the clapper polished bronze bell. The air, typical of a Maine September, was cool, not quite

windows

of the fishermen’s houses

in the tiny

the cabinhouse

of the

sharp as

in the heart of the fall

Autumn was

but with just the barest hint of an edge.

approaching.

The cook

s

helper was sitting on one of the life-jacket lockers, cleaning strawberries and

throwing the hulls over the

She was nineteen years

side.

old, a native of

Aroostook County, the vast northern crown of Maine. Aroostook areas of the state, rivaling

Most of

frontier.

The County has its

own

as far

it is

its

“Down East

for

from the sea

own topography,

its

as

its

is

one of those mythical

image of wilderness and the freedom of the

Vermont. A land of forests and potato

own



“The County

culture,

its

own

dialects,

its

own

fields,

ethos,

and

paradoxical mix, bred by isolation, of unfettered individualism and tight

community.

It

has the reputation of being a lingering bastion of

untouched by the

sins of

Boston and

the girls have freckled faces

and the

New York, pie

is

a

New England

Norman Rockwell kind

thick with fruit

and the land

is

hominess

of place

where

abundant and

cheap.

The County heartland



its

an easy place

is

and a tough place

to love

to leave.

A motherland



natives think of themselves as different in certain indefinable respects,

move away, they have a difficult time adjusting to a new locale, even if it is no farther away than Bangor or Berlin, New Hampshire. Merely the invocation of Aroostook’s name can put a faraway, romantic look in the eye of a native gone wandering. The cook s helper, an archetypal County farm girl with sky-blue eyes and strawberryblond hair, was deep in her own struggle with the pull of Aroostook. She left home after

and,

if

they

high school for the University of Maine but dropped out during her freshman year

“because

I

didn’t

see the world

know why I was

first.

She wanted

there.

She wandered down

there were job opportunities

to the coast,

to go

home but thought she shoidd

heard through the grapevine that

on the windjammers, and walked

in the right

door

at just the

moment when our schooner’s skipper was drawing up the crew list for the coming season. “He asked me if I minded peeling potatoes and stoking a woodstove,’ she said. “I told him was from a potato farm. also told him we heated with wood. He asked me if I could I

sing,

I

and

I

told

The skipper

him

in

It’s

lights

cramped

conditions;

nights are long

50

wav

in

on

for a skipper to find a it’s

frosting

or “Blow the

hand

on the cake

know

a coasting schooner

willing to

to find

one

work long hours

who can

at

pick out the

Man Down.

a schooner tucked into

an empty cove miles away from bright

lomemade music, not to mention Scrabble and gin rummy, filling tin* entertainment void. The skipper played the pump organ and

and video rental

goes a long

could do that and play the guitar, too.

one thing

chords for “Shenandoah

The

I

hired her on the spot, even though she didn’t

from a hay rake. low pay

that

A passage i\ time

stores.

I

had alto.

a fine bass, the \\

it

mate blew

a

mean

and had

h the cook’s helper’s skills on the guitar

vour eves, our schooner, though

most musically accomplished

At

blues harp

six o clock in the

it

couldn

t

and

a so-so tenor,

and the cook >ang

a soprano that could bring tears to

hold a candle to the

\ illage

Gate. was

climbed partway up the contpanionwav ladder and pushed a trav with cream, and thick, white. navy-style mugs onto the deck. it

as

if

the

vessel in the fleet.

morning, there wasn’t much going on in Burnt Coat Harbor.

and about pounced on

still

they had been

I

lie

lost in a desert

this

he cook

coffee. sugar,

few passengers

and

\

who w ere up

was the

first

liquid

they had seen for weeks. If

there was one constant on our schooner,

day or

night, there

was

a pot

one was perking along beside

where the get

sailors called

it

on the galley it.

it

had

to

stove: long before

it

the time of

was empty, another

Coffee w as traditional even on

“ship’s tea

No matter

be coffee.

t

lit*

and boiled the beans cowboy

full

old cargo coasters, style.

A

crew could

along w ithout fresh vegetables for long periods, w ithout meat, with wet clothing and

water-soaked bunks, but they could become near-mutinous without coffee,

tin*

best

beverage for a jump-start in the morning, warmth during the day. and companionship during the long watches at night.

A couple of years ago. one of the Camden schooners left

port on a

Monday morning with

Coffee,

and

plenty of

The

Lewis

MAX) CARGOES

51

it.

galley of the II.

French.

the food pantry full but only a single

one-pound can of coffee aboard, enough

to last for

about half a day. The cook thought the helper had brought the coffee supply, the helper thought

it

had been the cook, and the skipper and the mate had been too busy taking care

The schooner w as somewhere out

of other matters to notice.

East Penobscot Bay, miles

when the terrible shortage was discovered. There were no deleted afternoon down in the galley. They were right out in the open where you

from the nearest expletives that

in

store,

could keep track of them. (The cook

s

helper, of course,

w as allow ed

blame

to accept full

for the disaster.)

Die cook

none of which came even

tried all sorts of alternatives,

the experience of a

“mug-up

Tea didn’t work. A can of “cereal beverage

of java.

behind by an English eccentric had no

("When your get-up-and-go

close to replicating

effect.

won't, Morning

Celestial Seasonings

Thunder will ”)

cook stopped talking to the galley hand, the mate took

to

left

Morning Thunder

didn’t even

come

close.

The

chewing tobacco, most of the

passengers became sullen and distracted, and even the skipper, noted for his joviality,

went crank. No

up a

We

first

came

lobsters

I

came

for tw o

days



crate of lobsters for the evening meal

week. The

w

relief

and a case of Maxwell House

pot of coffee was brewed

were amply fixed on our schooner.

and consumed long before the water

I

for the

borrowed a thermos from the cook,

and rowed ashore

ramshackle piers angling life

this

w ay and that out

filled

it

w alk before breakfast.

for a

found a town that wasn’t a town. There were houses clustered

no signs of

for the rest of the

to a boil.

a good slug of steaming black coffee,

ith

until the schooner put into Stonington to pick

in a village

into the harbor, but there

except a lobster fisherman stacking traps on the shore

and a few

T

w ere no people,

and an ancient dog

nosing around a bait barrel. None of the hustle and bustle associated with

life

in a town,

no automobiles coining and going, no law n mowers or garbage collectors or paperboys bicycling past the houses

and throwing new spapers

at the front porches.

Phe most exciting sight w as a down-at-the-heels boatyard w of a warning than an invitation: Boats

some

risk!

Hauled and Stored

at

ith a sign that

their planks;

one was

water. At the end of one of the piers

tilled headfirst

And

the Owner's Risk.

Eew of the boats were upright. Most were lying on

growing through

was more

their sides with

at

weeds

dow n an embankment tow ard the

was an old boat with peeling paint. “That’s the Maine

'

Queen.

from the boats that caught bait for the fishermen.

Across the

back

up

to the

just

“She used to be a sardine carrier, hauled sardines

said the lone lobster fisherman.

still

em to the canneries. Now

7

owned by Baitbag Pete.

ith a

harbor

seal

swimming

behind the stern of the rowboat and stare

bell

in

at

announcing breakfast.

my wake.

me

move, then duck down and reappear a few moments

like

camera and ground away

52

A PASSAGE l\ TIME

as

I

circled

tin*

I

le

an old

would poke

man

I

rowed

his

head

studying a chess

later farther astern.

Some

of the

One fellow hauled out a video schooner and made my landing at the boarding

passengers spotted the seal and ran below for their cameras.

ladder.

Carries

Don’t get too close to her. She’s ranker n an old boot.

water came the ring of the ship’s

schooner w

she’s

"There were no people, no signs of

hustle

with

life.. ..None

of the

and hustle assoeiated

life in

a town, no auto-

mobiles coming and going,

no lawn mowers or garbage collectors or paperboys.”

\\

hat can

Down

say?

I

breakfast table, the passengers, to a one.

in the galley at the

looked absolutely fantastic. Gone was the wan. pasty-white flesh of the office manager

and the medical technician: departed was

who managed

the restaurant trade magazine; absent were the bored expressions of

shoe salesman and the advertising copywriter. The a

week

the

woods w

in the

women

looked as

ith

Natty

Bumppo and

they had bathed

if

in

men

(Ik* last

looked as

if

had traces of sunburn glowed

deep, a morning that

in the cradle of the

w ashbasin and a bar of Ivory soap and

became lines

difficult to

back

remember

exactly what

A day

came with

get tired;

ith

them. Those w ho

in the sun,

an evening

the simple pleasures of a

w ater from the cask up on deck. At once life

was

like

at

before

we had

it

cast off the dock-

Rockland.

in

Breakfast of coffee, eggs, coffee, toast, coffee,

soft

light.

and not

Ruddy complexions,

the fountain of youth.

dimness of the

in the

tin*

they could rim for

of the Mohicans

pink cheeks, smile lines at the corners of eyes and laughter to go w

peace

woman

tension of the Boston cop and the

tin'

homemade

sausage and bacon, coffee.

up from the table. Wired from the

It

biscuits, coffee, pancakes, coffee,

French

w as a wonder anybody had the strength

caf f eine? If we

to get

had had a generator on board, we could

have hooked up everybody and produced enough juice to operate the ship-to-shore radio for a

month.

The skipper rapped on

human

\\

beings,’ he said.

Inch was

well

all

'"Let s

and good

go

"1

le

folks finally look like

sailing!

to sav, but there

was much

to

be done beforehand. While

and ambled up the road

the skipper took the yawlboat ashore (

“You

the side of his glass with a spoon.

has photographs of some of the old hay schooners,

to sav hello to

he said before he

an old friend left,

with the

tone of voice one would use w hen discussing a national treasure), the mate organized the

work

parties.

"No one w as

Tom

a

Sawy er

In

deal.

intelligent lawy ers, doctors,

and

an honor and a privilege to

pump

and polish hauled

salt

sloshed \\

1 1

was

fortune

it

it*

brass.

to

ashing

took off

be allowed

to

pillars

at all,

a

it

the bilges,

wash the joinerwork,

oil

the anchor winch,

my sneakers and rolled up my dungarees. My great good

scrub the deck w

w ater from over the side w

down

the deck w ith

vessels.

preserve the vessel.

edge

I

bunch of otherwise grown-up, was of industry and science were convinced that

almost no time

ith a

ith a

bucket

long-handled brush while the mate at

the end of a knotted lanyard and

into the corners.

on wooden

set

he announced, “but

would be appreciated.

assistance It

expected to work when they pay for their vacation,

is

to edge.

It

In

salt

water,

morning and evening,

is

a practical tradition

cleans the deck and washes the grit out of the seams and helps

simple terms, the skin of a wooden ship

Cotton and

oakum

caulking held

in

place w

is

constructed

ith a

puttvlike

ol

planks

compound

prevents water from seeping through the seams between the planks. Keep the seams wet.

54

I

PASS GE I

l\

TIME

and the caulking, squeezed by the swollen wood around it, will serve gasket. Allow the seams to dry out and you will have a leaky ship.

When most

people think about keeping a wooden vessel watertight, they dwell exclu-

sively

on the bottom of the

ing

swollen tight at the seams and the caulking

is

hull, the part sitting in the water. is

As long as the bottom plank-

sound, the ship will be watertight. But

immediate concern. The long-term problem is to keep fresh water

that's only an

dew

as a very effective

— from entering the vessel through the deck seams.

A

leaky deck

is

—rain and

uncomfortable

for passengers

and crew (anyone who has suffered through a night on the top bunk under

a see-through

seam during a rainstorm

will

understand what

I

mean) and almost

certain

ruination for the vessel.

Fresh water, not

salt

water,

is

the

enemy

of

out the deck planking and opens up the seams.

and checks

wood and gaps

in the

temperature

is

on the warmish

wooden

If

fresh water

in the joints

So

boats. is

is

the sun. which dries

allowed to

settle into

cracks

between wooden members, and

if

the

both can foster the growth and spread of rot-

side,

producing organisms. Sea water, on the other hand, inhibits these organisms, w hich cannot survive in the presence of

Wooden ships,

salt.

as a rule, almost alw ays rot

from the top

down, rather than from the bottom up.

The pow er of salt to preserve to the old shipbuilders.

huge amounts of

a

w ooden ship

They noted

salt to

that the



to ‘"pickle

Grand Banks

it,

in effect

—was well know n

fishing schooners,

which used

preserve their catches, lasted for years untouched by rot, so

conscientious shipwrights packed rock salt between the frames of new vessels under r

construction. to swell the

They

also instructed the crews to soak the deck twice a

day with

salt

water

deck planking and tighten the seams and to leave a residue of wood-preserving

salt.

“Wet her down in the

to

keep her dry.

w arm sun, shone

as

if it

the

mate

said:

w hen we w ere done, the deck, steaming

w ere new.

Then the skipper, having returned from his visit, noted that a light sailing breeze had come up, so he signaled the mate to pull the schooner to her anchor, and we made the deck



at least the

forward part

The procedure w as

this:



dirty all over again.

Take

the canvas cover off the ancient one-lung

make-and-

break donkey engine by the forward deckhouse, pour a dose of gasoline into the priming cup, choke the carburetor, crank the flywheel, curse, crank the flywheel again, curse again, prime the cylinder again, crank catch, adjust a valve or two,

handler to aim the nozzle at the chain as

mud as

possible,

comes

life)

to get

in the

yell at the fire-hose

as

much

honored passenger down

in the

hawsepipe

yell at the

get the engine to

ready to stow chain,

to clear

aw ay

yell at the gallev

hand

engage the anchor- winch clutch, curse the mud, curse the slippery chain, curse the

exhaust, yell at the. galley is

it

open the fire-hose feed valve,

chain locker (an accountant in real to

some more, curse some more,

cough through the dense, black exhaust,

hand

to

disengage the clutch,

yell at the

skipper that the chain

up and down. In the

meantime, the skipper and the cook

will

have put together a crew of happv

MANY CARGOES

55



They will have managed to get the job done, working front aft forward, with less cursing and yelling but with more grunting and sweating. “Okay, Mr. Mate,’ the skipper says, “break her free and let’s get the hell out of here. vacationers to raise the

sails.

hand

Yell at the galley

to

engage the winch clutch, curse the hose handler who’s been

paying more attention to the view than the ring reaches the hawsepipe, shut the schooner’s head to

jib to get

and

muddy chain,

lock the winch

down the donkey engine, “fish

fall off,

and

cat

lash one of the flukes to the rail), curse the leaking

it

the anchor

sails,

back the

to the

cathead

help sheet in the

the anchor (pull



when

from the donkey engine,

oil

tell

the cook she’s better at baking bread than coiling halyards, recoil the halyards, stow a few

odds and ends, report

The wind was of Burnt Coat

light

and

chance for Blue

to the skipper that the

schooner

is

squared away.

from the south-southwest, which meant we would be beating out

either broad-reaching or running

Hill Bay,’’ the skipper said,

up

into the bay.

“Looks

and the mate nodded.

“Chance,’’ pronounced by the down-easters with the English broad A,

word is,

for the ability to sail.

off the

wind

With a

—and go with the

fair

chance, a vessel can

tide or

like a fair

stem a foul one.

sail

With

tough going in a headwind, a driving sea, and perhaps a foul

tide.

A vessel

without auxiliary power, the schooner must stay put.

is

an old coasting

with sheets eased a

—that

hard chance, she faces

“No chance

1

'

is

just that:

with no chance, facing an

unfair wind or tide, or no wind,

is

man

looking for a chance-along in a dead calm trying to

was

say, “I

Head

off Dice

me up toward Fort

Castine and the tide was setting

would be strong enough

that

We

waiting for a chance-along.

to

overcome a

If

Point,’ he

foul tide

you should hear a coaster-

was waiting

make

for a fair

wind

running up East Penobscot Bav.

departed the harbor the hard way, tacking out of the channel to weather the Sheriff

Ledges, then headed off toward the northwest on a broad reach into Toothacher Bay. The

Mary' Day followed us out, but she towed with her yawlboat, sweating up her big bell

buoy rocking

in the swell off

Harbor

Island.

sails

by the

She squared away toward the

southeast.

The Mary Day was ger trade.

Launched

the

in

1

first

schooner in Maine to be built specifically for the passen-

962, she was designed by her

first

owner, Havilah Hawkins,

Sr.

now owned by Captain Steve Cobb), and constructed in South Bristol, Maine, by Harvey Carnage, who is so celebrated as a shipwright that another cruise schooner, which sails mostly in southern New England waters, was named after him. (she

is

Captain Havilah Hawkins business for twelve years

r

in the

with a start

bunks in a

—had

“With a

been

in the

windjammer

sold his two schooners, the 63-foot Stephen

Taber and

,

to look like a coasting

passengers in mind.

room

when he

to his friends

Wentworth and ordered a new one from Carnage. He designed the

the 76-foot Alice S.

Mary Day

— “Buds”

He provided

schooner but laid her out with the comfort of the

standing headroom in the cabins and sitting-up head-

(a not-inconsiderable

bunk with only

a foot or

fair

chance, a vessel

can

sail

with

sheets eased that

is,

wind

off the

— and go

with the tide or

convenience when you think about waking up

stein a foul one.'

two of clearance), even sloped the cabin

The Mary Day.

MAM

CARGOES

sides.

a

which made comfortable backrests

for passengers

on deck. But I fawkins was also

a great

believer in the rustic experience of the coasters, so he intentionally excluded running water

and other modern indulgences and avoided

Our skipper was cut from

all

the trappings of a gold-plated yacht.

same cloth. “A coasting schooner is a coasting schooner,”

the

he said. “The Mary Day may not have carried real cargo like this one, but at least she looks as

A Maine

she could have.

if

some

schooner shouldn’t be

all

gussied up like a yacht. Look at

Hot showers. Flush

of those vessels! They’re floating motels.

toilets.

Jesus,

what

9

t

a mess!

A

I)

with both topsails

fast schooner, especially

set,

roaring out on a broad reach into the Gulf of Maine.

and took on a 1920s frame

Nova

If

To many of the

quite a sight

you squinted your eyes

Grand Banks

Canadian border, with empty cans

Cargo: the great legitimizer.

Maty Day made

you could see her outward bound

of mind,

Scotia, with a hold full of salt for the bluenose

just this side of the

the

fleet

for

just right

Lunenburg,

or off to Lubec,

for a sardine plant.

surviving coastermen from the pre-World

War II days, a schooner isn’t a schooner unless it is carrying cargo. Even some of those who were born too late for commercial sail feel that way. A schooner that has been “dude schooner, a “skinboat to

make It’s

for gullible fools

and desperate



somehow suspect men who will do anything

converted to a yacht or to a passenger-carrying windjammer

is

a buck.

an interesting concept, especially

if

you consider that the cargoes of the coasting

schooners didn’t even come close to the romantic sort carried by deepwater

from Java, tea from Ceylon,

from the

Pribilofs, ivory

No spices

from the Gold Coast.

The Maine coasters carried very unromantic cargoes, messy stuff that most part was ignored by the rest of the world. Coal, coke, lumber, stone, ice, salt,

Nothing for the

seal pelts

sail.

like that.

pulpwood, lime, dried another, which

fish, bait,

A schooner might carry coal on one trip and

hay.

meant the hold had

before the latter could be stowed.

to It

be cleaned of the

was a

sail.

coast, carrying

Bay

dirt of the

in

Maine waters during the

last

to the

paper

former

years of

coasters, relatively small vessels, operated mostly along the

pulpwood

and general supplies

and

on

dirty business.

There were three tvpes of coasting vessel

commercial

grit, dust,

salt

factories,

cordwood

to the lime kilns in

Maine

Rockland,

Communities with no railroad service and poor roads.

to the isolated

Boston coasters, medium-size schooners, traded between Boston and the Maine coast •

t

with such cargoes as lumber, stone, lime, and hay to the westward and coal, coke, and for the

salt

fishermen to the eastward. The third type, simply known as schooners or coasters,

were large vessels sailing anywhere on the eastern seaboard



to

New

York, the Chesa-

peake. the Carolinas, even the Caribbean. Their outward-bound cargoes were typically ice,

lumber, and stone: they would return with southern lumber (hard pine, oak, cypress),

coal,

and

salt.

Our schooner and the Mary Day. if time could be turned back, would be bay or, at the most, Boston coasters. They weren’t large enough to trade successfully much beyond Massachusetts. In fact, there isn’t a schooner today in the entire windjammer fleet that 58

A PASSAGE IX TIME

The

Victory Chimes, im»w the

/jiTni iiiu

fiiffoct,

stepping along

with a “good chance." Relatively slow in comparison to the rest of the fleet,

needs a good breeze her going.

she

to

keep

The three-masted ram schooner Domino

could.

Effect , ex-Victory Chimes., carrying

passengers out of Rockland, originally from the Chesapeake Bay, theoretically has had the capacity for bigger-time coasting, but she

where she

is

a slow, logy vessel that takes forever to get

going and just as long to return.

But every once cargo under

is

in a while

and want

sail

someone

to

will get all

worked up about the romance

do something about

crew, load a cargo of something and take

it

it.

Build a

wooden

somewhere, and prove

to all the troglodytic

cynics in the waterfront saloons that nineteenth-century economics can twentieth.

All

you have

to

do

is

of carrying

ship, get together a

work

in the

believe.

The year was 1979 and the second great fuel

crisis of

the decade

was

in full swing.

Motorists waited in line for hours for the privilege of buying a couple of gallons of gasoline at

whatever outrageous price the suppliers

felt like

charging. Service-station workers were

no longer known as Bob or Dick or Sid; they had become Misters overnight, with more

power of

in the

community than

commerce. Hardware

the

stores

manager

of the

bank or the president

of the

chamber

were stripped of woodstoves, chain saws, bucking horses,

mauls by those who feared a slow, agonizing death by creeping hoarfrost

and

splitting

the

coming winter.

in

Apocalvptic futurists were talking about the paralysis of modern

society, survival of the fittest, terror in the streets,

doomsday.

Alternative sources of

energy (anything but petroleum) were the thing; R-factors and down-filled fireside reading bags became hot topics of conversation.

Edward Arthur

Ackerman pounded his chest and declared that he was a “merchant-adventurer, the first of a new breed of real men who would spit in the eyes of the OPEC cartel and revive sail-powered cargo schooners, which had been dead for more than thirty years. Before a crowd of 2,500 cheering spectators, he rode his brandnew two-masted cargo schooner, the John F. Leavitt., down the launching ways at Roy (“Ned”')

Wallace’s shipyard in Thomaston. She was the

first

of the type to be built on the coast

Ackerman was the toast of the town, the coast, the nation. He didn’t mind telling anyone who was willing to listen that he not only knew what he was doing but knew more about it than anyone who came before and expected to come after. Here of Maine since

1

938.

he was on the deck of his

who still thought

there

—positioned —

poised

own

coasting schooner, surrounded by a

was a future

to

bunch

for internal -combustion engines,

become the King of Cargo. He was

of ignoramuses

and he was

so sure the clock

perfectly

had been

turned back that he already had the plans for a larger, three-masted schooner on the

drawing board.

Ned Ackerman had no previous experience in the schooner business beyond a modest amount of pleasure sailing. A college teacher, a graduate student in medieval English, he had picked up a copy of Wake of the Coasters by John E. Leavitt in the early 1970s, and, by the time he finished reading it for the third time, had come under the thrall of humping cargo from port to port. Yes, there had been a mild energy

60

A PASSAGE

l.\

TIME

crisis in

1973, and yes, there

1

had been cautious speculation about

the viability of commercial

sail,

.

but nobody,

including Ackerman, believed the economics were such that trailer trucks, railroad cars,

and motor

vessels

were

in

any danger of serious competition from schooners.

All

Ackerman wanted was a stout vessel of his own to fill any niches that might exist: a little lumber here, some stone there, and a few passengers to pick up the slack. le wasn’t the only one who was looking in that direction. The Apprenticeshop of the Bath Marine Museum (now the Maine Maritime Museum) had built a replica of a Tancook whaler, a small schooner formerly used in the Nova Scotia fishing industry, and was using it to carry cordwood from the mainland to some of the islands that were long on softwood (not so good for wood-heating purposes) and short on hardwood (great for wood heat). And down in Massachusetts, a couple of entrepreneurs had built a -iO-foot scow sloop and were carrying general cargo from New Bedford to Martha s Vineyard and back. I

Things might have worked out

for

Ackerman, but between the time he contracted with

Roy Wallace for the construction of his schooner and when she was second “free

oil crisis

energy

of the 1970s struck,

—wind,

solar,

the alternative-energy

and anyone who was doing anything

geothermal,

etc.

movement. Every

together enough gas for the trip was

actually launched, the that involved

—became a national media hero, the

journalist

toast of

and commentator who could cadge

making the pilgrimage downcast

to

Thomaston to {tut

The brand-new schooner John

down

Leavitt slides the launching at

Wallace’s

I

ways

in

Thomaston in A few months

l

( )7‘).

later

on her maiden voyage she w as abandoned at sea

during a

winter storm.

MAM

CARGOES

6

compared Ackerman with the shipmasters and shipowners

together stories that inevitably of the

Great Age of

He was on

Sail.

television, the radio, in

magazines and newspapers;

he and his schooner were stars of at least two ongoing documentary movies.

The pressure

of the public eye

is

a powerful force.

Overnight a quiet operation that

might or might not work became a high-powered David-beats-Goliath deal that not onlv

was going

to

had to work. The alternative-energy gurus applauded. People The world was ready for it. Ned Ackerman, the medievalist-turned-

work,

magazine loved

it.

it

romantic, became the romantic-turned-media-star with a streak of hubris that would,

in

a few short months, lead to his public humiliation. r

The nub

of the matter

of the cruise schooners,

is

Ned Ackerman w as

that

which w ere similar

to the

inexperienced. Unlike the skippers

John

F. Leavitt

except

in

the nature of

the cargo they carried, he didn’t have to have a Goast Guard-issued license.

w as designed and constructed

to

come

just barely

The

vessel

behind the threshold of Goast Guard

regulation and therefore not be subject to stringent rules about ballasting, bulkheads,

and manning. Even

Ackerman had been subject to Goast Guard licensing requirements, he would not have been allowed to sit down and take the exam because he loading,

didn

t

if

have the requisite sea time. Yet the rules had been circumvented in such a way that

Ackerman could simply say he was a schoonerman and he would be result

was

The

tragic in almost all respects.

The Leavitt was launched during the

fall.

summer of 1979, and the vessel was prepared for sea w ith the media yelling, “Go, Ned, go! and Ned Ted Williams at the plate Ackerman secured a cargo for

in the

In the press of publicity

strutting the quarterdeck like

from Boston

Haiti

a schoonerman.

in





December.

was the worst possible time of year

It

for a coasting

passage under any circumstance, never mind in a new, untried schooner under the

command I

of

an inexperienced

sailor.

he outcome was predictable.

After a series of minor disasters en route to Quincy,

Massachusetts, where the cargo was loaded (some say overloaded), the schooner ran into

an Atlantic w inter storm east of New' York certain

amount

of

damage, had

to

just after

Christmas, and, after suffering a

be abandoned. Thanks to'the work of the Air National

Guard, which helicoptered the crew

off the vessel, there

w as no

There are those who said the Leavitt would not have been

loss of life.

lost if

she had been in the

hands of one of the capable skippers of the old days, such as Captain Zeb Tilton of th e Alice S.

Wentworth or Captain Parker Hall of the George Cress. There were others who said

neither Tilton nor Hall

schooner

in the winter.

had been under

"I

sail

and had

so foolhardv as to go offshore in a coasting

But most of the talk revolved around the dashing of a dream that

so close to realization.

A

romantic had tried

failed tragicallv before the first

which tw

A PASSAGE IX TIME

isted

from

side to side

to revive coastal cargo-carrying

shipment had been delivered.

m glad there are no eels trying to follow' us today,’

stern at the wake,

62

would have been

the skipper said, pointing over die

behind us. “They d break

their backs!

The cook had taken the wheel

He was

so the skipper could concentrate

talking to various schooners along the coast about the immediate weather

conditions and the prognosis for the future. There was

where

on the radiotelephone.

be the next night, when the

to

much back-and-forthing about

NOAA weather forecasters predicted high winds and

rain from the edge of a tropical storm. There were the popular foulweather harbors, of

course

—Gilkey on

Islesboro, Burnt

Coat on Swans Island. Pulpit on North Haven

—but

there were also several harbors favored by the individual skippers, virtually their

personal harbors of refuge. lest

other vessels get there

The passengers were

all

They were loath to discuss them out loud on the radio waves first and lay claim to the best holding ground. over the place, settling in to the rhythm of the day. There was

the usual cluster around the skipper

are called the Barges?

’’) .

.

of the fore cabinhouse, side of the vessel, full

.

own

and

a

u (

Did I ever tell you why the two rocks

bunch down

in the galley, a pair

some reading, some watching

off Ship Island

playing cards in the lee

the procession of islands on either

and some helping the mate, who had

his

Tom

Sawyer operation going

bore.

The mate

carried a notebook in the back pocket of his dungarees for keeping track of

had

the endless chores that

to

be done. Grease the stuffing box

the topsail sheet, fix the boarding-ladder socket, varnish the thing.

main

yawlboat, overhaul

skylight, that type of

Anyone who was idle and didn’t want to remain in that condition could ask the mate

for a project.

He would

and

assess the abilities

was

sort of

fun, but

notebook out of

pull his

and

his pocket,

sincerity of the questioner,

if

you promise 1

11

to

you have

let

do

and keep from

right

it

it

for a while, look

and sav something

the vast bulk of Mount Desert to starboard.

and seals in her wake as we headed Bartlett Island

and Mount

in

farmhouse, barns, outbuildings, II

s

so

I

much

getting the dirty polish on the

Hill Bay,

Tinker Island to port and

The schooner picked up dolphins off her bows

toward Bartlett Narrows, a narrow passage between

Desert. There

which could only be described

World War

“Well,

like, it

up

it.

were sailing with a quartering breeze up Blue

Island,

study

keeping the job of polishing the brass binnacle to myself because

woodwork,

We

in the

was

we passed Hardwood

a rush to the rail as

as paradise on the coast of Maine.

fields,

orchards

landing barge with a ramp

at the

Dock, boathouse,

— a gentleman’s farm served by an old

bow and

a tiny pilothouse perched on the

stern.

We

lost

much

of our

wind

in the

narrows, just ghosting along surrounded by dark

spruces, green-black in the sun, with crows overhead

and twisting in the

sky. Fish broke in the channel

submerged rocks, and the shores were penetrated the heart of something.

so close

and the ubiquitous

and

so silent that

it

seemed

A

as

if

of half-

we had

Not darkness, that was for sure, but a primeval

The rudderpost groaned

bearings, the water hissed along the sides of the hull, a black crow

woods.

wheeling

and kelp waved from the edges

presence that had never changed and would be everlasting. its

gulls

cawed deep

in

in the

passenger reached for his camera.

“Don’t bother,’’

his

companion

said.

“Something

like this can’t

be captured on

film.

MANY CARGOES

63

64

I

PASSAGE

l\

TIME

"Fish broke in (he channel

and kelp waved from

(he

edges of half-submerged rocks. ...The rudderpost

groaned

in its hearings, the

water hissed along (he sides

crow cawed deep in the woods.” The Mercantile. of (he hull, a black



V

The Turn of the Tide

Every age has

its

survivors which linger on after

their contemporaries

have gone.

— Robert Simper, East Coast Sail

W

e

turned west at the top of Bartlett Island, threading our

way below Newbury Neck

and above Long Island, which dominates the upper half of Blue at

560

feet the

major landmark on the peninsula bearing

its

I

lill

name

Bay. Blue Hill

— was

straight ahead.

Viewed from where we were, broad-reaching with a rush of foam toward Blue

and the town

of Blue Hill at

head, the primary colors were not at

its

dark green of the conifers and the

light

many

I

lill

blue but rather the

its

sides, has not

on the coast, a good part of the local yacht-club

—was getting underway en masse

middle of a racecourse

is

been

in

fleet

for

— Blue

Hill has a sizable

an afternoon

race.

A

prettiest

summer

schooner

in the

not unlike the proverbial bull in a china shop.

"Kollegewidgwok Yacht Club!

the skipper

harrumphed, spinning the wheel and

bringing the schooner through the eye of the wind onto the other tack.

German

hill,

decades since the old-growth forest was stripped away.

As the skipper brought us into the outer reaches of Blue Hill Harbor, one of the

community

Harbor

green of the hardwoods. The bluish cast of the

said to have been caused by great stands of blue spruce on

evidence for the

all

itself

“Sounds

like a

university for Chinese-Indians.

Like most of those craft, freighters,

who make

their living

from the sea on schooners, tugboats, fishing

and tankers, the skipper was contemptuous

of yachts

and yacht clubs and

yachtsmen. His attitude was a reflection of the division between those who work with their

hands and those who don it

more

bluntly.

It

was

t,

or between

‘‘real sailors

and

as the skipper

idlers,

would put

also a legacy of that time, fifty to seventy-five years ago,

when

the

cargo trade was dying and schoonermen found themselves without work. Most went off in

other directions

retired.

— motor

— and the old-timers now known as the service sector—they became paid hands

vessels

A few went into what is

and

fishing boats, perhaps

on private yachts and professional boatmen It

was quite a comedown

proud

of their

for skippers

independence.

I

real

Flags and pennants living,

along the lee

summer people. schooners, who had been

yacht clubs, employed by

and mates of coasting

he lucky sailors

who managed

to

hang on

to berths in the

rail,

yaw boat snug I

at

water easks

in the

davits, the Stephen

ruber romps happily along on a reach.

few schooners

still

thinking them

damned

in operation

looked

down

who worked

fools

for

former companions,

their noses at their

damned-fool “rusticators” and “summer

complaints.

Our skipper’s attitude was paradoxical. His living had depended for years on summer people, since most paying passengers in the schooner fleet were “from away,” “Straps

character of the visitors. hot for a while. Over in

Camden,

buy ice-cream cones and sumably But

eat their ice

lumber

in a

or “strap-hangers

tourists are

them while

eat

cream

in the skipper’s

he was,

mind, he was

still

(On

strolling

to a

“cone-eaters,” as so

around the

village.

riders

—were

many of them

The

locals pre-

own homes.)

bunch of yachtsmen

in

Breton red trousers

wore bright blue running shoes with the

his feet the skipper

lettering

on the

sides. “I don’t

run or jog, and

look like a damned-fool yachtsman either,’ he said.)

The Maine windjammer trade began seeing their final days. particularly hard,

and

all

in the

1930s as the

sectors of the

commerce meant few

cargo coasters were

last of the

was the heart of the Great Depression, which

It

cargoes,

increasing competition of trucks

Maine

hit

— the farms, the sawmills, the canneries, — were having a time surviving.

economy

the shipyards, the boatshops, the shoe factories Little

subway

—animate passengers instead of inanimate stone or

name of the manufacturer in oversize white t

for

involved in the cargo-schooner tradition, since

—and was not bowing and scraping shoes.

known as

— slang

in dishes, in the privacy of their

way, carrying cargo

and white boat don

the

down-east term for out-of-staters. (Impolite terms come and go, depending on the

polite

I

the

difficult

and when that condition was coupled with the

and

ever-

railroads, the demise of the coasting schooner

was

ensured. At the beginning of the decade, for example, there were fewer than 100 small

schooners gone.

still

working the

New England coast. By World War life

was threatened

affected by the vessels passing really gave a

hat

their

but a handful were

They went so fast that the coast was just about empty of working sailing craft before

anyone noticed that a way of

\\

II, all

happened

—not that anyone other than the

sailors

damn.

to all those schooners over the years?

Many were

converted to power,

masts pulled or sawed off at the deck, pilothouses built on the afterdeck.

became

freighters, sardine carriers, fishing draggers,

Others had their

rigs cut

down and were used

tugboats. Those that weren

wharves

in the

t

so lucky were laid

and general-purpose

as barges hauled

up

hope that business would improve

in

They

lighters.

around the coasts by

back coves and alongside

at a future date; they

derelict

were taken

to the

breakers yards to be stripped of salvageable gear and then broken up; they were driven

ashore and burned where they

lay.

Quite a few were converted to other purposes.

Some

of those purposes were bizarre.

The three-masted stone schooner Annie B. Mitchell became a lobster storage pound. The William Bisbee w as done over as a pirate ship for the Florida tourist trade. The C.II. Edwards was given a two-story house on her main deck and became a machine shop on 68

A PASSAGE IX TIME

the Portland

w aterfront. The Larolta w as disguised

a? the Arbella. the shij that brought >

over the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and tercentenary celebration.

The Fannie

F.

became

the centerpiece for a

Hall was transformed into the Mayflower of

manner of a dress rehearsal for the full-scale replica built in England in the 1950s for that port. The Regina w as hauled ashore to be set up on blocks: she became author Booth rarkington s w orkshop and private museum in Kennebunkport. The M.M.

Plymouth,

in the

Hamilton, a schooner that had been converted from the

last of the

Chebeague stone sloops. THE

Tl

R\ OF THE TIDE 69

Blue

Hill

Blue Hill

Harbor. itself is in

the right background.

The the

faint outline of

Camden

Hills,

the far side of scot Bay.

on

Penob-

can be seen

on the horizon.

was brought

Duxbury, Massachusetts, and turned

to

The Janies

research into marine borers.

Onset, Massachusetts.

The

L.

into a laboratory for scientific

Malay was transformed

tearoom

into a

in

goes on and on. All of these vessels were given the short-

list

term treatment: hard use, no maintenance, zero respect.

was

It

a sad era for the coasting schooners, as

it

was

fishermen and pilotboats. The vessels were disappearing so

thoroughly that tion,

WPA ran

American Merchant Marine Survey, a

Historic

document as many the

as possible before they

out of money).

It

were gone completely

was obvious

its

salvation, the schooner fleet

special

(or, as

it

program

someone came up with

would be merely

a

to

turned out, until

anyone who took even a cursory look

to

the situation that in a decade or two at the outside, unless

plan for

being bowdlerized so

fast or

1936 the federal government, through the Works Progress Administra-

in

up the

set

had served as

for their sisters that

at

a creative

memory.

o

Someone did come along

— a fellow named Frank Swift, who

in the

mid-1980s was

living

camp he had built on Toddy Pond in East Orland, Maine. File Depression swing. Swift may not have been as bad off as the hoboes riding the rails and

with his wife in a

was

in full

the urban unemployed selling apples and pencils on the street

workers scrabbling for oranges to pick and weeds existence

common

and trying a

little

The notion

in

of this

and a

of having a career

Getting by

little

make ends

of that to

—going

to

work

—grabbing

to sell to the tourists

meet.

with a future

especially those living in the rural areas

—was

and on

alien to

most

the down-east

everv meager, short-term opportunity that presented

— was the rule rather than the exception.

Digging clams,

itself

berries,

at a job

farm

the itinerant

but he was living the marginal

Maine during the Depression, making jewelry

Maine residents of the time, coast.

to hoe,

and

packing sardines, selling

gifts

and antiques

felling trees,

to the tourists

raking blue-

— whatever

took to

it

keep heat in the house and food on the table. “I

had

to find

pulpwood

something

vessels

to provide for

unloading

in

my family,

Bucksport, and

I

Swift was to say later. ‘T had seen

wondered why I couldn’t

instead of carrying freight, carry people on Maine-coast cruises.

concept, though not totallv original. Ever since the locals have been entertaining

them on

summer people

It

get a vessel

was an

started

and

interesting

coming to Maine,

the water in one fashion or another.

Nobody knows when the first Maine-coast fisherman took the first visitor out in

his

dory

or sloopboat, but by the beginning of the twentieth century, there were plenty of coastal

towns

— Bar

1

larbor.

Boothbay Harbor, Rockland, Portland, and others

— where

could hire a boat and a skipper for yourself or join other passengers on a daysail. of the big hotels, like the

Samoset

in

you

Many

Rockland, had arrangements with owners of

Friendship sloops and other types of traditional working

craft,

who would

entertain

vacationers with cruises on the bays, picnics on the islands, and fishing expeditions on the

cod and haddock grounds.

In the

Essex. Massachusetts, in 1820.

70

A PASSAGE

l\

TIME

1890s, for example, the ancient pinky Susan, built

was available

in

South

in

Bristol to rusticators looking for

the “authenticity” of the

Maine way of living. For the modest price of admission, they got

a chance to see the coast through the eyes of a

shamelessly embellished and therefore

902

in 1

to

in

the

more amusing

residents

and

tourists.

—often was

in a dialect that

He was born

at sea, but not in the coasting-schooner fleet.

Saranac Lake, New York, an Adirondack town with

summer



stories

someone from Philadelphia, New York, or Boston.

altogether charming to the ears of

Frank Swift had experience

all

working waterman and hear

its

own tradition of catering

But Swift had a saltwater frame of mind, acquired in

part from studying the contents of a sea chest that had belonged to his great-uncle, a

harpooner on a whaling ship

and

fast sailing in the trade

in the

1840s. With typical boyhood visions of exotic ports

winds, he enrolled as a cadet aboard the schoolship Newport

Navy barkentine that served as New York

a former U.S.

,

merchant-marine

state’s floating

academy. Subsequently he served as an able-bodied seaman, then quartermaster, aboard the Barber Line

s

steamship Elkton which carried case ,

oil to

I

long Kong, I lawaii, and the

Philippines.

The

sea

may have been

in his blood,

but Frank Swift had an

1918-19, he studied silversmithing and jewelrymaking

artistic

bent as well. In

at a craft school in Milton,

New

Hyde Park, New York, where he crafted pewter reproductions and jewelry. In the 1 920s, he directed plays at a community theater in Poughkeepsie, New York, and in the summers worked as a counselor at a boys’ camp in South Waterford, Maine, where he taught stagecraft. Eventually he moved to

York, and afterward took a job at the Val-Kil Forge

in

Maine permanently.

The genesis of Frank his experiences as a trips,

Swift

s

idea to take passengers on

summer-camp

windjammer cruises came from

counselor. Occasionally the boys

and one of their favorites was a few days under

sail

,

mouth

The Cress

of the Penobscot River.

,

field

on the coast aboard the schooner

George Cress skippered by Captain Parker Hall of Sandy Point, the

would go on

originally

named

just

below Bucksport

the Peter Mehr/iof.

at

was

Hudson River brick schooner of 1885. According to legend, she South Street (New York City) crimp a broker who specialized in

a heavily built 79-foot

was renamed

after a



procuring seamen, willing or otherwise, for the coasting-schooner

among the darker elements of the shipping business and were notorious shy of the antislavery laws. They would get sailors in hock and then

shipowners looking for a crew; get

sailors

drunk, haul them,

still

In short, the George Cress

remaining small schooners

commercial

sail.

was a still

and polished and treated

1

lere

sell

their services to

rest;

and, generally

out on the waterfront.)

salty old vessel with a colorful history, typical of the

tramping along the coast during the

The camp boys and

kicking around the coast.

who were down and

for operating just

inebriated, aboard ship,

depart with their advance wages, and take a promissory note for the speaking, prey unmercifully on those

(Crimps were

fleet.

was a

their counselors loved the carefree

vessel that, unlike a yacht, didn’t

like a sacred icon.

have

last life

to

days of

on board, be coddled

The boys brought their own bedding, just

like

THE TURN OF THE TIDE 71

72

A PASSAGE IX TIME

the real coastermen, drank water out of a cask, dove into the cold waters of the bay from the bowsprit

and

off the taffrail,

They had

of Captain Parker.

Captain Parker equal in fame in

and fished and skylarked and

a grand old time.

Hall was at the time the most famous skipper on the Maine coast,

J.

of

all

New England

to

Captain Zeb Tilton of Martha

Originally from Massachusetts, Captain Hall was born,

War. (Some obituaries

listed his

his birthdate in 1862.)

known

and wide

to sail

as the

without a crew

it

He came

“Lone Mariner

to

s

Vineyard.

was thought, during the

Civil



when he died in 1948 which, if true, Maine when he was middle-aged and was

age as eighty-six

would put far

listened to the wild yarns

New England

of the

Coast,

— even though the normal complement on a

George Cress would have been two or three. (He took

to sailing

1 ’

since he preferred

vessel the size of the

singlehanded early in his

A stutterer, Captain Hall was a tough old buzzard who could do the work of five normal men and was as proficient at seamanship and seat-of-the-pants navigation as anyone who had ever stood behind the

career after he had been attacked and robbed by his crew.)

wheel of a schooner.

“He was a rugged individualist,” wrote John Leavitt, “who liked to violate every ancient superstition of the seafaring profession.

flipped over on their backs,

Blue paint he used in profusion, hatch covers

and he whistled, stuck knives

seagoing convention with complete abandon.

I

in masts,

and otherwise flouted

asked him once how he managed to

set a

mainsail on those larger schooners with no hoisting engine and he replied, 'C-c-c-cal late I

w-w-w-was

_

a

“jest

j

j

m-m-m-mite

have been nearing sixty or more

much vounger man. He was

not

hef-hef-heftier than th

at the tall,

m-m-mains

He must

1.

time but he had the strength and agility of a

perhaps 5

feet

8 inches or even a

but he

little less,

was so wide shouldered that he almost had to turn sideways to go through an average door, and he always did

pounds but After

so going

down

a

companionway. He probably weighed

Frank Swift

the mid- 1930s,

left

when

the boys’ camp, he remained friends with Captain Hall,

Swift

was struck by the inspiration

all

and

all

it

those city folk just dying to get

expect a

and paving stone out

man who had

to

away from

it

all

spent his entire

of Vinalhaven to snicker

ditional coasting-schooner cargo for a

salesmen. There

But Captain

1

lall

is

and savor

bunch

life

sailing

a taste of the real Maine,

if

of

A PASSAGE IN TIME

Frank

Swift’s idea t

if

he had.

done

to put

would soon enough be gone.

man was approaching the matter with totally may have been a great seaman, but he was t

tra-

and life-insurance

something wasn

Not to sav that either

businessman. Frank Swift wasn

work?

boxboards out of Bangor

of rusticating secretaries

was no dope. He was well aware that

Captain Parker Hall

it

and laugh over the idea of trading

no way to tell what would have become

the remaining schooners to use, they

74

in

to organize passenger cruises

those skippers, hands, and cooks on the beach without jobs. Wouldn’t

You would

and

Sandy Point and discussed the idea with the not make sense? There were all those schooners, laid up and wasting away,

aboard coasting schooners, he went over

and

200

was mostly bone and muscle.

it

captain. Did

well over

out to save the world: he

altruistic motives.

also a successful

was simply trying

to

keep his



family’s

life

would put

idle

in fact. Hall

amenable

We

The

latter

summer people and

tourists

was

easier than

had been the day

it

it

would have been

the coasting-schooner model,

respond very slowly to

on her

sails

that

was one that might provide that could

may and many of the

make

and a skipper

locate a schooner

not seem so important, but old-timers did

of the operation. Then, as

Bay

Hill

before,

if

a

—such an

now, the personality

it

was

was what

is

enough

still

known

to

make

tacking considerably

Our schooner,

like

most

built

on

She would

to sailors as slow in stays.

rudder when we tacked unless there was considerable pressure

die

from the wind. To counteract

boom down

Not

into the rising southwesterly breeze.

the winds were light.

if

skipper would bear off slightly to could, then

was a scheme

as important as the condition of the vessel.

worked our way hack down Blue

as strong as



this

was a scheme

this

requirement

would work against the success

of the skipper

all, it

was so enthusiastic he helped Swift

to the endeavor.

skipper resented attitude

Perhaps

schooners and sailors to work, but above

income and then some. Hall told Swift that

a decent

money;

together in a time of economic hardship.

make

this

sure the sails were

we would

and gain

all

tack, the

the speed he

assisted

by a few

The skipper would then announce, "Hard alee!

passengers, would stand by the jibsheets.

and throw the helm down quickly, spinning

The schooner would slowly

full

and the mate,

‘Ready about!

the deck,

a barker at a carnival spinning the

tendency, just before

Wheel

the spokes of the wheel in long strokes like

of F ortune.

—ponderously

it

seemed

at critical

times

—pivot on the

centerboard, the bowsprit describing an arc on the horizon, the stern swinging a similar arc

aft.

As the bow came up into the wind, the

the mate’s gang

new

tack, they

would

would trim

in the

it

was trimmed

if

necessary and work their

right, secure

Should the vessel jibsheet after the

The mate and

it.

way

some circumstances

especially difficult

in the breeze,

how kept swinging over onto the and, when the skipper nodded that

his party

to the foresail

would then trim the

stavsail sheet

and main.

onto the other tack, the mate would not cast off the

passed the eye of the wind. The

restrained on the “wrong” side over. In

shuddering and shaking

other sheet of the jib

resist falling off

bow

sails

cast off the jibsheet; then, as the

—and the pressure

jib

of the

would therefore be backed

wind on

it

would

force the

bow

—such as when the direction of the seas might make tacking

— the mate might back the

bow an

staysail as well to give the

extra

jolt

of wind.

when Murphy s Law takes over and everything tacking properly. The vessel might “miss stays" come up

There are those times, thankfully seems to conspire against



toward the eye of the wind,

come up

into the

ill

hesitate,

and

fall

right

wind and become locked there

the sheets slashing hack

w

rare,

and

bring her around, but

again. (In an emergency,

il

forth.

in the

hack onto the original tack

“in irons,” the sails

In the latter situation,

— or

shimmying and

quickly backing the headsails

former, the only recourse

is

to build

the vessel has an auxiliary engine or

if

up speed and

the yawlboat

THE

77

is

RX OF THE

try

rigged

TIDE

76

A PASSAGE IN TIME

.

and ready

to go. the skipper

Missing stays

room

plenty of

power.)

ith

not a big deal out in the open water w

is

to

can drive her around w

maneuver, but

it s

ith

no other vessels around and

A

serious business in confined quarters.

passenger

schooner once missed stays on an ebbing tide at the mouth of Pulpit Harbor as she was

down on the ledge, w here she remained pinned leaving her high and dry. They got her off later without much damage,

trying to clear Pulpit Rock. She was forced

went out.

as the tide

but the embarrassment to the skipper and crew as they sat on the ledge w aiting for the next

high tide to float their schooner free was acute, to say the

least.

Rut tacking ship and missing stays and trimming sheets were of concern only to the crew

and the handful of guests who cared about the working of our schooner.

Most of the

passengers w ere along for the beautiful vistas and the penetrating w armth of the sun. and they w ere getting plenty of both



hills,

headlands, islands, mountains, half-tide ledges

with foaming green-blue waves surging around them, lobsterboats. the occasional

we reached

pleasure boat. As

the lower end of the bay. a schooner

Passage, a long pennant streaming from her

emerged from Casco

main topmast and an American

flag at the

leech of her mainsail.

"That of A., of

bound

for everyplace,

smoke mushroomed over

later,

the skipper said, taking off his cap the side of the

the report of her saluting

Evans and

cannon w hacked the

"Someday

I've got to get

and waving

trailed off astern.

side of our hull.

breech-loading swivel mounted on her starboard

One

L

the Isaac H. Evans. Captain Eddie Glaser, out of Rockland. Maine, the

s

rail.

It

"Damn,

A

was

A

it.

.S.

puff

few seconds a

little

brass

the skipper said.

one of those things."

of the passengers pointed out that the

Evans over there and our schooner over here

were living museums of maritime history. "It s

better than that,

the skipper said. ‘‘These schooners are alive because they

Museums can't keep schooners in stock because Museums are death to wooden schooners.

just like in the old days.

They

re quickly gone.

Though view

.

characteristically bluntly stated, there

was a certain

Following the death of commercial cargo-carrying

museums, and museums

them on

exhibit.

A

crevice.

The

moored next

rot to a

they’re dead.

validity to the skipper’s

sail,

scores of established

specially established for the purpose, acquired vessels

few were hauled out on land, where they baked

planks shrank and their seams opened and rainwater worked

and decay progressed

work

its

in the

sun and their

wav

into every

left in

the water,

devious

exponentially. Most vessels w ere

and put

wharf or quay. and. though the deterioration was slow er.

it

nevertheless

took place. Just as idle

The Isaac

an unheated, unoccupied, unused house w

w ooden ship w

ill

deteriorate faster than she

of the institution in charge of her well-being.

crew

will

ill

would

Though it

be able to minimize the decay considerably

with the l SS Constitution. "Old Ironsides,

museums do

in

quickly

fall to

rack and ruin, an

sailed, despite the best intentions

if is

true that a full-time shipkeeping

— witness the U.S.

Xavv’s success

Charlestown. Massachusetts

—most

not have the resources to provide such a crew

II.

anchor

in a

awning

is

Tl

R \ OF THE TIDE 77

at

An

rigged under

her forward boom, and the yawlboat has

come

alongside the boarding

ladder to take passengers ashore.

THE

Evans

calm.

“More schooners have survived skipper said, “and that’s a

as

working

vessels than as

museum

exhibits,” the

fact.

Consider, for example, the schooner Bowdoin one of the current stalwarts of the Maine ,

coast.

Launched in

1921

at the

Hodgdon Brothers yard in East Boothbay,

planked and framed of the very best white oak

to

she was heavily

withstand the worst conditions of the

northern seas, as she was designed on a fishing-schooner model specifically for Arctic exploration.

Under the capable hands

Donald

of her owner, Admiral

MacMillan, she

B.

proved her superiority in twenty-six voyages and almost 300,000 miles in some of the most hostile waters of the world, surviving innumerable gales, brushes with ice,

In 1959, his career ended,

Museum

MacMillan donated the Bowdoin

and groundings.

to the Mystic Seaport

The vessel was in remarkably good condition at the time, considering her experiences, and MacMillan expected she would stay that way. Eight years later, she was a mess. The museum’s priority at the time was the development of its site, not the care of its vessels, and the Bowdoin went downhill rapidly in the absence of even in Connecticut.

She deteriorated so quickly,

routine maintenance.

and

exhibition

became

laid up,

in fact, that she

which made matters worse.

was taken out

Covered with a

of

plastic tarp, she

a greenhouse for rot.

Admiral MacMillan,

to put

it

mildly,

was

He encouraged the formation of museum and bring her back to Maine.

exercised.

an association to take over the schooner from the After years of hard

Association

work and herculean fund-raising

managed

to her renaissance

Some

to return her to sailing condition.

Schooner Bowdoin

efforts, the

of those

who

contributed

were passenger schoonermen Captain Jim Sharp, formerly of the

Adventure and Captain John Nugent of the day schooner Olad out of Camden, and ,

boatbuilder Jim Stevens of the venerable

yard where the Bowdoin was originally

Maritime Academy

Frank

in Castine, the

Goudy & Stevens

built.

Bowdoin

shipyard, located next to the

Today, operated by the cadets because she

lives

Swift’s first season in the passenger-schooner trade

is

at the

Maine

used.

was the summer of 1936. Even

Admiral Donald MacMillan’s old arctic schooner

Boudoin underway

in

Eggemoggin Reach.

Launched

in

1921 in

though there was a rather large supply of schooners on the market that year, because the

demand

— and therefore the asking price of a

lower, Swift couldn’t afford to

buy a schooner

Captain Parker Hall had suggested that Swift

fully

found vessel

—was low and getting

outright. Actually, even test

if

he could have,

the waters modestly, rather than rush

an innovative business that might prove to be a poor investment. The ideal situation,

into

East Boothbay, retired in 1959 to

become

a

ship, she

museum was

later

restored to sailing

condition and now

is

a training vessel for the

Maine .Maritime

Academy

in Castine.

Captain Hall thought, was to charter a schooner for a single season. The capital outlay

would be minimal, and Swift would be better able condition, one that

hadn

t

one of the smaller schooners on the Maine coast

78

new venture into unknown territory.

A PASSAGE IN TIME

still

in

working

been laid up for a long period and therefore would not need

more upgrading than a single season demanded. Swift found what he was looking for in the centerboarder Mabel, for a

was

to find a vessel that

— and

Built in

1881

at

54

feet

and 37 tons

for that reason the perfect vessel in Milbridge,

Maine, she had seen

THE

77

RX OF THE

TIDl

7 ()





thousands of tons of cargo

bricks,

cordwood, hay,

lumber

coal,

—pass through her

hatches, hut she was in remarkably good structural condition and was available for the season.

It

much

wasn’t

of a job to clear her hold

and build rudimentary cabins

for eight

passengers, and to rig her properly as a sailing vessel. Captain William Shepard, one of the veteran coastermen of Deer

and the Mabel was brought

to

Isle,

was signed on

as skipper, his wife

was hired

as cook,

Camden on the western shore of Penobscot Bay for a season

of sailing.

The

and the skipper and the cook may have been

vessel

The health

w rong.

economy had improved

of the

Depression, but vacationers and tourists were hotels, guest houses, fishing

and

tations

camps, and cabins

slightly since the onslaught of the

scarce,

and Swift was competing with

in the pines



with established repu-

all

with rock-bottom prices. Even at $25 per passenger, meals included, for

all

a week-long cruise, of seeing the

still

but the year, 1936, was

right,

Frank Swift had difficulty persuading people to try this barebones way

bay and the

No track record, no money to spend on advertising,

islands.

lots

of wrinkles to be ironed out. u

We had only three lady passengers on our first trip,’’

time,

By

believe,

I

we took

the end of that

off without

first,

Swift

was

“The next

to say later.

any passengers.”

short season, the best you could say

was that Swift had gained

w ould work and what would not. Come the end of the summer, he went back to Toddy Pond, Captain Shepard and his wife returned to Deer Isle, and the Mabel went back to her owner. In short order she was sold to a down-east fishexperience and a sense of what

packing company as a sardine freighter; her accommodations were torn out, her cut down,

and an engine was

But the Mabel

,

it

War II, when Frank into

own, the

its

Swift’s

little

Windjammer

freighter

Cruises, as he called his business, finally

was offered

passenger trade, where she lasted until the Slow

,

for sale again. Swift

late

purchased her

and put her back

disappointing start or not, Frank Swift had been undeterred. ,

characteristic

is

her*

wooden

—a capable but The

latter

hard for a few seasons, she became too

difficult to

vessel,

7

fleet.

That second year hadn’t been much better than the

much

1937 he

after Swift

maintain and was dropped from the

t

in the

and sure enough,

a sure sign of a tired-out

bought her outright and drove

wasn

In

schooner with a nearly straight stem and a flattened sheer.

little

this time,

work

to

came

1950s.

chartered the Lydia M. Webster a 58-footer built in Castine in 1882

homely

was

seems, was destined for the windjammer trade. Shortly after World

rather than chartering her, rerigged her as a schooner,

7

rig

installed.

first,

future for this type of business, at least not the

and

way

it

it

appeared that there

had been run

to date.

much capacity, but that didn’t matter, as a week with only five passengers was considered a great accomplishment. What to do? Pack it in? Fimp along marginally, depending on word-of-mouth advertising? Up the ante and

The Webster,

like the

Mabel, didn’t have

go for broke? Captain Swift

80

—which

A PASSAGE IX TIME

is

what he had become by then, an experienced skipper

decided to give

one

it

last shot, pull

out

all

the stops, recharter the Lydia M. Webster,

another schooner, advertise, and raise his prices to pay for 1938,

when

rate to

$30

a dollar

was

all.

(To raise your prices

in

meant jumping from the 1927 $27-per-person

a dollar,

still

it

buy

one week and offering a $10 discount for two weeks.) Strapped for cash,

for

however, he couldn’t afford even the few hundred dollars then asked for a seaworthy schooner.

was

laid

fact,

On the advice of Captain Hall,

up

at

Great Wass Island and

in

he therefore bought the Annie

Wass before she could even be

sailed

be grounded out on the beach for conversion. There, Swift hired a gang

to

Sandy Point

of

unemployed carpenters and shipwrights. required several days to overhaul the rigging, partly install cabins for ten

“It

passengers, and paint her,” Captain Swift said later. credit at the still

Kimball, which

need of serious work to make her serviceable. In

she had to be considerably recaulked on Great to

F.

lumberyards and food stores

operating on a shoestring.

credit,

It

in

“It

was fortunate

that

had good

I

Camden, Belfast, and Rockland, because I was

was also fortunate that those businesses saw fit

because in future years, when windjamming took

to

extend

they would gain considerable

off,

trade from a grateful skipper.

The Annie

Kimball, like the Mabel and the Lydia M. Webster, was small and old

F.

(56 feet long, built in 1886 in Boothbay), but she was a pretty

came

to

be

known

A bay

as the “Pride of the Penobscot.

teristics of a fishing

schooner, she

cargo-carrying days variously in

Advertise, stick

choice of schooners,

bare bones, and aside

and

trade, he

it

coaster with

charac-

finally hit

upon

the formula

out through thick and thin, offer potential passengers a

buy cheap, don’t

get fancy, keep

— most of — don't be sentimental. all

maintenance expenses down If

a schooner can't hack

get another. In the twenty-five years Captain Swift

owned

many

had been a Maine coast regular, homeported during her Deer Isle, Boothbay, and Jonesport.

With the Webster and the Kimball, Captain Frank Swift for success:

thing that quickly

little

remained

it,

in the

or chartered twelve different vessels, including several

to the

toss her

passenger

Maine coasting

schooners, one from the Chesapeake, a yacht, and even Captain Irving Johnson’s famous

Yankee a former North Sea pilotboat. ,

But

all

of Captain Swift’s passenger schooners didn’t get

retired in 1961, he sold later sold in the

them

to

two of them, the Mattie and the Mercantile,

Les Bex,

Maine windjammer

to her original

who

Beet.

sold (In

them

to

Swift

Jim Nisbet, who to this

day

1990, after a complete rebuild, the Mattie reverted

name, the Grace Bailey .)

Affectionatelv sail

known out of

as the “green boats

Camden, following

the

routes as their sisters back in the 1930s.

reaches of Blue Hill Bay

Late afternoon found us

in the lowest

Swans Island on one

and Bass Harbor,

other.

to

When

Ray Williamson. They remain

because of their traditional dark-green topsides, they

same

thrown away.

We

had such

side

a

good

at the

—the northern neck of

southern end of Mount Desert, on the

sailing breeze that the skipper, rather

THE

than take us into

TL

RM OF THE TIDE 8 1

Mackerel Cove or Bass Harbor for the night, kept us straight on through the passage

between Placentia and Swans, down for a tantalizing peek into Lunt Harbor and the tiny village of Frenchboro

(“How do you

like that for

an island community?

the skipper said,

pointing past the anchored lobsterboats to the white church, the white school, the white

houses connected by beaten paths), over toward Great Duck, and then north to the

Western Way, which leads past the Cranberry

Isles into

Southwest Harbor.

The mountains of Mount Desert, the centerpieces of Acadia National Park, stood proud making their

against the purple sky. Gray-and-white gulls wheeled around fishing boats

way back

to harbor.

A

black-hulled Coast Guard buoy tender, overhauling a channel

buoy, heaved in the swell rolling up from the Gulf of Maine. The coasties, usually a jaded sort to

accustomed

daylong variety of interesting watercraft, nevertheless lined the

to a

watch us sweep

An

past.

officer

on the bridge cupped

his

hands

to his

rail

mouth. “You’re

the fifth in an hour,” he yelled, “but you re the best!

“The best?

the skipper said under his breath, doffing his cap like Prince Philip

acknowledging the cheers of the commoners. “You bet your boots we is

the finest schooner on the coast of

We

foredeck crowd into shape.

re going to jibe.

Up ahead in Southwest Harbor was lobsterboats,

black-hulled

and other J.

&

Maine and...Hell

the usual

complement

s

This

...Whip that

bells! ...Mate!

s

Right now. Let

craft, plus four schooners:

re the best.

go.

of visiting

the white-hulled

and

local yachts,

Timberwind the ,

Riggin the brightly painted Heritage and the private schooner-

E.

,

,

yacht Deliverance. Their heavy masts and delicate rigging were silhouetted against a

luminists sky.

“No room for us,’ the skipper said. “They’ve got all the good holding ground. Someone ask the cook to come up here and call the harbormaster over to Northeast Harbor on the radio. If it’s clear, we ll go in there. The answer, as it turned out, was yes, all clear. The wind, right on our stern, died with the sun. We drifted with the incoming tide and not even a hint of a breeze up the channel toward the inner harbor, the skipper a study of outward calm, his inner tension betrayed only by the occasional twitching of his jaw

muscles.

It

was a

straight shot with

on the balconies of sunset, pink

their

summer

sails.

— huge, old-money Nobody

spoke.

It

and on and on and on, an eighth of a

hanging in limp folds from the anchor go.

gaffs, the

when

it

The chain roared through

cottages, then died away.

pool of Northeast Harbor.

82

so silent

we thought

mile, a quarter of a mile, the sails

seemed

had wrung the as

if

A PASSAGE IX TIME

last

ounce of forward

time had stopped and the entire

universe was vibrating like a tuning fork, he nodded to the mate.

and the



hand,

mate standing by the foredeck winch, waiting

Finally, after the skipper

out of the schooner,

into the water.

estates

was

in

watching the

the clink of the ice in the cottagers glasses.

We drifted on

momentum

“cottages

and orange, illuminate dur

we could hear

to let the

an audience. Several people stood, cocktails

the hawsepipe.

The anchor splashed

The sounds echoed

We were attached by a silver thread

off the hills

to the deep, black

Three schooners,

al the

end of a perfect day of sailing,

with the

make

their

last of the

way breeze

toward a snug anchorage.

Fog Mulls and Black Pigs

VI

In that sense of direct inheritance the few venerable coasters ,

among today

windjammers, from wherever they were launched are the legitimate heirs ,

Maine's carefully nurtured but

dam

still

's

to

credible tradition ofpokin' long, pickin'

mebbe nosin up Tenants way with th toyde, when an if it scayles up, fer thet lot o ax han les Fred promised an a decklud o hay, eff th gol ram sun 'll jes' peek aout long huff t' droy th fethahs up

th

'

buoys

in th

'

'

thick,

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

on a shag.

—Joseph E. Garland, Adventure, Queen of the Windjammers

There’s no other way to describe it. Wednesday morning came weird. Mist on the water, clouds pushing in from the west, atmosphere with a clammy moistness that demanded a woolen sweater. As soon as you put one on, you

“Weather change coming on,” the skipper

felt

hot and steamy.

said, tuning in to the

NOAA

mariner’s

advisory.

“...Matinicus Rock, wind south-southeast, 4 knots.” a

drunk gargling through a mouthful of

Cashes Ledge Buoy, south seas every nine seconds.

at

6 knots, air temperature 57, sea temperature 59, three-foot

Variable cloudiness with patches of fog reported

coast. Visibility six to eight miles, at 2 knots,

The weathercaster sounded like mothballs. “Mount Desert Rock, south at 6.

under one mile

in fog.

all

along the

Rockland has a southeast wind

Southwest I larbor calm wind, Jonesport south-southeast 3 knots.

Now for the

mariner’s weather discussion....

“Hold on

“A

your hats,” the skipper

to

said, wincing.

tropical storm, currently off the Carolinas,

seaboard and

is

is

working

its

wav up

the eastern

expected to veer off to the eastward at Cape Cod. High winds, high seas,

higher than normal tides, and heavy rain are expected later tonight and into tomorrow

from Massachusetts northeastward Following breakfast ries

to the

Bay

of

—a knock-down-drag-out

Fundy and Nova affair of

Scotia....”

pancakes with more blueber-

than batter, country-sausage patties the diameter of coffee-can covers, and maple

syrup that tasted pure and very well could have been the assembled ship “I figure

we

ll

s

—the skipper announced

his

plan to

company.

gers

have an interesting day of sailing before the weather gets nasty," he

“Anyone who wants supplies

A boatload

for the next

said.

day or so better go into town with the vawlboat.

to the

Adventure after

a trip to

town

supplies.

because tonight

this schooner’s

a borrowed shell.

You want

going to be buttoned

down

tighter than a hermit crab in

beer, toothpaste, shoelaces, get

it

now.

of passen-

and crew return

for

Anyone

who wants

to gets a

turn at the oars.

FOG ML LLS XD BLACK PIGS 85 I



So a boatload of passengers went ashore while the skipper pored over

He had

considered the alternatives.

command

tradition of

at sea,

his charts

and

a lot of alternatives to consider, but in the age-old

he kept his deliberations for the most part to himself.

He

had a few words with the mate and talked for a bit over the radiotelephone with the skipper of the in

Timberwind which was over ,

Bucks Harbor, made a few notes

Southwest Harbor, and the Mercantile which was

in

,

in his

pocket notebook, and then dropped

He checked

the yawlboat lying to her painter under the schooner’s transom.

made

engine carefully and

We

got

underway

suddenly behind

was a calm and relaxing

It

coming up

us,

fast in

proud of

his vessel that

“Bloody blast still

“Too

make

late to

it

smiles

and handshakes,

until

sailer,

jib.

made

all

the smarter by a press of

Her skipper, Captain Douglas Lee, was off.

our skipper said, caught by surprise. Our yawlboat was

down, and the

astern, slowing us

sail, all

he never missed an opportunity to show her

to hell!

it all

Way past Sutton Island and Little ,

canvas that included a topsail and a flying so

of fuel in the tank.

our wake, was the Heritage one of the newest and

She was a smart

finest schooners in the fleet.

over the

the yawlboat, leisurely raising the working sails in the

long, lazy swell off Bear Island, then taking the Eastern

Cranberry Island.

into

morning. The wind was moderate and blowing into

at 9:30 in the

we pushed out with

the harbor, so

ample supply

sure there was an

down

a race,’" the

topsails

were

still

in their stops.

mate moaned. “Lee has got us now.

Our skipper and Captain Lee were

great rivals, always ready to duke

1

out whenever

it

came storming up to our stern, hung there for a tantalizing moment, then pulled out and surged along our windward side, blanketing our sails and slowing us down even further. The gap between the two schoonthe opportunity arose. In a matter of seconds, the Heritage

ers couldn’t

have been more than

fifty feet.

Passengers crowded the

Her mate, halfway up the main shrouds, was grinning like the Cheshire in the

nonchalant pose affected by

all

of the Heritage.

rail

cat.

Her skipper,

schooner captains in the presence of an audience

especially one that has been thoroughly

whipped

—was chomping on a

fat cigar.

11

“Good morning, Captain, Captain Lee said cheerfully in a singsong voice at the exact moment when the two schooners were precisely aligned, windlass to windlass, deckhouse to

deckhouse, mainmast to mainmast, wheel to wheel, skipper to skipper. “Your vessel

sure

makes

a

handsome

Our

We

seem

be going too

to

Our skipper tipped

morning.

Captain Lee called out. “See

“Say, mate,

down.

sight this

if you

he said

it.

1

politely.

can do something to slow this schooner

he said under his breath, not even moving

Without a sideways peek

on the top of the cabinhouse and pretended navigational dividers.

cap

fast.

skipper’s face turned to stone. “Nuts,

his lips while

his

Our mate leaned over

to

at the

Heritage he leaned over the chart ,

check a distance with a pair of brass

to tie his shoes,

showing

his

backside to the

other schooner. It

was over

in a

matter of minutes (“Thanks be to Cod,

11

the

mate whispered). The

Heritage pulled ahead, cut across our bow, jibed her sails over, and shot under our lee back into the Eastern

86

Way. Meanwhile, we hauled

A PASSAGE IN TIME

the yawlboat

up

into the stern davits

and

“Suddenly behind

up

fast in

coming

our wake, was the

Heritage. ...She sailer,

us,

made

was a smart

all

the smarter

by a press of canvas that included a topsail and a flying jib.”

set the topsails

while the skipper, after calling angrily to the cook for a cup of coffee, vowed

revenge at the earliest possible moment.

By midmorning we were

drifting

among the islands

ocean and a cloud cover

in a flat, oily

like the

off the southern

end of Mount Desert

gray underside of a low

granite, dismal green spruce, the surface of the sea the color of cast iron.

ruffled here

and there by

stray breezes first

from the south, then from the north

Pink

steel roof.

The water was

from the southeast, then from the

east,

—a confusion of directions that made the

then

sails slat

back and forth randomly; the booms and gaffs, brought up short by the rigging, jolted the schooner as

if

she were being slapped by a giant hand. Every once in a while,

pick up one of the puffs and, after

much running around and

we would

adjusting of sheets by the

deck gang, would surge along for a few hundred yards until the breeze was gone and the

and the

sails

would go limp again.

sheets

We weren’t alone on the heaving sea, though there was an indefinable loneliness to the scene, not unlike the isolation one can feel walking

We were here

city.

and everything

else

was

there,

down

a major boulevard in a strange

and between us was a

vast expanse of

Several schooners were in sight, a yacht or two, and a couple of sprit-

trackless space.

rigged pulling boats, dirty white on the outside, orange-red on the inside, from the

Hurricane Island Outward Bound School. And, of course, the usual complement of lob-

from trap buoy

sterboats racing

to trap buoy, the fishermen driving their craft as

if

they

were at the wheel of Grand Prix race cars taking the turns at Monte Carlo. One of the boats, a cross between a traditional

had a super-amplified all.

down

east lobsterboat

stereo system aboard.

No

and a drug smuggler’s switchblade,

chanteys for this

Across the water came the disembodied voices of Pete

the Heritage

‘That... that ... thing over there,’’ he said, pointing with the soggy “is

not at

Townshend and Boger Daltrey,

“Whooo are you? Who-who? Who-who?....” The skipper, still smarting from our encounter with green cigar,

salt of the sea;

,

was disgusted.

end of a half-smoked

a sorry excuse for a lobsterboat, and the jughead who’s driving

it is

so

brainless he probably cleans both ears with one continuous Q-tip.

To “We would

pick up

one of the puffs and, after

much running

around and adjusting of sheets by the deck

gang, would surge

along for a few

hundred yards the breeze

and the sheets

until

mildly.

The Mary Day.

like

many

fashions of the yachts

place

of his colleagues, believed in the timelessness of the sea

and saw them

and the pleasure

modern



craft

in fact,

little

and therefore

it

and the

thought to the changing

he expected such changes to take



modern society but he considered was appalled by the introduction of

as evidence of the corruptions of

traditional vessels to be just that,

devices, especially electronics, on schooners, lobsterboats, sardine carriers, fish-

ing draggers,

and the

The changes on

and the

would go limp.”

He,

enduring nature of the working vess'els of the coast. He gave

was gone

sails

say that our skipper was an unreconstructed traditionalist would be putting

like.

(Never mind that he loved his

the coast of

Maine since the

last

own

radio.)

days of cargo-carrying and fishing

under sail have been even greater than the skipper would have liked to admit. Just as there were

88

still

a few sailing coasters in the

A PASSAGE IN TIME

1

930s, there were also a handful of lobstermen

who

FOG ML LLS AM) BLACK PIGS 89

were holdouts

and fished under sail, a considerable number worked under oar

to progress

from peapods and

dories; the only refrigeration

speed was registered in the single

hundred

dollars tied

up

digits,

in his vessel

around was plain ordinary

and a fisherman might have

and

much

as

boat

as a

few

Today’s fishermen, by contrast, have

gear.

thousands and thousands of dollars invested in their operations fishing has

ice, fast

become, an entrepreneurial operation), and

it s

(for that

is

what

lobster

a rare lobsterboat that doesn’t

have serious electronic equipment on board: Loran, sonar, radar, stereo sound systems

for

entertainment while hauling traps, radiotelephones, the works. The engines have become so powerful

and the boats

in Jonesport

—open only

built

so fast that the winning speeds at the annual lobsterboat races

to competitors in

and juiced up only for racing

working craft; no pseudo-lobsterboats specially

— are measured

The passengers on our schooner,

to

in the forty-plus-miles-per-hour range.

whom this experience was totally new, couldn’t see

now and the most recent past, because to them the present seemed identical to the past. From where our schooner sat, wallowing in the swell off Baker Island, there was simply the present and the possibilities of the future. For all the passengers knew the differences between

or even cared, today t

rock n

roll

s

sailor was yesterday’s

boogie-woogie and

all,

and would be tomorrow’s; today’s fisherman,

was simply son

to his father

and the father

to his sons.

who was old enough to have seen both the end of an era and the beginning of another, may have wished such an uncomplicated view were true but nevertheless knew

The

skipper,

The Who represented not evolution but revolution. Though reader of Joseph Conrad, he would have appreciated Conrad’s

that a lobsterman listening to

he

may

words

not have been a

in

The Mirror of the Sea

:

own time a man is very modem. Whether the seamen of three hundred years hence will have the faculty of sympathy it is impossible to say. An incorrigible mankind hardens its heart in the progress of its own perfectibility. How will they feel on seeing the illustrations In his

to the sea novels of to guess.

our day [the turn of the century], or of our yesterday?

But the seamen of the

last

generation, brought into

It is

impossible

sympathy with the caravels of

ancient time by his sailing ship, their lineal descendant, cannot look

upon those lumbering

forms navigating the naive seas of ancient woodcuts without a feeling of surprise, of affectionate derision, envy,

and admiration. For those

things,

whose unmanageableness,

even when represented on paper, makes one gasp with a sort of amused horror, were manned

by men who are

his direct professional ancestors.

No; the seamen of three hundred years hence will probably be neither touched nor moved to derision, affection, or admiration.

They

photogravures of our nearly

will glance at the

defunct sailing ships with a cold, inquisitive, and indifferent eye.

Our ships of yesterday will

stand to their ships as no lineal ancestors, but as mere predecessors whose course will have

been run and the race shall be, not

We were right

in the

Whatever craft he handles with

middle of lunch when the fog rolled

of the later morning, a

90

extinct.

skill,

the

seaman

of the future

our descendant, but only our successor.

A PASSAGE IN TIME

in.

It

mass of gray mush on the horizon that

had been

for a while

visible for

much

seemed fixed

in

place but over time drew closer fiction

movie,

it

oozed

to the

and

closer.

Like an amorphous monster out of a science-

westward and swallowed everything

in

its

path.

distant schooner, then several yachts, then another schooner, a lobsterboat

and another, then if

the sea

they had never existed



buoy off the southern end of Baker Island and then us. With the fog came a damp



condition that muffled or silenced

some sounds and amplified

First a

and another

if

it

were

in a distant

disappeared as

chill

and a strange

others. Lobsterboats that

world, both miles

above the surface of the water. The loneliness of the day became ‘''Ears

Guide

to

away and high

lonelier.

more valuable than your eyes in the log, Roger Duncan wrote in A Cruising the New England Coast. “Fog seems to affect the transmission of sound. A horn are

clearly audible ten miles

away may fade out at

three miles

and nearly blow you out of vour

shirt at half a mile.

FOG

\ll

a

damp

chill

and a

strange condition that muffled or

all

we knew were about a mile away sounded as if they were just beyond the range of our vision, which was maybe a hundred feet; the swell breaking on the shore of Baker Island, about half a mile away, sounded as

“With the log came

LLS

I

XD BLACK BIGS

(

)

1

silenced

some

sounds and amplified others.”

The Svlvina W.

Heal.

Overall

we could hear

whistle on the

a cacophony of sounds

buoy south of Baker

some of the yachts, and the

made by

The

fog signaling devices.

Island, the canned-air horns of the lobsterboats

whistles of the rest.

The mate

and

sent one of our passengers

much

forward with an old-fashioned fisherman-style hand-cranked horn, which didn’t so blast as bleat like a lost sheep.

According to the rules of the nautical road, signals are required for in the fog

—powered

vessels

long and two short blasts;

must sound a prolonged

all

which one sound was

tion

vessels

blast every minute; sailboats, one

virtually indistinguishable

from which the sounds were coming was next

produced an avant-garde symphony

from the next

— and, worse, the direc-

to impossible to determine.

however, had considerable experience in the fog and was surprisingly calm it.

They were

direction

what

is

On

it

quite skilled in figuring out

was

known

what

vessel out there

in the

its

In

fog.

is

fog,” “a

but there are

a “fog mull,

dungeon o

In ascending order fog,”

and “a

thick

helmsman on

a medium-size vessel such as

much beyond

the bowsprit.

In “a thick

the moisture

stuff,

is

of

the

“a dungeon o fog,

ours would not be able to see

“This

was where and what

own distinctive descriptive phrase.

of density, they are “a mite thick,” “thick o

feet in front of

in the face of

Which was a good thing, because we were right in the middle trade as a dungeon o fog, the penultimate condition.

several grades of this, each with

heavy-duty

Our crew,

taking.

the coast of Maine, the general term for fogginess

dungeon o

underway

vessels at anchor, five seconds of bell-ringing per minute.

In our vicinity, with lots of vessels nearby, the signals in

all

is

so dense as to

make

dungeon

o’ fog,”

a visually impenetrable wall a few

your eyes.

what

I

like

about windjamming,” the skipper said sarcastically, wiping the

condensation from his glasses. “The view.

we were in a relatively good position, as the skipper had taken us on a course away from Mount Desert and there were no islands or ledges in our path. Yet the crew was taking no chances. The mate was Aside from the danger of collision with other vessels,

keeping a lookout up in the bow, the cook was amidships on the starboard

mate was on the port

side,

There are legendary abilities to find their

and the passengers were instructed

stories

keep their eyes peeled.

along the coast about the old-timers and their uncanny

way through

some could navigate by

to

side, the galley

the fog by seat-of-the-pants navigation.

smell, sniffing out spruce trees

It is

said that

on islands and headlands,

mudflats, sawn oak in shipyards, lumber schooners with aromatic cargoes (especially

cedar shingles), even canneries alongshore

— each supposedly with

its

own

odor.

They

could also navigate by listening to “the rote,” the sound of the waves on the shore. steep,

and

sandy shores,

grinds.

On

it

pounds.

On open shores,

sharp ledges and granite

with rounded rocks and boulders,

cliffs, it

with the geological characteristics of the coast,

crashes.

who was

A

sailor

who was

it

On rolls

so familiar

as familiar with the trend of the

shore as the winding of the path to the outhouse back home, would listen carefully and

“make the rote. And then there were 92

A PASSAGE LX TIME

the old-timers

who

studied the waterfowl. Giles M.S. Tod, in The

Down

Last Days of Sail

Captain Zeb was sailing close to shore in a thick o fog with a

the Alice S. Wentworth. voting boy up in the

Zeb Tilton and

East, relates a wonderful story about Captain

bow keeping

“Suddenly the boy shouted

a lookout.

aft that there

were ducks ahead. The old

man

hollered

Be they walking or be they swimming?

forward:

“When

the

boy

me

right, then,

called

lad.

back that he thought they were walking, the captain

ready about and hard alee!

yelled: ‘All

taking his vessel back into deeper

tints

waters.

No sailor, however experienced,

likes to

spend extended periods

in the fog, especially close

shore as island- and ledge-infested as that of Maine. But our skipper, after listening

in to a

once again to the

NOAA

weather forecast, was confident we were

would

back

whence

either slide

to

it

came

s

through an edge into clear

w as

had been

We

sail

still

cloudy and the winds were

And

as fluky as they

still

we could see w here we were going and where we had from Little Duck Island.

ith

one of two choices:

into a harbor, anchor,

choice

may

meant

the loss of time

sail

been.

offshore until the fog cleared, or feel his

and wait out the weather. For

not cause too

respite, a vacation

many

problems, but for the old cargo skippers, to be fogbound

and therefore money. To the crews, though,

it

something even pleasant

is

to the skipper chafing at the delay

to take

it

There

other than philosophically.

them had been

nothing

is

Such town

my

old bunks, waiting out a fog mull in

a cargo schooner

—a place

like

may have been

is

genuine peace

How many times at

of a period of frenzied business activity in the city in recent years have

one of

too long-

do under such

to

circumstances except eat and sleep, read or work on hobbies, and there

and quietude, completely insulated from the rest of the world.

in

which prevents him from

getting to his next loading or discharging port, although most of

in

could be a calm

from hard work.

kind of fog. Perhaps not

on the coast

wav

a passenger schooner, the latter

“In a remote harbor or cove,’ w rote John Leavitt, “there

be

patch that

the forecast had been for all-out fogginess for an indefinite period, the skipper would

have been faced w

this

in a large

out of in short order.

the morning, but

in

were not very far

If

It

we could

worth of feeling our way on pins and needles, we broke

sure enough, after about an hour air.

or that

w ished

I

the end I

could

some quiet down-east harbor!

lucky enough to be biding

Stonington or Carvers Harbor or Castine

and. in some cases, an opera house for entertainment.

(In

its

time

in

a coastal

— w here there were

stores

Maine, an opera house w as

usually a multipurpose hall for vaudeville acts, movies, stereopticon shows, lectures, tow n

Many

meetings, plays, and even the occasional traveling opera show.

towns, such as

Camden, Stonington, Rockport, and Belfast, still have their old opera houses and them regularly.) If not, perhaps there may have been a trader at anchor nearbv. Traders were schooners

fitted out as floating stores.

general stores might stock, plus

much

they didn’t.

I

use

They carried everything landside

lomeported

FOG

in larger

l

II

tow ns such as

LLS \XD BLACK

I’ICS

93

— .

Rockland and Portland, they would

downeast with an assorted cargo of canned and

sail

bulk goods, clothes, boots, foulweather gear, candy, pulp novels, kitchen utensils

moment

at the

— and anchor

for a

—anything and everything that might be

week or so in harbors, coves, and, if possible,

deep inland near isolated communities. Better

wharf

— “There’s a trader down the farthest reaches of the countryside and people would come from

came before World War years afterward, a few

“As

may

and near

to stock

called at

still

some

tidal rivers

up on

Word would

at the old mill

The

supplies.

when a veritable fleet of them ranged the

lie

to a

go out to

wharf”

traders heyday

coast, but for several

of the island villages.

be imagined,” wrote George Wasson

local storekeeper in

I,

far

demand

in

than anchoring, they would

still

such were available, easily accessible to their customers.

if

ax handles, tobacco,

tools, fishing supplies,

in Sailing

Days on

the Penobscot “the ,

was by no means enthusiastic over the visits of traders, and viewed them

much the same spirit often shown in later days towards department and chain stores.

The prime must

requisite for a trader

was a wide,

also be of shoal draft in order to

holes where the best trade

stiff vessel,

not easily careened

at the smallest

lie

wharf

.

.

by wind. She

in out-of-the-way "gunk-

was found. On deck, between the masts, was built a diminutive

but real house, clapboarded and shingled, with doors in the after end and windows upon

one

side.

A

sign prominently

announced

"Five

and Ten Cent Counter.

cut high in order to swing over the house on deck in years

The

foresail

was

These vessels were always well along

and sometimes they were badly strained through long

lying

aground

at

wharves

only suitable for smaller craft.

Perhaps the most colorful floating entrepreneur on the coast during the old days was a cobbler

named

Cottle,

who

ungainly, unseaworthy craft

built a flat-bottomed sailing

— and

sailed

it

scow

—reputedly

a slow,

from harbor to harbor. The scow had a rickety

house built on deck with windows on the sides and a rusty stovepipe sticking up through the roof.

Deep.

A

sign on the house read:

Cottle

floating

would blow

W.

Cottle. Boots

into a seaside

town or

and Shoes Repaired on the Rolling

village

on a

workshop on a beach or a mudflat, and stay there

fair

wind, ground out

until he

had repaired

all

his

the

boots and shoes and harnesses there were to be repaired. Then, on the next fair wind and tide,

he would be off to the next harbor.

Closely allied to the traders were the packets, schooners that followed regular routes

along the coast, carrying passengers and freight.

Forerunners of the steamboats that

connected the down east ports to the fnajor cities and towns to the w estw ard,

many of them

continued on into the steamboat era, especially those that called on harbors never served

by the steamers. They were the principal mode of transportation

in

and out of most of the

small coastal and island communities of Maine. At the beginning of the Civil War, near the height of the packet trade, there were as

The Mary Day flat

calm.

It’s

in a

Maine from Boston.

time

Packets traveled on a

for her skipper to start

thinking about

whistling up a wind.

many as twenty individual packet lines serving

set

schedule

subject to the vagaries of the



wind and

at least as set as tide

any schedule could be that was

— and departed from

their

own wharves

in

Portland. Boothbav Harbor. Rockland, Bangor, and others. In Portland, for example, a

94

A PASSAGE IX TIME

mwi'

FOG Ml LLS AM)

MACK

PIGS

95

fleet of

packets

left

from Widgery’s Wharf, which was

known

also

as the Portland Packet

Pier.

Though today s windjammers carry passengers only, no freight, and concentrate on bringing them out and back from here to here, instead of from here to there, they are

many

nevertheless a continuation of the packet tradition. In fact,

mers of the Frank Swift outright, the

Annie

F.

fleet

had been packets. The

on Deer

to ports to the eastward.

,

,

Isle for

Lillian.,

and the Enterprise which had been ,

and therefore was

the packet trade

windjam-

schooner Captain Swift bought

Kimball ran out of Southwest Harbor

Others included the Lois M. Candage the specially built

first

of the early

ideally suited for

conversion to a cruise schooner.

About one-thirty

in the afternoon, the

wind came up hard from the south-southeast,

heeling the schooner over sharply and causing the mate and the galley into the rigging to furl the topsails

on Long

Island,

still

But the wind died as quickly as floating

seaweed and seabird feathers, sliding slowlv along

setting us in

scramble

our course to the southwestward.

scum

of driftwood

and

in a tidal current that

was

rose, leaving us adrift in a

it

to

We boiled along past Richs Head

and ease the pressure.

sailing outside the islands,

hand

toward Marshall Island, the major island

approaches to Jericho Bay.

in the

The

sails slatted

that

was heaving in from the Gulf of Maine. The skipper, watching us slowly bearing down

and slapped

as the vessel rolled

back and forth with the long, easy swell

sideways toward Black Ledge, became apprehensive. “Let’s get the yawlboat

down and

he

start the engine,’

said.

So the mate climbed into the yawlboat and we lowered away

until

he and the boat were

out of sight under the transom. There was the sound of the starter, then nothing. Again,

and again nothing. Then

cursing,

and nothing.

“Calling an engine a blankety-blank shithead won’t get

over the stern.

“Come up

closer to the ledge,

and take the wheel.

here, mate,

which was populated by a couple of

holding their wings outstretched as

it I

started,

give

11

fat seals

a

try.

We

drifted

and half a dozen shags

into their embrace.

welcoming our schooner

if

it

the skipper yelled

The skipper, an expert mechanic, struggled with the engine for a quarter of an hour until he pinpointed the problem: a dirty fuel-line look up at the ledge from the or

some such

thing,

little

and dive back

out for quieter territory, just

hamburger on

Every

filter.

engine compartment and say,

when

and between

u

Holy bumblebee

in again. Finally, after the shags

seemed the schooner’s

it

the jagged rock, the engine coughed

past Black Ledge

thirty seconds or so, he

and

Spirit

and Drunkard

made

the skipper

ledges,

piss!

and seals had cleared would be ground

to

The yawlboat pushed

us

side

started.

would

and we were

into the lower

reaches of Jericho Bay.

The episode with windless, our old fog yet to be

96

felt,

the engine

bank within sight

to the southwest, a dull

A PASSAGE IN TIME

jumpy and

to the east, the

impatient.

Here we were,

edge of a tropical storm, unseen and

sky above and a greenish-black sea below. The

passengers were bored and

the cook

listless,

was down below arguing with the

galley

assistant....

“We need

wind!

the skipper bellowed at the

There are various ways

sails.

to raise a breeze, all of them quite dangerous, as there

is

no way

You can call a breeze and get a zephyr, or call a breeze and get a hurricane. There’s just no way to tell in advance what you are going to get. Some sailors, however, think there is. They think there is a sliding to control the size of the breeze once

you have called

for

scale of severity, starting with sticking a knife into the

it.

mast

to raise a quiet breeze, next

throwing a penny overboard for a strong wind, and finally throwing a penny overboard

and

saying,

u

black pig

at the

same time

Our skipper would have none

of

for a real blast.

He knew

it.

had a

better

method

Ancient Mariner

(“I



random

recite

never

set sail

out loud and see what happens.

it

and

was, he wasn’t taking any chances with that.

He

wind strong enough

verses

to

blow out the

from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime

of the

without a copy’’), the theory being that you read a verse

If

nothing, read another.

If

that produces only a zephyr,

read another. Simply keep on reading, with pauses to check the level of

and the incansails,

tation were all as likely as not to produce a

with the price of sailcloth being what

that the knife, the penny,

effect, until the desired

wind has been achieved.

“Silence, please,’ the skipper said, opening a ragged edition of Coleridge to the first of

several

marked

He

took off his cap and put on a pair of reading glasses.

Down

dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,

'Turns

sad as sad could

And we The

in

pages.

did speak only

be;

break

to

silence of the sea!

We live in the modern age. We believe in science, we believe in meteorology, we believe the absolutes of digital readouts from black boxes stuffed with semiconductors. We

believe the analysts in the

employ of the Coast Guard and the National Transportation

Safety Board when they tell us that untoward circumstances aboard ships at sea are caused

by none other than

failure to

pay attention to proper safety procedures.

tanker went aground off Valdez, Alaska, causing the biggest

oil spill in

because of pilot error or too much liquor at the wrong time or failure to at the proper scale or

something

attendants with straitjackets

if

conference and announced that that the skipper

like that.

We

would

call for the

American

set the

history,

radar screen

white truck and the

commandant of the Coast Guard stood up at a press the reason why the Exxon Valdez went on the rocks was

the

was wearing red mittens or the trim of the

painted blue. Yet not that long ago belief that tragedy

We believe a huge

— and

was caused by bad

still

luck,

among some

vessel’s superstructure

sailors

today

was

—there was the

and that bad luck was produced by

certain

carelessnesses.

FOG MULLS AND BLACK PICS 97

Day after day, day after day, li

e stuck,

As

idle as

nor breath nor motion; a painted ship

Upon a painted

ocean.

There was a long string of “nevers,

things a sailor

must never do or allow

to

be done.

Never depart on a Friday or launch a vessel on a Friday or allow the keel of a new vessel

on a Friday. Never wear red mittens or stockings or mufflers, especially

to be laid

shipyard where a

new vessel was under construction, and never paint any trim on

a vessel

blue.

Never turn a hatch cover bottom-up. Never watch a departing ship out of

Never

sail

aboard a ship that stuck on the ways when

on board. Never whistle while underway or drive a

sight.

was launched or had a bootjack

it

nail

in a

on a Sunday,

as a gale will be the

certain result.

The

very- deep did rot:

That ever

this

0

Christ!

should be!

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs

Upon

the slimy sea.

There were, however, ways first if

to

banish bad luck.

voyage of the season, a vessel should

the vessel

or tide

It

was

set sail to the

said, for

northward

course were to the south or the east or the west, even

s

from the north, she should

were violated, there was no Alone, alone,

all, all

first sail

northward, however

telling the horrors of the

if

example, that on the for

good

luck.

there were a foul

briefly.

If

Even wind

that principle

consequences.

alone,

Alone on a wide wide sea!

And never a

My soul in It

was

saint took pity on

agony.

said, for

another example, that good luck could be brought upon a vessel >

horseshoe were nailed, open end up, to the end of the bowsprit.

were to

fall off

If

if

a

a horseshoe so affixed

during the coiirse of A voyage, tragedy would befall the vessel and her crew.

But soon there breathed a wind on me, Nor sound nor motion made: Its

path was not upon the

sea,

In ripple or in shade.

It

to

98

was said on the coast of Maine that there were people imbued with the ingredients

ensure good luck and that those people should be treated with the proper respect. “A

A PASSAGE

/.V

TIME

I Protected from possible foul

weather from any

direction, the liiggin

& E.

has found a snug

anchorage for the

night.

certain

woman, renowned

for her ability to control weather

fortune to seafarers, lived alone a mile or

was well worth while

\\

asson. "It

to

buy of her heavy

to

more back from

up

Flips

to

to furnish general

Aunt

and

tobacco and snuff,

tea,

to see that

her woodpile never

Polly’s small dwelling, with offerings given

purchases made, often preceded trips to the Grand Banks or to Bangor. man... ‘Maybe there coastin to

Bangor

wan

River,’

t I

much

nothin so very

always kind of

good and plenty with old Aunt

good

the shore,” wrote George

keep Aunt Polly supplied with

knit stockings, mittens or ‘nippers,

unduly diminished.

and

felt

in

it,

but to the

better-like

when

last

day of

and

Quoth a

my

goin

things had been fixet 1 up

Polly.

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,

Yet she sailed softly too:

Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze

On me alone

The schooner

s

it



blew.

snug hole was

to

be Southeast Harbor on Deer

Isle, at

the eastern end of

The approaches from Jericho Bay were full of ledges and small islands, but the chart showed a large harbor well inside bounded by Stinson and Whitmore

the Deer Island Thorofare.

necks, which would provide protection from virtually

By suppertime, when we gentle breeze

still

had a few more miles

the dinner bell

go to our anchorage, our once-

and the passengers trooped happily below

of the galley stove, leaving the skipper

The main cabin of the Aftrenlure.

00

to

directions.

had turned to a raw, cold, and penetrating wind that blew hard from the east.

The cook rang

1

all

A PASSACE IX TIME

and

the

to the

warmth

mate and me alone under the darkening

sky to

sail

the rest of the way.

The clouds were low and raggedy, and

had angry whitecaps with spray driven

off their tops.

Rain lashed the deck and ran down

our necks. The cook’s helper brought up an oilcloth-covered tray and

main cabinhouse. Hot wait until

and steaming

biscuits

coffee

the tumbling seas

left

on top of the

it

—a full-fledged meal would have

to

later.

Before us was a sight not easilv forgotten: the wet, emptv decks; the glow of the running lights in the rigging; the rain

his black

running

Lunenburg fisherman-style

off the sails; the white, boiling

oilskins

the canvas cover off the windlass and flaking

lights of the

tin 4

skipper

in

and seaboots; the mate up forward pulling

down

the glistening anchor chain; the surf

breaking on the ledges; the buoys pushed over on their sides by the weight of the rising storm: the dim

wake;

houses in the

little

tidal current

and the

villages of Sunshine

and

Ocean ville.

We water

sailed

deep into Southeast Harbor, as far as we could go and

low tide

at

are

crowded tonight,

lobsterboats. Not a yacht in sight.

the

mate

called

There were no other schooners inside

to float the vessel.

and Burnt Coat

Pulpit,

down

the

We came up

companionway hatch

was no stampede, you can be sure of After supper, there soft

was singing

amber glow of the kerosene

coffee

on the table and told

Maine

in the

rigging

into the

wind and

—and

let

rain

Bucks,

only a few

go the anchor; then

for volunteers to help furl the sails.

main cabin and cribbage

lanterns.

pounded on

“I bet

There

that.

in the

stories,

the skipper said

have sufficient



And then

in the galley

some apocryphal and some

the deck above

Outside, in the thickening storm,

it

under the

the skipper set a pot of fresh-brewed not,

about the coast of

days of wooden ships and iron men. As he spoke, the wind

and the

the gale.

still

and the schooner swayed

was a black, black

moaned

in the

to the force of

night.

FOG Ml LLS AM)

A ( K FIGS

III

1

0

1

A Town by

VII

At

many spots

the

along the coast and

Edge of the

nature has provided granite

rivers

hand that it lies almost on the surface ready to be was not even necessary to quarry deeply for it. II hen Dix Hurricane Fox and Crotch Islands and Stonington in Penobscot Bay ... are mentioned the Maine Coast man thinks of granite. with so lavish a taken.

It

,

,

,

,

— William Hutchinson Rowe,

It was a

restless, thrashing,

The Maritime History of Maine

wringing-wet night, the wind blowing out of the east and the

northeast and the north in gusts as high as 50-some-odd knots, the temperature the

fifties,

mast boots,

ventilators, portlights,

compartments,

its

way below through deck seams,

companionway hatches, any and

But the crew kept the woodstove

in those

in

the atmosphere penetratingly raw. Sheets of rain, almost horizontal at times,

smashed against the schooner, and moisture worked

ings.

down

fires

all

unsealed open-

stoked in the galley and the main cabin, and

at least, a cheerful, reasonably dry

Not so on deck. Rain and spray, thunder and

lightning,

warmth

prevailed.

wind shrieking

in the rigging,

halyards slapping so sharply and rapidly against the masts that the sound was like

machine guns during the

fiercest battles

on the Western Front. The vessel rolled and

lurched to the storm. The skipper and mate were up nearly the entire night, securing loose gear, checking the rigging (especially the slightest sign that the

anchors (two had been

foulweather gear, including thick towels

were soaked to stand

anchor chain) for chafe, and watching for the

to the skin

and remained

that

itself

fireworks display, the end discrete blasts of

wind

someone had ripped

tea

full suits of

their necks to fight off the rain, tliev

way no matter how

by the galley stove and drink strong

The storm blew

might be dragging. Despite

set)

around

often tliev

ducked below

and have a quick smoke.

out a couple of hours before dawn. Like the crescendo at a

came with a series of thunder-and-lightning salutes and several

that were strong

enough

a curtain aside, the stars

your eyelids back. Then, as

to peel

appeared in the blackest of black

skies.

if

The

skipper and the mate, exhausted, stumbled below. They pulled off their sodden clothes,

hung them

to dry in the galley,

and

fell

into their

Thursday morning, the entire schooner awoke of the northwest

way

hatches,

bunks

at once.

for a few hours rest.

The alarm was the happv sound

wind breezing through the rigging. The cook threw back the companion-

and a

river of cold, dry air flowed

through the hull and drove out the A

Toil 7V

BY THE EDGY OF THE SEA

1

03

Early risers greet the

sun after a stormy night at anchor.

dampness

had

The sun was

in a matter of minutes.

that delicious braciness to

September, Vermont

in

woodsman’s

struck like a

it,

like

out

—not a cloud

dry cider, that

mid-October, western Virginia ax, even

Cold autumn

air or not, several

galley with a pail of hot water

wash

who

in early

to

their hair

Canada

November.

A new

shirts

swimmers were out before

and offered her

under the saltwater hose by the

suspenders and announced that the sail

breakfast, doing laps

and crustacean too,

if

dealer.

on.

It

w as

that

kind of a morning.

first

swimmers

were out before breakdoing laps around the schooner.'’

A PASSAGE IX TIME

shirt,

snapped

order of business was to clear out of Southeast to the friendly

neighborhood

“Lobster and steamed clams on the beach tonight,

Bartlett’s

“Cold autumn air or

04

around

A woman emerged from the who wished forward cabinhouse. Most of the men

them

down the Deer Island Thorofare, and pay a visit

nice to the cook!

1

had

services as a rinser for those

mirror that had been tacked to the foremast.

“Sweet corn,

fast.

Fall

beginning.

Harbor,

not. several

in late

and woolen sweaters and

At breakfast the skipper, spruced up somewhat by a clean red-checked

fish

air

hadn’t shaved yet during the week got out soap and razors and scraped and hacked

in front of a

his

— and the

socks were pulled with relish from the bottoms of seabags.

the schooner as the rest of the passengers cheered

to

common

sky

though the equinox was technically three weeks away.

Foulweather gear was happily abandoned, and flannel

warm

is

in the

Market has any

in.

fie

said.

Maine crazy pudding for dessert if you’re

Our schooner came upon the town suddenly. We were on the Deer Island Thorofare, just past Buckinaster Neck and Webb Cove. The Thorofare, a long channel separating the major island of Deer

highway

Isle

from the

Merchant Row. had the

lesser islands of

feel of a

—a liquid one, not an asphalt one.

One minute we were surrounded by

the wild, lonely emptiness of the coast, the surf left

by the storm foaming around the ledges and the sea under the unobscured sun the color of a bluebottle

fly.

The next minute,

we were brought up

after passing a point,

short by

the appearance, as in a knee-buckling vision, of the archetypal Maine-coast town perched

on the edge of the

sea.

The

houses, almost

all

of

them shingled

together without logical pattern on the slope of a steep, ledgy as old-fashioned looking as a

It

was

a

“What



to

borrow a phrase from a colleague

is

this

— Opera blouse.

town.



So authentic, so unbecould

make

to find a

more

just looking at

it

town?” one of the passengers asked. the skipper said,

“You

By the looks to the south

of things, Fishington

w ith

have

II

authentic tow n on the coast of Maine, and

if

and hard

to look long

you do,

it’ll

w ould have been

probably be

a better

in

Canada.

name. The harbor, open

Merchant Row and

a clear, unobstructed view of the islands of r

on the horizon, was packed with fishing boats and other commercial

were no yachts. The shore w as ringed with leries, fish

buyers, boatyards,

of schooners for to

largest building,

rust.

“Stonington,

Flaut

The

crowded

down-home, downtown, down-

east, finestkind, first-rate, working-class, island fishing

your eyes

hill.

Model A Ford, carried a painted sign

punctuated in the nineteenth-century manner.

lievably salty that

or white, were

an anchor w

piers, docks,

and a packing plant. A

craft.

Isle

au

There

wharves, bait shacks, chand-

full -bore

fishing

town w ith

a couple

good measure. The dark-green-hulled schooner Step hen Taber was lying

ith

her reefed main

still set;

she w as cocked into the wind like a weathervane

atop a horse barn on a saltwater farm. The schooner American Eagle with a sheer that ,

wouldn’t quit, was anchored nearby.

One

of the last fishing schooners to be built on the east coast, the

launched back

in

1930

in Gloucester, Massachusetts, as the Andrew

soon converted to an eastern-rigged dragger

—w hich

is

American Eagle was

and Rosalie. She w as

to say, her rig

was cut down, a big

engine was installed, and a pilothouse was erected on her afterdeck. draggers have their pilothouses up forw ard. Both types nets across the ocean floor.

the western rig being

much

fish

(Western-rigged

by dragging open-mouthed

In recent years, the eastern dragger has fallen out of favor,

preferred for the better visibility

for the clear afterdeck for handling the fishing gear.)

it

offers the

helmsman and

Retired from fishing in 1983, the

American Eagle was bought by Captain John Foss, formerly of the Lewis R. French to her

schooner configuration, and

w indjammer

fleet

fitted

with an auxiliary engine. Her

first

,

rebuilt

season in the

was 1986.

We sailed into the harbor w ith all sails set and cast our anchor between the two schooners that

had preceded us. “Schooner sandwich,”

the skipper veiled over to Captain Barnes

on the Taber. “You and Foss are the bread. We,’ he said wdth a mock bow, “are the meat.

A

TOWN BY THE EDGE OF THE SEA

1

05

A crowd

of schooners

waiting for a chance-along. In the

foreground

is

the

Mary Day. decked out with a new set of colors.

said Captain Barnes, returning the bow, “turkey meat.

“Yeah,

Luckily for us, our skipper didn’t hear the remark, or Despite the magnificent weather, he had been in a foul

(“Look

lack of sleep the night before.

if

he did, he wasn’t letting on.

mood

all

morning because

of his

‘contemporary houses,’' he had said,

at those

pointing out a pair of A-frames cantilevered over an otherwise- unspoiled ledge.

know what In half to stand

they should do with them? Burn them. Or send

little

else

watch, the ship

s

company was

waterfront motel to rent a

took

to Sugarloaf. ”)

an hour, with the exception of the mate and galley hand, who remained behind ashore.

the fishermen’s co-op to arrange for lobsters a

them back

“You

advantage of the

full

room

first

The skipper and

and clams; a gang

collectively

the cook went over to

of passengers

went

off to

and take hot showers; and everyone

chance to range unfettered around a genuine

full-

service town.

Stonington was as good as any coastal town to be

be slightly overstating the situation.

set loose in,

though

“full-service’

We found a drugstore and a market

(Bartlett’s)

may and

a classic dry-goods store (Epstein’s), a couple of tiny motels, several tourist shops, a

summer-only restaurant, and two year-round eating establishments that drew customers from miles around everything else repair shops

—Connie’s and the Fisherman’s Friend, up on the

—the supply

— related

Stonington

a

is

stores, the cannery, the buyers, the boatyards, the engine

to the fishing industry.

town with a

apocryphal, part not.

rep,

if

Townspeople of



mean a place of legend, part independent mind clannish, standoffish, un-

you know what

I



Rum-running during Prohibition and

friendly to outsiders.

the occasional drug-running

now. Lobstermen arguing among themselves over hereditary rights for setting their traps

shotguns.

comes

and

Fishermen

to shove,

a rough, tough

in

settling their differences with fists

to certain territories

and crowbars and knives and

Rockland and Vinalhaven, no slouches themselves when push

speak of their Stonington brethren with a certain wary respect: “They’re

bunch over

Which means,

there, that’s for sure.

of course, that of all the cruise schooners’ ports of call, Stonington

the closest to providing the feel of the coasting harbors of the Golden Era

visitors

“from away

small as

it is,

— “outlanders” as the

locals

It’s

fact that the

sometimes

call

them

— the town,

as

has a certain intensity, an excitement of being the center of the surrounding

commerce, of the place where everything that matters

There’s the feeling of being on a frontier, an edge, a world.

—a

comes

who are proud of their heritage, love and hate at the same time. To outsiders,

townspeople,

territory, of

Just about

hill.

far, far

the fishermen

s

co-op shuts

silent as a

going to happen.

distance from the larger, “real,

one of those towns where you can hear your own footsteps

day and where everything goes

is

middle

ol the

north-country forest in the late afternoon,

when

in the

down and the lobster buyers go home and the post office closes

for the day. It is

a

new town

built just before

as

and

island communities,

108

A PASSAGE IX TIME

New England towns

go, the majority of the buildings

after the turn of the century,

was

at the height of its

when Stonington,

having been

like other coastal

powers. Originally called Green

s

Landing,

it

was a

tinv settlement of saltwater farmers

the tip of Deer

Isle.

But

and fishermen on the rim of a minor cove

at

in the late nineteenth century, a substantial granite -quarrying

industry employing hundreds of people took hold in the area, especially on several of the

and Green's Landing became a seaport and the seaport came

smaller, nearby islands,

be

named

came to a

for the stone shipped to the

rely less

to

westward. But modern construction techniques

on cut stone and more on precast concrete, so most of the quarries closed

few decades ago, most of the stonecutters

left, all

of the coasting schooners disappeared,

and most of the townspeople who remained joined the fishermen or the industries that supported them.

where once

Island; a

(The only quarry

still

in business

workforce numbered

its

in the

is

across the Thorofare on Crotch

hundreds,

now

it

employs about half

dozen full-time workers.) Evidence of the old quarries

on. by,

and

is

everywhere around Stonington, which was constructed

The houses

for stone.

are built on stone ledges: the foundations are of cut

There are stone walls, wharves, curbs, moorings, and, of course, headstones

stone.

cemeteries

— though surprisingly, the markers, even

far less elegant

for

some

of the great quarrymen, are

than one would expect. Perhaps the townspeople were too busy cutting

the time to

monuments and bridges and buildings make monuments to themselves.

Stonington

is

stone for the

a deceptive

town to the visitor.

It

of

New York

seems backward

City

in the

World of the

coast.

To

outsiders

it

looks as

if it

and couldn

t

find

most pleasant sense

of the word, a throwback to the turn of the century, a Mystic Seaport or a Disney

in the

— dare

I

say

were put there primarily

to

it?

make

home and hearth for the inhabitants. Similar towns on the coast of Maine Boothbay Harbor, Camden, Bar Harbor understand that notion and cater to it. After all, there's money to be made bv stocking bait shacks with native art manufactured in Hong Kong and chandleries with Tthe tourists feel good

and only secondarily

to provide a





and

shirts

soft-serve ice cream.

differently, and, like a diminishing

But in Stonington the local people see their town

number

of fishing communities along the coast, they

are quick to protect their interests.

Not

to say that they

have been entirely successful. There are several small

only during the summer, for the tourists, and

many choice

stores,

open

pieces of waterfront property

have changed hands recently. Most of the fishermen are convinced that ten years from

now

the commercial wharves and piers will be in the hands of the outsiders

place

left for

them

will

be the new municipal

attitude of the townspeople

community

to

is

fish pier.

that authenticity

is

and the only

But for the most part, the prevailing the most important aspect of the

be preserved. As far as they are concerned, working lobsterboats are

unpretentious and utilitarian and therefore authentic, and the people

who own and work

on them share the same characteristics. Yachts and other pleasure craft are

and not what they appear

to be

and therefore unauthentic, and

their

all

gussied up

owners and guests

are ditto.

A

TOWN BY THE EDGE OF THE SEA

1

09

Stonington.

at

t

ho

southern end of Deer Isle, is

a full-bore

fishing town.

harbor

is

The

circled with

wharves, bait shacks, chandleries, fish buyers, boatyards,

and

a

packing plant.

make this attitude obvious. “It’s a game, a show, a resident said. “On nights in the summer when the schooners are in town, part of the sport for some of the people is to go down to the harbor Oftentimes, the people of Stonington will go out of heir t

and entertain themselves by poking fun Like genuine islanders

all

you

old-fashioned fishermen,

and run out well

of

town on a

little

about the “cute

you insinuate

in

If

but your

have been.

life

little

any way

town

that island

and the “quaint, life

somehow

is

it.

»

The townspeople

of Stonington have never been

happy with

the

common

perception

by outsiders that they are quaint, not particularly smart rustics living in a charming

nineteenth-century village not side

you

You might not be tarred and feathered could be made so miserable that you might as

you will hear about

rail,

attempt to cover up their feelings.

— an

the middle of the street (a temptation few tourists in

talk out loud

if

culturally substandard, then

at the outlandish outlanders.

— and make

down

ignore the sidewalk and walk resist), if

to

along the coast of Maine, they are open and unpolished

almost universal characteristic

Stonington can

way

and overgrown Christmas

much bigger than half a citv block, with bait trees

on the

that perception. In their minds, they are

other. In fact,

normal people,

if

barrels

little

on one

the truth be known, they hate

liv

ing normal working people

s

bumper sticker on a truck at Conarys Wharf is any indication: \\ ork Is for People \\ ho Don Know low to Fish.) Like anyone else any where else, they get up in the morning, go to work, put in an honest day's labor, come home, eat supper, lives. (\X ell.

not totally,

if

a

t

I

entertain themselves for the evening, go to bed. get again.

110

I

I

up the next morning and do

it

all

over

hey do not see themselves as unique. Threatened, perhaps, but not unique.

PASSAGE

l\

TIME

The

threat

comes from two

The first is the Deer Isle Bridge, which connects mainland. The second is our schooner and others

directions.

the northern end of the island with the like

it,

which dump scores of passengers

accident, both threats originally

summer

the

of

came

And by

right in the middle of town.

to pass coincidentally. u

1938 and the use of coasting schooners

(

The bridge was opened

skinboats

in the

vernacular) to carry vacationing passengers developed at just about the

came by land and they came by

moved

But don

t

get

for

me wrong. The townspeople don

What they do regret

living in a sphere other like to visit



t

it,

or they would have

life

are

more

readily available.

hate the bridge; in fact, back in

at least the vast

than tourism

1

938 they



majority of islanders

that people

is

into the pool

of

mainland

who make their

on the mainland, especially tourists

quaint fishing villages, have every right to use the bridge, too, and exer-

cise that right in increasing

It is

like

themselves as

perhaps a microsecond to regret the passing of the familiar ferry service across

accessibility.

It

same time. They

Isle still see

They are out of the mainstream and

Eggemoggin Reach and then did a half-gainer smack

who

Stonington

a long time ago to Ellsworth or Bangor or Rockland or somewhere else where

goods and services and the conveniences of modern-day

paused

in

sea.

Bridge or no bridge, the people of Stonington and Deer islanders, not mainlanders.

historical

isn’t the tourists

numbers.

themselves

who

strike fear into the hearts of Stonington residents.

a fear of the changes the tourists are likely to

well as a corollary apprehension that too

many

make on

tourists

the character of the town, as

might take a

liking to the place,

buy some property, and stick around. For example, when a small, unassuming restaurant

down by

was sold

the fish factory

establishment so

it

now

a few years ago to an outsider,

caters to tourists

know who

they are and what their town it

But change

is

working

After class,

all,

the people of Stonington

pure and simple. Historicallv,

has always depended on blue-collar employment

ting, boatbuilding, fishing, carpentry,

white-collar jobs, tourism,

is:

the

and summer people, the year-rounders voted

against the change by withholding their patronage.

prosperity or the lack of

who upgraded

mechanics



and has had

little

— stonecut-

dependence on

and entertainment.

creeping up on Stonington, just as

it is

penetrating into the other farthest

A lobsterboat underway off Stonington.

A roll X BY TUT EDGE OE THE SE

I

111

reaches

Maine. There are, for example, as

ol

many

real estate brokers as fish

buyers in

town, w hereas not that long ago, the ratio was heavily weighted in favor of the buyers. Yet

something about the Stonington attitude that indicates the community

(here's

once again,

just as

to that of the

it

survive

will

survived the transition from a stonecutter's and schoonerman

fisherman when the big quarries w ent out of business. There

is

s

town

indeed an

unpleasant element in the town, a rawboned fierceness that surfaces from time to time

when

pressures

—primarily

and

political

social

—build

up and demand

without that, Stonington w ould be just another coastal tow

summer and boarded up and empty

The view!

climbed

I

to the

brow

of the

dous scene on the coast of Maine,

I

w

in the

hill

inter

n:

— a pretty

behind the town.

have never seen

it

unbearably crowded little

If

village

w

ith a

in the

view.

more stupen-

there were a

The wharves,

.

release, but

the gulls circling the

fishing fleet, the green-blue sea, the granite shore, the spruce-capped islands, the great

bulk of

au Haut.

Isle

The Stephen Taber had the harbor wing-and-wing

her

time.... Heave!

wooden -shelled

and hauled up her anchor and w as heading out

down wand. The

preparing to get underway.

sails,

more

set all sail

I

crew' of the Tmer/ccm Eagle

was sweating up

could hear the shouts of the mate

u (

blocks, the gaff jaw s

and mast hoops

sliding

up the masts.

r

on the decks and the coffee percolating dow n

oil

from our schooner and

The American on a side

street

towns w

been

it

and pennants snapped tree next to a

go,

one

in the galley.

I

imagined

sails

I

and the

An hour or tw o aw ay

looking

could have been

down on

in the breeze.

From where

in

one of the

stood,

remaining New' England

few'

a maritime scene right out of a Winslow

fifty or seventy-five

and smacks and

I

white-clapboard Maine-style two-story house

growing by the walkway,

sailing sloopboats

s

was already homesick.

under a maple

ith heart,

painting,

I

Eagle's flags

mums

with yellow

Let

the auxiliary engine ticking over, the sheaves turning in the

),

could smell the tar in the igging and the cotton canvas of the sun-bleached linseed

of

years ago.

If

the streets of the towai

the

7

Homer

power lobsterboats had

had been

dirt,

it

could have

been a hundred years ago or more. I

walked over

to the

Fisherman "s Friend

for a

cup of coffee and a fried-haddock

sandwich, and then followed a winding road through the back of town

N

Marine, the largest single busihess in Stonington, employing about half a hundred

people.

The American

Eagle, one of

the last fishing schooners built

on the east coast. She

was soon converted

power dragger. but

to a

On

a small island tucked

town by a causew ay w ith

a lobster

behind Green Head, the boatyard

pound on each

fisherman’s yard, building and repairing in

men w ant. all

to Billings Diesel

In addition,

parts of the New;

it

serves

England

steel,

side. Billings

wood,

is

fiberglass,

you w on

t

connected

to the

primarily a commercial

whatever the

many of Maine’s cruise schooners and

coast. Yachts, too, but

is

fisher-

larger vessels

find very

many

from

people

in

in the

mid-1980s, following her retirement, she

was

rerigged as a sailing vessel.

Stonington bragging about

that.

There was a time, not that long ago. w hen scores of yards along the coast of Maine could handle large

112

vessels.

A PASSAGE

i\

Any harbor worthy

TIME

of a

name had

at least

one marine railway, and

I

Toil

\

BY TUB EDGE OF

TIIE

SE

I

113

A

lobster

pound

in the

foreground. Billings Diesel

&

Marine

in the

back-

ground. Billings, just on the other side of

Green

Mead from Stonington.

is

one of the few boatyards with adequate facilities for

hauling large schooners.

usually several, for hauling coasting schooners decline of the fleet

came

and

sailing fishermen, but along with the

a decline of the institutions that served the fleet: the building

and rigging

repair yards, the sawmills, the sail

lofts,

the chandleries, the shipsmiths, the

sawmills. Today, the yards that have the facilities for hauling

such as ours are few and far between: Billings

Snow's and the North End Shipyard

in Stonington,

There are a few others, but they are too expensive or don a

wooden vessel requires, or both.

fishing vessels;

it's

It’s

Wayfarer Marine in Camden.

storage

laying up the vessel in a yard. the water doesn

t

Boothbay Harbor.

work on wood.

quite another to

craft, the big

better for several reasons, not the least of

is

in

understand the particular care

dry storage during the off-season months. Bather, they are

Wet iti

t

servicing a schooner

one thing to work on fiberglass, aluminum, and steel

Unlike vachts and lobsterboats and other small for

and

Rockland, and Sample's

in

The most important

schooners are not hauled

left in

which

is

the water year round.

that

reason, however,

it

is

is

cheaper than

that a schooner

dry out, a condition that hastens the end of a large wooden

hull: the

planking shrinks, the wood checks, the seams open up, and the joints become loose.

when

true that a dried-out hull will swelf^gain cycles of wet

and

dry, the hull will lose

and maintain it there

and

its

It is

put back into the water, but after several

resilience. Better to leave the vessel in the

— with the exception of a brief haulout. usually

in the spring, to

water

work

on the bottom.

At the end of the season

— usually

in

mid-

October

to late

topmasts sent down, and running rigging removed. As

warehouse ashore, and what weather.

To keep

rain,

isn't

is

snow, and

carefully secured

ice off

1

-+

1

PASSAGE

l\

TIME

sails

as possible

are unbent, is

stored in a

and protected against the winter

the vessels, temporary wood-framed shelters

covered with sheet plastic are erected over the

1

much

— the

hulls.

Stripped down, covered over.

fendered and buffered for protection against

moored with heavy

ice

lines in protected corners of

Rockland. Most are fitted with automatic bilge

On

bilge water rises too high.

such harbors as Camden, Rockport. and

pumps or alarms to warn

the

owner

occasion, a shipkeeper might live aboard, but

up housekeeping

iron constitution to set

and other hazards, the schooners are

in a

damp, drafty schooner

in a

it

if

the

takes an

lonely winter

harbor with the wind howling out of the north and the temperature below zero.

A

laid-up schooner

may

look alone

and abandoned, but such

owners work on the vessels during the winter months, the roof, the translucent material yielding sufficient light

warmth during

the day.

A woodstove,

its

At winter's end April

—the cover

life

and

a certain

amount

bending on the

of solar

exhaust pipe exiting through the plastic cover, is

hoisted to the masthead to

in

Maine can come anytime between mid-March and

stripped off and spring fitting-out can begin.

late

Scraping, sanding,

painting, varnishing, oiling, going over the above-water planking, setting anti

shop

goes on.

—which

is

Most

not the case.

plastic cover serving as a

provides additional heat. At Christmastime, an evergreen

prove that, indeed,

is

up the

rigging,

the crew works for weeks to get the vessel shipshape for the

sails,

coming season. Sooner or later, the schooner is towed over to a marine railway to be hauled so the

bottom can be maintained

(the Coast

Guard

requires hull inspection at least once

every eighteen months): planking and fastenings inspected, caulking renewed as necessary.

and antifouling paint

the founding of

Rockland

hauled out there because

was the yard of choice, but since

applied. For years, Billings s

is

it

End Shipyard in 1973, many much closer to their homeports.

North so

But every year one or two schooners opt for old-style careening

onto a

soft,

of the schooners are

—running the vessel The

protected shore at high water and waiting for the tide to go out.

vessel

is

allowed to lay over, resting on the turn of the bilge, and the exposed side of the bottom

is

scraped and painted.

On the next high

tide, the vessel

follows, six hours later, the other side of the

wooden

bottom

is



is

turned, and

at

the low tide that

scraped and painted. Only a sound

vessel can be careened, as the strain on the hull

edge of the keel and the turn of the bilge

is

—unsupported except on the

considerable.

In the old days,

some

smaller schooners were laid alongside wharves and tied securely to bollards. tide

went

V-shaped

out, they

would be standing upright, which was

the 1

bottom would be reasonably accessible

in section, as the

was not much good

for

fine for vessels that

U-shaped

vessels, since the

bottom of the

side

of the

When

the

were rather

to the crew, but

it

U would be resting in

mud. have watched the Mary Day ah d the Stephen Taber careened at the head of the harbor

Camden, and "picturesque is hardly the word to describe the operation. The schooner heeled way over so her masts jut over the green grass of the town park, the crew in kneein

high rubber boots tools, painting

mucking around in

the low-tide

with rollers on long wooden poles

— "The

apprehension of the skipper

tide, the tide!

mud, the frantic scraping with big iron and brushes as big as floor mops, the Are we going

to

make this

photographers and videotapers recording a scene as old as seafaring

tide?

— the

itself.

A TOUXBl THE EDGE OF TUB SEA

1

15

An hour packed w

after noon, the skipper

ith lobsters

and

the cook were at the

The

sweet corn, and three huge watermelons. this

time of year, three dollars a pound

have been

town landing, the yawlboat

(almost 100 pounds, enough for twm critters per person), clams,



price of the lobsters

at least twenty-five cents

had been high

more than

for

would

it

Burnt Coat Harbor. The skipper said he wished he had put

at the dealer's in

in there.

“You're looking at almost four hundred dollars in groceries for one meal,’ he said. “No

w onder me and the wife

The news from

eat a lot of

the waterfront

driven ashore during the storm

BNM

had

to

baked beans

in the winter.

do with a couple of fishing boats that had been

—one had been pulled

off successfullv,

with moderate,

damage; the other had been pulverized between two giant boulders

fixable

earlier in the

week between a

schooners.

seemed that a

It

local

—and a

set-to

lobsterman and the skipper of one of the cruise

large vessel

—perhaps

a schooner, perhaps not

— had

sailed

down by Isle au Haut and destroyed a considerable The lobsterman, who was out several hundred dollars, blamed

through a patch of lobster-trap buoys

amount the

of valuable gear.

“goddam

and took out

skinboats

his

Thorofare between Kimball Island and

rammed

anger on the next one to anchor in the narrow'

Isle

au Haut. He hauled

off

and intentionally

the side of the schooner with his lobsterboat; the schooner’s skipper,

nothing of the

lost gear,

almost got into a

fistfight.

back and forth before the lobsterman backed

A

of angry words

lot

and

who knew

threats passed

off.

“Figures,’ the skipper said, getting hot under the collar as he related the story.

something goes w'rong, blame the biggest convenient thing to hand. None of us

potwarps wrapped around our rudders and centerboards. What the do? See a bunch of pot buoys and head right for them? Plus fellow' that the so-called

to

hell

“When

like to

does he think

we

I’d like to point out to that

goddam skinboats buy a lot of lobsters around here and that ought

count for something.

As he spoke, the schooner Mistress emerged from behind Green Head and put Stonington for lobsters and clams. One the smallest vessel in the schooner

amateur builder on Deer

Isle,

Camden, and

finished

molasses, odd-looking in

it

fleet.

Her construction w as begun

but in the tradition of so

off as a miniature cruise

many

in to

of the “green boats,” she was, at 40 feet on deck,

many

in

1960 by an

part-time backyard

boatbuilders, he never finished. Captain Jim Nisbet bought the hull in 1966, took to

have

respects, but a cute

model-like qualities. She carried a crew' of tw

o,

schooner

little



tiny, slower

it

over

than cold

craft nevertheless for her ship-

w ith three staterooms

for tw o passengers

each, the perfect vessel for six friends sailing together.

We

watched the Mistress come

embarked

to

the last of our passengers,

anchor smartly off the fishermen’s co-op wharf,

motored out

to

our schooner, stow'ed the supper

and got underway. It w as a perfect afternoon for sailing. A hard, dry breeze from the northwest. Smooth water in the lee of the islands. Sunlight reflected like dancing diamonds on the surface of the sea. The sharp smell of seaw eed in

supplies

down

the

Perfect.

1

16

air.

in the galley,

A PASSAGE IX TIME

"The perfect vessel sailing together.”

for six friends

The

Mistress.

“Oh How She Scoons !"

VIII

9

Among other to look at the

me was never water and especially

things [the schooner captain] told

dancing sunlight on the

the dancing moonlight.

It will

turn

,

you

inside out in a minute.

— Frederick Sturgis Laurence

W

e sailed west

on the Thorofare, between Crotch Island and Green Head out into East

Penobscot Bay toward Vinalhaven, which was shimmering bright sun.

like a

jeweled

gown

in the

Up the bay we could see Butter and Eagle islands; down the bay the lighthouse

on Saddleback Ledge; and way

off in the distance to the south, the

low smudge of Seal

Island on the horizon.

bow your heads, the skipper said when we entered the square by Mark Island, West Mark Island Ledge, Scraggy Island, and The

"Take off your hats and patch of sea cornered

Brown Cow. “Somewhere below of the

first

us he the mortal remains of the Lydia

schooners in the Maine windjammer

Swift's second vessel, and, like

M. Webster, one

The Webster was,

fleet."

in fact.

Captain

most of the early passenger-carrying schooners, she was

discarded after her better days were over. In 19^5, her crew punched holes in the hull

below the waterline and allowed her

to

to sink to the

bottom of the bay.

The Lydia M. Webster died in an era when there were so many sailing cargo vessels be had for next to nothing that it did not pay to rebuild tired-out cruise schooners. It

didn

even pay to maintain them properly. The easiest and most economical approach

t

was to wear them out, then strip off all the useful gear



sails,

spars, ironwork, anchors, stoves, steering wheels, davits

plenty

more where those came from. They were seen

blocks, deadeyes, compasses,

— and get

rid of them.

as wretched,

There were

broken-down, unim-

“A schooner

a vessel with two or

more masts, mast as

portant, valueless, used-up, useless bags of bones.

taller

The Webster was lucky. Her burial at sea was at least reasonably dignified, though is

not

known whether or not her owner held a memorial

Most cruise schooners met their end as

if

over after the annual Lion's Club yard

suppose every

man

(or boy)

who

service after the plug

was pulled.

they w ere no more important than old junk

sale.

The

it

lovely Alice S. Wentworth.

left

1863 —

— was

wrote John L.

wharf

Boston as an example of Ye Olde Shippe from Ye Olde Tymes of Yore until she

in

OH.

tied to a restaurant

HOW SHE SCOONS

'!”

1

fore,

sails of the fore-andaft

type

“I

“Mine was the then handsome Alice

Wentworth.

as or

than the

—triangular

or quadrilateral in

Leavitt.

S.

tall

the after

and with principal

shape

ever went to sea had a favorite vessel,

is

nothing more than

1

— in other

words, they are not squaresails.”

The Roseway.

sank and had

to

be broken up and removed. Ditto for the Lois M. Candage 1912, which ,

rotted alongside a restaurant in Damariscotta, Maine.

The Lillian. 1876, was beached and broken up at Sandy Point. The Annie F. Kimball., 1886, was abandoned on the shore of Camden's inner harbor and eventually went to pieces of her

own

hauled ashore

in

The end

accord.

Camden and

1909, came more quickly; she was

for the Enterprise ,

burned. The Mabel., 1881, Captain Swift's

mer, in terminal disrepair, sank of her

own accord

off Maine’s

first

windjam-

Seguin Island. The Clin-

ton 1886, rotted to nothing in a Stonington boatyard. So, too, the ,

Era S.

Cullison. 1888,

The Maggie 1871, was left by a wharf in Rockland, Maine, and ultimately burned. The Grace & Alice 1910, was laid up at Carney Island and stripped by vandals. By the standards of today, a time of increasing awareness

on the shore of Cape Ann, Massachusetts.

,

,

of the value of maritime preservation,

it

was a shameless waste

of historic vessels

—no

matter the perception of their condition. Perception, of course,

is

everything.

In the 1930s,

40s, 50s

— even

for

most of the

—old

wooden ships were perceived as nothing more than old wooden ships, valueless hulks that had been superseded by superior vessels and therefore seldom given a thought. The sooner they were gone, the sooner the seas and waterfronts would be free of a bunch of unreconstructable eyesores. Never mind that these vessels were living links with our past; never mind that they represented a maritime tradition that had once been so strong that trivialization by destruction bordered on the criminal. They were like the old buildings in Boston and Bangor, T Wharf and the Portland Railroad Station, burned and torn apart and allowed to collapse in on themselves and then replaced by something 1960s

“better.”

The schooner tradition may only amount to a low rise on the of

American

schooner

history, but

rig itself

is

it

sweep of the landscape

nevertheless goes back to the earliest days of our country.

several centuries old,

commerce can be traced back

and

its

New.

The

use to propel vessels in coastwise

at least to the seventeenth

century in the Old World and the first

schooners were pleasure

to a vessel with a certain type of rig,

although over the years,

early eighteenth century in the craft,

larger

(It is

thought that the

but experts are not in total agreement on that.)

The term schooner refers vessels so rigged

Anyone

have developed a hull form that has “schooner

written

all

over them.

Grand Banks fishing schooner, for example, on sight, even if the rig has been cut down and deck structures have been added. So, too, the coasting and pilot schooners. But, technically speaking, a schooner is nothing more familiar with the type can identify a

than a vessel with two or more masts, the after mast as with principal

sails of

the fore-and-aft type

other words, not squaresails.

(known generically as

tall

as or taller than the fore,

—triangular or quadrilateral

In the nineteenth century, there

in

shape

and



in

were many schooners

topsail schooners) that carried square topsails

and sometimes even

topgallant sails on the foremast in addition to the fore-and-aft type, but such squaresails

120

A PASSAGE IN TIME

The pinky schooner

Summertime.

(Most British schooners were rigged with squaresails on the

were only secondary.

foremast, as were die legendary Baltimore clippers.) foreign, carry square topsails

carry such a

Bool,

set

The earliest-known

illustration of a

Maine windjammer fleet

schooner

whose pen-and-ink drawing shows the yacht

Amsterdam. The

is

in the

successfully pinpointed the origin of the schooner rig, though plenty of

historians have tried.

fore-and-aft

on the foremast, though none

a few schooners, primarily

rig.

Nobody has

named

Today

sails

vessel

shown running before

is

is

no bowsprit; no

There are a few eighteenth-century

famous being

staysail or

of the burgomasters of

underway; both look

much

jib.

like

The date

illustrations extant of

Among

in

showing Boston Harbor

One

is

earlier

or seventeenth centuries

in the sixteenth

Massachusetts,

European

History of the

American

in

at the

at

anchor and the other

is

schooners seen today along the Maine coast.

the normal course of colonization. Yet there

in Gloucester,

1600.

schooners

Most historians agree that the schooner rig originated in Europe Netherlands

is

die vessels in the anchorage are several

schooners, including two without square topsails.

America

artist

the wind, wing-and-wing; she carries

a Paul Revere engraving

beginning of the American Revolution.

in the

by a Dutch

with short gaffs at the head; the foremast, shorter than the mainmast,

way forward. There

waters, the most

is

7

in

l" 13.

is

—and was brought over

a belief that the rig

by Captain Andrew Robinson

origin notwithstanding.

J.

to

was invented

—evidence of an

This theory was published

Town of Gloucester Cape Ann. by John ,

—probably somewhere

in

I860

in the

Babson:

-on.

non

sin: sc

'

oaxsi

121

A current tradition of the town relates of both a positive

the origin of the “schooner”;

and negative kind, confirms the

and abundant testimony,

story so strongly, that

it

is

unnecessary to

take further notice of the verbal account. Dr. Moses Prince, brother of the annalist, writing in this

town, Sept. 25, 1721, says, “Went to see Captain Robinson’s lady, Nc. This gentleman

was the

first

the use that

contriver of schooners, and built the is

now made

of them, being so

first

of the sort about eight years since; and

much known, has convinced the world of their how mankind is obliged to this gentleman for

convenience beyond other vessels, and shows this

knowledge.

Nearly seventy years afterwards, another visitor gives some further

particulars of this interesting fact. Cotton Tufts, Esq., connected with us in Gloucester,

September

8,

1790, writes:

“I

by marriage, being

was informed (and committed the same

to

name from this circumAndrew Robinson of that place, having constructed a vessel which he masted and rigged in the same manner as schooners are at this day, on her going off the stocks and passing into the water, a bystander cried out, ‘Oh, how she scoons!” Robinson instantly replied, ‘A scooner let her be! From which time, vessels thus masted and rigged have gone by the name of ‘schooners’; before which, vessels of this description were not known in Europe nor America. This account was confirmed to me by a great number of persons in Gloucester. The strongest negative evidence corroborates these statements. No marine

writing) that the kind of vessels called ‘schooners’ derived their stance; viz., Mr.

dictionary, no commercial record, no merchant’s inventory, of a date prior to 1713,

containing the word “schooner” has yet been discovered; and as an historical fact, that the first vessel of this class

by the respectable authorities above

Howard

had her

it

may,

therefore, be received

origin in Gloucester, as stated

cited.

Chapelle, the leading historian of naval architecture

in

theory of the Gloucester invention of the schooner “a childish fable

America, called the

and

Professor E.P. Morris, one of the eminent scholars on the fore-and-aft story in

was a pack of hokum made up

1860 quotes Cotton Tufts



heard It is

upon at

after the fact to justify a folk legend.

1790 quoting some unnamed person

once that there never has been any such word

at that.

thought the

(John Babson

1791 who says he

The Oxford Dictionary it

does.

1790

is

“And

English language.

It is

it

may

given,

story.

says that the “scoons” story “looks like an invention.”

Most

was not derived from “scoons,” but “scoons” was made up in humorous attempt, to account for the word “scooner,” and the whole

“Scooner

an attempt, perhaps a

in the

only as quoted from this one passage. The story hangs

on “scoons. and “scoons” hangs on the

story of

in

the verb “scoons” as the source of “scooner” that the story depends.

ol course, in all the dictionaries, but

certainly

rig,

go

In 1927, Morris wrote:

).

be said

in

let it



nothing more than a picturesque adornment of the Gloucester tradition.

Yet the word had to have come from somewhere. Though English-language dictionaries

cannot pinpoint the origin of the word, perhaps

ignored slang, and scoons could have been slang. After ship,

run

is

thought to have come from a slang word for

all,

fast

is

the

because early dictionaries

word clipper,

motion: to

as in “clipper

clip, to clip along, to

at a fast clip.

Arthur Clark, on the other hand, theorized

122

it

A PASSAGE IX TIME

in his

History of Yachting (1904) that

schooner came from the Dutch schoon. cited as evidence, Clark

though

it

Dutch-Latin dictionary of 1599, which he

In a

found that schoon was defined as “beautiful or

fair or lovely,

did not have a nautical connotation.

But the Gloucester story really

two parts

lias

to

it.

One has

to

do with the origin of

t

lie

word, the other with the invention of the type. Granted, the evidence points toward the

development of the schooner

long before 1721, but the British maritime historian

rig

David MacGregor speculates that the supposed coining of the w ord then may have had nothing to do with the

rig.

“The ‘scooning

1982, "may have applied to a

Such

rig.

a theory

of the Gloucester two-master,

new hull-form

rather than any alteration of an established

worth future exploration, especially since

is

Gloucester fishing schooner

came

he wrote in

to be seen as different in character

in later

years the

from other working

schooners.

There are several schooner subtypes

—coasters, fishermen, pilotboats, and yachts

and, to further confuse the matter, there are even sub-subtypes: bay coasters, packets, brickers, traders, stone droghers, Gloucester fishermen, oyster dredgers,

Today’s windjammers

reflect this diversity.

an outgrowth of cargo-carrying under

1930s

is

not

much more than a

sail,

Though

the Maine cruise-schooner trade

and the

tradition

it

indjammer

original coasters of today’s w

w av

of

The Mary Day, the

Mistress,

life,

the

coasters.

all

fleet,

vessels that at

one time actually

carried cargo, include the Stephen Taber, the Lewis R. French, the Grace Bailey,

Mercantile.

is

has followed since the

continuation of the time-honored coasting

schooners that are engaged in the business are not

The

and more.

and

the

and the Heritage, though based on the coaster

model, never actually carried cargo. The ex-fishermen are the American Eagle, the Isaac //.

Erans. and

the,/.

& E.

Biggin.

The Nathaniel Bowditch But

it is

not

all

The Timberwind and

seems.

it

built as a yacht

The French spent part of her career as a fisherman.

on fishing- schooner

The Bowditch was built

as a yacht

for passenger-carrying, but she

1

was modeled

served as both fishermen and coasters. And, built for fin fishing out of Gloucester,

lines

and years

later

was converted

somewhat on fishing-schooner

eventually was converted to a working fisherman.

w as

the Roseway are former pilotboats.

a yacht.

as simple as

The Roseway was to a pilotboat.

is

The Summertime was

after the old-time

among

lines

and

built specifically

pinky schooners, which

the fishermen, the American Eagle

whereas the Erans and Biggin were

built for

oyster dredging on Delaware Bay.

We

flew across the

bay toward

tin*

lower corner of Vinalhaven, the surface of the sea dark

Smoke from a fire on the and blowing horizontally downwind like a ragged

blue with patches of purple from the gusty northwest w ind. island

was

pennant.

rising a

hundred

The schooner’s

feet

or so

rigging,

under tremendous strain on the windward

thrummed and hummed w ith the force of the afternoon Iree

side,

The cook and the galley hand, thenbecause supper would be cooked on the beach, came on deck w ith mugs breeze.

on. non she scooxsr

123

of coffee and stretched out in the lee of the similarly situated, tucked here heel of the massive bowsprit

We

and there

main cabirthouse. Most

of the passengers were

—behind the deckhouses, the water casks, the

—protected from the cold wind and warmed by the sun.

jibed off Brimstone Island,

rounded Saddleback Ledge Lighthouse, the major

lighthouse marking the entrance to East Penobscot Bay, and sailed on a broad reach into the Isle an

Haut Thorofare, the narrow channel between

Kimball Island

all sails set, flags

was stepping along

and streamers

of speed, grace, and, above

“Will you look

at that!’

east

and

About halfway through we passed the Timberwind coming

to the west.

the other way. She

au Haut on the

Isle

all,

thoroughbred

like a

down the homestretch: wake astern, the picture

trotter

and frothing

aflutter, a roiling

smartness.

more than a

the skipper said with

trace of envy.

“Enough

to

bring tears to a glass eyeball.

The Timberwind was a beautiful

sight, indeed. Built in

of the Portland (Maine) Pilot Association, she

Portland Harbor for more than three decades in

1931 as the principal pilotboat

had patrolled the outer approaches

all

to

types of weather, putting pilots aboard

incoming vessels and picking them up from outgoing ones. Retired from service

in

1969,

she was converted to passenger-carrying in 19^1 and based in Rockport, the only

windjammer homeported there. At 70 had an even smaller capacity,

feet

on deck, a hair smaller than our schooner, she

had been

as she

built not for cargo-carrying but as a

seagoing home-away-from-home for the Portland

pilots.

The best-looking cargo-carrying coasting schooners had outward appearance that

—suggested honesty,



if

vessels

a

homey handsomeness, an

have personality (and most

sailors say that they

They were designed by men whose names may not have been household words but who nevertheless knew how to achieve good looks in a vessel within the constraints of great cargo capacity and small do)

crews: John

J.

solidity, perseverance,

and Fred W. Rideout

most graceful coasters ever

built.

attractive, yes; pretty, yes; but they

pilotboats

and

along like a thor-

oughbred

trotter

down

home-

the

roiling

and frothing

wake

astern, the

The

pilotboats

aesthetes.

Some

and

to

when

be upstaged

fishing schooners

all

of

whom designed some

seen from a distance, were

in the looks

Built for

department by the

both speed and sea-

combined the rakishness

first

fishing schooners.

of the clippers, the

2-+

Cup, the lovely schooner-

Grand Bankers, were designed by

men who

helped

and the Morgans, the Cabots and the Forbeses,

Edward

McManus's eye

a passaci l\ TIM I.

set the nautical tastes

also designed pilot atid

Burgess, his son Starling, Dennison Lawlor. B.B. Crowninit

is

true that

Thomas McManus, perhaps

American fishing-schooner designer of all time, was

true that

s

lines.

fishing schooners, especially the

Arthur Binney. John Alden. While

greatest

1

winner of the America

of the greatest yacht designers,

of the Vanderbilts

shield.

The Timbertvind.

tended

yacht America, was built on pilotboat

grace, and. above

smartness.”

and

designed for a specific purpose. The

picture of speed,

all.

Their vessels,



elegance of the finest yachts, and the refinement of traditional craft that have been

stretch: all sails set. flags aflutter, a

of Bath

their close cousins, the fishing schooners.

worthiness, the pilot “She was stepping

strength.

Wardwell of Stockton Springs, Camden, and Rockland; John M. Gamage

of Rockland; Miles M. Merry of the

and

for a beautiful line

and

a

a former fish dealer,

it

is

the also

sweeping curve was as well developed

on.

ho u

shi:

scoo xs:

125

as

any

artist

s.

It

could he said, in the larger view of things, that McManus’s sensitivity

lay closer to the art gallery than

it

did to the fish house, though he probably would never

have uttered such a thought out loud. Pilotboats

had

to be fast, because the business of piloting

harbors were served by several pilotboats, and the be the one

to put a pilot

aboard and thus

harbor. (Speed, however, wasn

sometimes were

t

everything. Pilotboats

in very tight conditions.

reach an incoming vessel would

worked in all sorts of weather and

Seaworthiness, weatherliness, and maneuverability

important as speed.)

just as

he saint requirements prevailed for

t

lit*

fishing schooners.

fishing grounds received the best price for her catch: faster in trips

during the season.

It

fishing >kilb of the crew.

126

was the requirement

I

PASSAGE

l\

TIME

The first and

vessel in

faster out

from the

meant more

therefore stood to reason that the difference between a good

season and a lousy season depended as

It

larger

collect tin* fee for bringing the vessel safely into

1

I

first to

was competitive. The

much on

the speed of the schooner as

it

did on the

(As with the pilotboats, seakindliness was important as well.) for speed that

drew public attention

to the fishing

and

pilot

Two different

schooner

types: the Adventure. a

fishing schooner

(left);

and the .Mary Day and the Heritage, variations

on the old coasting schooner theme.

schooners and away from coasting schooners

had

t

to

lie

coasting schooners, even though the skills required to design

lie

just as finely

honed. “The fact

about the coasters, “that one of these big Yankee schooners It

happens that her way

worthy of honor difficult

The

for that.

by which

somewhat from

differs

wrote John T. Rowland

a masterpiece in her way.

that of the fish killers, hut

conditions her design

a naval architect has ever

is, is

must

fulfill

is

it

no

are probably the

been confronted, and the way

down-east shipwrights managed to harmonize seeming contradictions

is

in

less

most

which our

rather wonderful

when you come to study a hit. But not much fame accrued to the designers of coasting schooners, since theirs was not the task to create fast vessels. Too bad for them, there was flash in speed, dash in speed, glory in speed. Everyone wanted to know about the man who drew the lines of the fastest it

fisherman on the Atlantic or the swiftest pilotboat out of Portland or Boston or 1

larbor.

\\

ithout speed, a pilotboat

the toasts of the coasts

— and

was nothing,

so, too,

Banker was nothing.

were their designers.

—came beauty:

automatically produce the other

a

And w ith

\\ it

ith

—as

New York

it.

thev were

if

one must

hulls that were slim in relation to their

on.

i

ion

she scoo.xsr

127

length, sharp hows, fine sterns,

huge presses of canvas, low houses, sweeping

Like racehorses, race cars, and yachts, everything that

them

made

sheers.

made

these vessels fast also

beautiful.

Few of the magnificent Atlantic

pilot schooners

remain today, as thev w ere graduallv

made obsolete by motor vessels beginning in the 1930s and 1940s. In the Maine w indjammer fleet are the Timberwind and the Roseway but he latter looks more like a t

,

fisherman than a pilotboat and the former, while beautiful

in

everv respect, can't hold a

candle to some of the Boston pilot schooners of the turn of the century, such as the

Law lor and

magnificent Hesper designed by Dennison ,

built to a yachtlike

standard of

excellence.

Likew

ise

the fishing schooners,

which began

when

to die out

the

Age of

ground

Sail

to

between the world wars. Though few were abandoned with quite the

a halt in the decades alacrity of the great

multimasted schooners, most were ruthlessly converted

made

vessels or. at the very least,

over as power vessels assisted by a

power

to

minimum

of

sail.

Their rigs were removed, and engines and pilothouses installed. Schooners that had once

been as

than the sw

fast as or faster

iftest

yachts, that

had

thrilled the eye of

anyone w ho

appreciated sailing vessels with balance, dignity, and nimble-footedness, that had swept in

from the Grand Banks and Georges Bank with the cockiness of the undisputed

were reduced to draft horses of the sea w and,

at best, a few' scraps of old

canvas

ith set

best,

peeling paint, smoke-belching exhaust stacks,

on stubby masts as a

faint

reminder of what

they once had been.

But one of the best of the in the

mid- 1950s

is.

the A dven ture out of Gloucester

to carry passengers along the

achusetts, a derivative of a that

last,

Thomas McManus

bow sprit

she didn't carry a

Maine coast. design, she

(The knockabout

rig

.

and Boston, w as revived

Built in

1926

in Essex,

Mass-

was a knockabout schooner

was the fashion for many of the

later Atlantic fishing schooners primarily for safety reasons; schooners with bowsprits

were dangerous for their crews while furling headsails during a blow on the open waters

The Adventure w as

of the fishing grounds.)

the last sailing fishing schooner to

work out

of the Boston Fish Pier, though in the early 1950s, just before she retired, most of her

motive pow er came from an engine, w ith minor assistance from staysails

She was

masts. fleet, (

laid

up

briefly, then

sailing first out of

bought and rerigged

1

\\

indjammers

stopping speed. She

is

now a museum ship

came

e

to

anchor

heart of Merchant of Deer Isle in

i

pass

for

both her in

size (121 feet overall)

Bow the

of

tightly

and her heart-

Gloucester.

the bight formed bv McGlatherv .

windjammer

and Bound

islands,

smack

in

die

packed collection of islands between the southern end

and the northern end of Isle au Haut. Easily the most dramatic island grouping

the Penobscot

128

in

for the

98~\ w hen she retired, theAdventure w as unofficially known

"Queen of the

\\

1954

on shortened

Rockland and eventually, under Captain Jim Sharp, out

iamden. Between then and

as the

in

set

\

of the Heritage a roiling :

of the major passages

'Aon

Both schooners charged for the passage betw een Beach and lorse

Captain Fee shouted back.

"You might

()()

I

PASSAGE

l\

trailed off

as well start cooking! 1

1

wake

anchor stands the loser to supper.

on the coast of Maine.

re on.

separating the two

TIME

I

lead islands on one

SAILORS

AM)

ISLA

XDS

167

168

A PASSAGE IX TIME

side

and Great Spruce Head and

emerged and corrected courses

—a larger

Little

more

She held her lead and gained a

little

When

North Haven, a straight shot

for

vessel with

Heritage

Spruce Head on the other.

sail

area and a longer waterline

in clear water, the

—was

more, enough so we could read the

port on her transom. But this

was Penobscot Bay and

minute passed, the wind, true

to form, lost

more

of

its

it

was

both schooners

slightly ahead.

name and hailing and

late afternoon,

The Heritage

strength.

as each

a heavier,

,

wider, and deeper vessel than ours, sailed better in strong winds, while ours, though

hardly a thoroughbred racer, was a shade faster in competition off Egg Rock Ledge and dead even as

Rock and the eastern shore

Pulpit

light

we

winds.

close, in fact, that

I

were gaining on the

of the entrance, both vessels almost within touching

distance, streaming along on a broad reach straight for the

were so

We

entered the harbor channel between

We

back shore of the harbor.

could see the lines of concentration on Captain Lee

s

brow and

clearlv hear his instructions to the crew.

when

Just

seemed that both schooners would be dancing partners

it

hard

forever,

aground on the harbor shore, our skipper, who held the windward edge, shouted Captain Lee, ‘Tin going to turn turn to port and shot

up

was

still

to

And he

jibe.

waiting for the

of victory

did and

The Heritage

into the wind.

drop the hook.

to starboard!

way

to

,

we

did.

jibing,

come

and Captain Lee

replied, “Fine, then

Our schooner turned, quick

to I

II

and

as a cat,

turned a wider, slower arc; while Captain Lee

off his vessel,

our skipper was signaling to the mate

A cheer erupted from the crowd on our deck, followed by a single shout

from the winner of the anchor

pool.

Later, Captain Lee

came

across in his

yawlboat with a large basket covered with a red-and-white-checked tablecloth, and he

and our skipper

sat

on the cabinhouse, their backs

as the sun set in screaming pinks

Our supper was an dough

and

rolls, salad,

to the

mainmast, and ate

and oranges behind the Camden

all-out feast. Roast beef, gravy, green peas,

cherry and peach pies

tea, the table livened

still

their

supper

Hills.

baked potatoes, sour-

warm from the woodstove oven,

hot coffee,

with laughter and storytelling. Following the meal, as was

on Friday

traditional on our schooner

of the galley, including the cook

night, the

and the

male passengers kicked the

galley assistant,

women

out

and washed the dishes and

pans and cleaned the tables and benches and swabbed the galley floor and sang songs

and drank

beer.

peaches, rock

Then we grabbed

salt, dishes,

a bucket of crushed ice,

some heavy cream,

sliced

spoons, and an old-fashioned hand-cranked ice cream

ma-

chine and went on deck.

The

galley assistant got out her guitar

then the skipper stood up by the

rail

and sang about

lost love

and told one of his patented

and long voyages, and

stories.

Much later, when

most of the passengers had gone below to their bunks or were stretched out on the roof of the main cabinhouse, of the

waning moon. F rom deep

Heritage their anchor ,

in

its

presence.

I

felt

lights

lit,

I

in a

in sleeping

bags

took a long, slow row around the harbor in the light

cove about half a mile away, our schooner and the

were the picture of a past I had never seen



yet here

I

was

verv fortunate.

“She held her lead

and gained a

little

more, enough so we eould read the

and hailing port on her transom.”

SAILORS

AND ISLANDS

169

name

"lie sal

and our skipper

on the cabinhouse, their

backs

to the

mainmast, and ate their

supper as the sun

set in

screaming pinks

and oranges behind the

Camden

Hills.”'

SAILORS

\XI)

ISI.WDS

171

,

VT

yn ^

T/ jU^i'

' i

IjMm

..

MM ''Ayr

m\W

'

S*

fXjRM

M.

mm

/

~

1/^

?•

T jA

.> \

|

Another Link

XI

The caulking mallet striking against

its

Chain

in the

iron creates a piercing, ringing

sound

which carries for a great distance and lets the world know that something going on, that work is being accomplished, that ships are taking form.

is

— Dana Story. Frame-Up!

The door to the North End Shipyard in Rockland. lingering cold of an early spring day.

pushed

I

it

Maine, was slightly

ajar, despite the

open without knocking and stepped

into

room with exposed rafters and an ancient wooden floor that undulated like the ocean on a calm day. Directly in front of me was a huge maroon shipsaw with portable a large, square

rollers,

table

but the machine was quiet, as was the entire shop: the polished surface of the

was proof enough

To my

right, in

of the miles of heayy oak that

its

blade.

one corner, was a blackened forge surrounded with anvils and tongs,

quenching buckets, hammers, bags of lene

had been cut by

steel

soft coal.

There was a welding torch with acety-

and oxygen tanks, and along the south wall was a long workbench littered with cutters

and nippers,

vises

chunks of scrap

and grinders. Nearby were a

steel

and

lathe

curls of shining metal.

and a

drill press,

and underfoot were

Four sooty welders' masks rested on a

shelf.

At the back of the room, to the

left

of the shipsaw.

was a thickness planer half-buried

by coarse wood chips; on the north wall was a bank of switches and transformers. By

my

hand was an even larger planer, and through a door to the side was the granddaddv of them all a huge, black, baroque machine fitted with rollers and guides and adjusting left



wheels, a working antique, a planer that finished lumber on pass.

On the walls hung recently galvanized ironwork

was buried

and 1

in

sawdust.

I

could smell the mustiness of

all

four sides with a single

for a large sailing vessel.

damp

The

floor

ashes, the freshness of cedar

pine, the sharpness of green oak.

crossed the

room and pulled

from an old rope-bound

sail.

I

aside a gray canvas curtain that

entered another room, a joiner

bench running the length of the north planes and

drills,

wall.

saws and clamps: some

s

had been roughly cut

shop with a long work-

On the bench were tools of every description in boxes, others left lying

where they had been

The coasting schooner

used. L nderneath were even more.

A film of fine dust covered everything, even the posters

Heritage, the newest

and calendars tacked

Through the cobwebbed windows

schooner

to the wall.

I

AXOTHER LIXK

could see a huge

I\

THE CHAIA

1

73

in the fleet.

steambox and firetube boiler, the latter topped with a stovepipe and a brass steam

and beyond

that

was

in

an L shape.

ahead of me, leading

Diiectly

and a wharf topped with three cedar-shingled limber-

a small cove

frame buildings connected

whistle,

and a small apartment, was a

to a storage loft

staircase,

behind which stood a matched pair of bandsaws and a table saw. In the southeast corner were shelves of paints and

and along the

oils,

thinners and solvents, tars and proprietary compounds,

side of the staircase

On

nuts, screws, nails, drift pins.

were bins of fastenings, mostly galvanized the floor

was a

brim with worn but obviously cared-for hand

tools.

To my right was

a

bolts

packed

and

to the

homemade wood-

from odd pieces of steel and iron bolted and welded together; the stovepipe,

stove built its

large shipwright’s chest,



in

long traverse to the chimney, was supported with scraps of baling wire. Caulking tools

hung on

the wall.

A faded sign hung over a door: open,

its

Ship’s Store

& Office.

crammed with papers and

pigeonholes

In the office, a rolltop desk stood

canceled checks; on top was a ledger,

surrounded by ripped-open envelopes and hastily penciled notes. Half models and framed photographs of ships hung on the paneled walls; well-thumbed catalogs from chandleries

and

industrial suppliers

were jammed

in a

bookcase.

A

black cast-iron Victorian stove

rested on a rough brick hearth; the fire within settled a bit,

woodsmoke permeated

and the pleasant scent

of

the room.

Against the wall was a small drafting table with a rectangular sketchbook open on its

surface.

schooner.

Drawn

carefully in profile

The caption

November

was a nineteenth-century two-masted coasting

said Heritage.

28, 1979

Last winter

I

spent a

that a Penobscot

month putting

all

the ideas on the drawing board. Everything

Bay windjammer should have and big enough

to

go anywhere. The

money spent (Linda says $17,000 floor), is our new schooner 93 tons, 93

result, three sets of lines later, countless hours, lots of

to date, yet

we haven’t even

finished the lofting



feet

long by 24 feet wide by 8 feet draft, with a centerboard, two topmasts, main topsail,

and

flying jib.

It

will

be beautiful but such a long

way away.

We’ll get there

somehow.

We are trying to do this without killing ourselves. We plan this as a five-year project. The idea

is

to stop

contain ourselves

when we run out of money each year. Fat chance. Hopefully we can so we don’t go and borrow too much too earlv and get into trouble....

— from Captain Douglas Lee’s journal The shop crew was sheltered the Heritage “Everything that a

Penobscot Bay

windjammer should have and big enough to

go anywhere."

The

lteril(i"c.

1

outside, tearing flown a

and obscured her from

temporary sheet-plastic shed that had

full

view since her keel was

laid in early

980. Captain John Foss was up on the roof with a few helpers, freeing the trusses with

a chainsaw, while Captain Douglas Lee operated a mobile crane that lifted each piece clear

and lowered

The

air

it

was

to the

ground.

electric with excitement, for the

Next week a team of house movers was 174

A PASSAGE

l\

TIME

to jack

end of a monumental

up the schooner and

effort

shift

was

in sight.

her sideways onto

ANOTHER LINK

IX

THE CHAIN

1

75

where she was

the railway

to

be launched; two weeks after that, she would slide into

Rockland Iarbor. One year of thinking, one year of planning, three years of building, and 1

a

new wooden schooner would be

afloat, despite the scuttlebutt that said

day and age could afford to build such a

anymore enough

for

vessel, that said

wooden construction on such

to invest so

much

married

in the late

skills

foolish

little.

where they met and were

college,

1960s, they had been rebuilding old schooners and sailing them in the

Doug

passenger trade.

nobody would be

a scale, that said

Ever since Doug and Linda Lee graduated from

in this

nobody possessed die

an endeavor that would return so

in

nobody

started out with the Richard Robbins a tired ,

New

Jersey oyster

dredger, assisting with her reconstruction and then sailing aboard her as galley hand,

mate, and finally skipper.

He and

Linda, with the part-time assistance of John Loss and

other volunteers, rebuilt the former Delaware Bay oyster dredger Isaac her as a husband-and-wife team.

down-east cargo schooner Lewis trade. All

He and Linda and John R. French.,

II.

Loss in partnership rebuilt the

which Loss then skippered

was done on a shoestring, on an almost

Evans., sailing

in the

capital-less, pay-as-you-go,

passenger

learn-how-

when-you-must basis. They ate hot dogs and macaroni and hung their hats in the cheapest housing to save money, and when the money ran out, they took jobs, any jobs, to get started again.

They waited on

table, clerked in shops, repaired small

shoveled fish meal, and did anything else to they really wanted to do



own

sail their

make money

machinery, did odd jobs,

so they could

do the only thing

coasting schooner in the passenger trade.

December 28, 1979

We

started lofting on the 4th of



December drawing

1

December.

2 days with numerous distractions to

in the

Got the fair

lines faired

up the

by the 15th of

Then picking off and transom 12 more days

lines.

frames (40 of them), the centerboard, and the



with numerous distractions....

January

1980

8,

Today is an

historic occasion. This

that will be in the schooner.

timber with a

forklift, since

January 12, 1980

Today of

the

gammon

first

it is

!

keel piece. to cut

the cut

day we actually cut into a piece of wood and planed the stem. We flipped over the

first

too heavy for us to horse around with cant dogs....

«

two pieces of wood were joined together.

We

fastened the

first

piece

knee to the stem....

January 23, 1980 We haven t am more keel stock generator,

is

Today we

and they

to

don’t really have

work with. Brooks Mill has had trouble with their any logs big enough for the 10 V 2 " x 12 V 2 " x 20'

Out of desperation we cut

both sides

so confusing

at

once, laying out

we made two

all

all

the futtocks for frame

the pieces at the

pieces for the

same

same

1.

What

a job!

I

time. Sure enough,

tried it

got

spot....

— from Captain Douglas Lee’s journal 176

A PASSAGE

l\

TIME

Much

is

made

especially down-easters, to

commentators of Foss fact,

late

have suggested that

this trait

is

a thing of the past, corrupted from

may be true, but the Lees and

lure of modern comforts. This

lode.

Doug and Linda and John wanted

coast, they also

and maintain it

Englanders,

know nothing of it. You would be hard pressed to find a more independent lot; in if you hung around Rockland long enough, you would swear you had discovered the

mother

of

New

do what they want, when they want, the way they want. Social

by the insidious

the populace

Yankee ingenuity, that fabled quality of

of so-called

their

was simply the

atavistic

own schooners to sail up and down the

own self-contained

have their

to

own

not only wanted their

shipyard, where they could haul

and embark and disembark

their

desire to be totally in charge of their

own

— the ambition

vessels,

own

to

a nineteenth-century shipyard to

own

passengers. Part

affairs,

match

their nineteenth-

century vessels and their nineteenth-century frame of mind. The modern the latter has been to

become

affiliated

with a

museum and

foundation grants to re-create and restore a “historic

much independence that way. So just when the Lees and Foss appeared

rely

but part was

way

to achieve

on government and

shipyard; but, of course, you don’t

get

Evans they were building

to

have

it

made

—they owned the Isaac H.

their reputations in the passenger-schooner marketplace, they

,

had income instead of outflow

— they

leased, then

bought outright a parcel of land on the

Rockland waterfront with a couple of tumbledown buildings and weeds

in the

yard

—an

industrial site with a fish-rendering plant next door, a steel fabrication plant out front,

a seaweed-processing complex across the water.

was enough

to

send them back

It

wasn

t

and

particularly expensive, but

it

adventurous housing and macaroni and hot-dog

to

suppers.

January 31, 1980

Today

I

went over

the 20' x 12

to

x 10 / 2 1

'/‘i"

Brooks "

Mill.

There was Karl himself

pieces of keel.

Still

need two more

just starting to

like

it.

I

saw one of

ended up as Karl’s

helper

February

1980

2,

amazing to me, the amount of logs we have looked over just to get keel pieces, and we still don have them.... The chances are some slim that you can look at a log and actually get what you want out of it. It is

t

February

8,

1980

Condemned bad spot February

the second 18' x 10" x 12" timber

six feet

12,

from the

gotten from Brooks. O

A

big, O

1980

Yesterday John and best log of the

we have

top....

lot.

I

went over

to

Brooks

Mill.

I

picked out what

I

guessed was the

None looked particularly inviting, with badly split butts and bigrotten-

ANOTUER LINK IN THE CHAIN

1

77

We out four feet off the butt, leaving eighteen-plus feet. The butt seemed

looking knots. to clear

and one

it

really looked pretty good. Karl spent almost

What a

looks great.

this

and two

and

up and

surprise!

time that started out 26 feet off the top.

convinced Karl

feet long.

to

move

in

another piece

log,

—a huge

We cut six feet off the butt to find good wood,

Got two 12 x 12s, one 10-footer, and one 8-footer, the forward

below the

after fillers,

I

two hours sawing that

Now we

keel.

have everything to build the

keel....

— from Captain Douglas Lee

s

journal

The Lees and Foss founded the North End Shipyard, where outside users could rent space and lease tools and do their own work; Doug, Linda, and John, who wanted to be independent and free from others demands, would work on their own projects. It was there that the Lewis R. French was rebuilt, a couple of new yawlboats were built, and a sandbagger w as restored; Dave and Sue Allen rebuilt the schooner/. & E. Riggin; Ken and Ellen Barnes rebuilt the Stephen Taber and converted the sardine carrier Panline., John Foss converted the old fishing schooner American Eagle and other ow ners hauled their ;

vessels for

major

repairs.

up the yard

Just setting

was a major undertaking.

itself

The

buildings had to be

strengthened and modified, a marine railway for hauling vessels had to be industrial-quality tools

had

to

be purchased

most of them were. There were chimneys

and plumbing

—and

rebuilt

if

they were secondhand, w hich

to rebuild, permits to

be obtained, and wiring

to install.

Most projects were done from scratch. To save money, the shingles building w ere

built,

made with an

for the

main shop

old shingle-saw ing machine. Big jobs were tackled as

if

they

were small, and small jobs were done while the glue was setting up or between supper and the evening

new s. What are the time periods we are talking about here?

the Isaac H. Evans:

1

974-76,

set

1

97 -73, rebuild 1

up the yard and rebuild the Lewis R. French

;

1

977, think

about the future.

February 24, 1980, Sunday Day off, don’t you know. Spent the morning planing the sides of the deadwood. the afternoon

finished both

I

In

feathers....

tail

February 25, 1980 Started building the framing floor in the afternoon. Since the Heritage

board

vessel, the

framing floor

is

built straddling the keel

for the

The

bow and

stern can be

half frames in

way

frames can be

made and

be.

t room enough ahead made and stood up. Then the half frames

stored off to the side until

of the centerboard are

a center-

where the centerboard wall

This was planned when we put up the building; there isn vessel to put the floor. All the full

is

made

last,

of the

we

re

ready for them.

then the framing floor w

ill

be

torn up.... Captain John Foss boring the sternpost for a

rudder

February 26, 1980 7

We

fitting.

178

finished building the framing floor

A PASSAGE

l\

TIME

by lunch, then started

lining out frame 30,

I

\

OTHER

Ll.Xk

/ \

Tin: (HAI\

n

(

)

which

the

is

frame of the after section. ...At about 3 p.m. we suddenly realized making the timberheads. So John and rushed over

first full

there wasn’t any six-inch stock for

Karl was sawing oak

to Brooks’s.

six-inch stuff.

March

I

at the

time, but he agreed to

saw out

several pieces pf

arrived around 5 p.m. That’s service!

It

1980

1.

People started arriving before lunch, and by 2:30 over 150 people had come to see the

Frame-Up. At 3:01 we stood her up and

way back April

I

said,

“OK,

And

that’s it.”

slid

her under the keelson.

When

was

it

the

all

a tremendous cheer went up....

1980

1,

Quit work on the Heritage for the winter, started fitting out the Isaac H. Evans for the

summer.

—from Captain Douglas Lee’s journal By 1977, things were R. French.,

Foss.

owned

starting to fall into place at the North

in partnership

End

Shipyard. The Lewis

by the Lees and Foss, had joined the

There were plenty of small- and medium-size jobs to be done

fleet,

skippered by

in the off-season:

work

on the rundown houses they had just bought, maintain their vessels, improve the shipyard, but nothing time-consumingly, mind-paralyzingly, finances-back-to-zero big.

For a while there, things started

to look up:

When John went out to the front of his house

hammer went right through the rotten wood, back of which

to renail a loose clapboard, his

was a rotten stud, below which was a rotten

sill,

over which rested rotten floor joists. John

happily jacked up the house, tore everything out, laid

bunch of new

But

joists.

let’s

not kid ourselves:

It

down

a

new

was a house, not

sill,

and threw

in a

a boat.

Meanwhile, Doug and Linda Lee were thinking about a bigger schooner. They talked about more passenger-carrying capacity and room for the children they hoped other practical considerations, but the true motivation was probably tied

End Shipyard itself. have

in

mind

After

in the

and

North

anyone who goes to the roubl&of setting up a shipyard must t

the building of ships.

There comes a time construction,

all,

up

to raise

in

every boat-rebuilder’s

when he comes

life

to the realization that

when he

more

starts to think

or less the

about new

same amount of work

goes into the rebuilding of someone else’s idea of what a boat should be as would go into his idea of the

own from one.

same

scratch?

and rebuilding

thing.

The Fees had, it,

else’s

dream when you can

build your

indeed, considered finding another old hull, a bigger

but they rejected the idea after taking stock of what they had

tools, the facilities, the *

Why rebuild someone

knowledge of supply sources, the

skills

—the

developed after years of

They knew that if they didn’t build a new schooner now, they might never, and they knew that John Foss was as itchy to try a truly big, challenging project as they were and would help them.

full-time experience.

180

A PASSAGE l\ TIME

End

of October [1980]

Resumed work on

the Heritage.

November 12. 1980 Glen and spent a good part of the dav working on the centerboard log. which is over three feet at the butt and 30-plus feet long. It had been a beautiful oak tree obscuring someone’s view of the water. It cost me $500 plus cartage and had been soaking in the cove since Julv. The game plan is to rough it out with the chainsaw mill. \\ hen the lilt truck tried to move it, the weight of die log broke the frame of the truck. A bad 1

morning....

November

1-t,

1980

Rich Ford showed up with a helper and the "Alaskan

Mill.

\\

eset

Took

first cut.

November

We

15,

had a

three

their

on Tuesdav. which of course covered the framing

pile.

a half hours....

1980

real earlv blizzard

Got things shoveled

up

and

up a four-inch piece

and they made

of garboard stock as a straightedge guide along the top of the log.

off over the next

few days. Late Friday afternoon we started tearing

the framing floor....

December

10,

1980

Finished framing today. All frames, including the transom, transom side pieces, and the knightheads, are

Tomorrow

a

in.

new phase

Essentially a phase

begins

over, that of the

is

—planking

backbone and framing.

—from Captain Douglas Lee

s

journal

Doug and Linda Fee met John Foss back around 1972, when John w as in the Coast Guard down in Boston and used to hang around the schooner fleet in Camden and Rockland during his time off duty. le knew' a career in the Coast Guard wasn’t for him, that working on schooners was, and given the same background (Maine upbringing, I



college education, fanatical interest in boats inherited

he and

Doug

hit

it

off the first time they met.

weekends working on the Isaac

from similarly obsessed fathers)

John spent the

rest of his

Coast Guard

came through, moved back to Maine and into partnership w ith the Fees. All three owned equal shares in the North End Shipyard: all three owned shares of the Leu 'is II. French based on money It.

Evans, and w hen his discharge papers

invested and hours of labor put into her reconstruction, though Foss, as skipper, controlled her fate.

The partnership was extended

to the

proposed new schooner, with the

understanding that the Lees would be the controlling owners and trade their shares It

wasn

t

in the

French

some point would

for Foss's share in the Heritage.

a paper partnership, though, with a docile wife thrown in for good measure

to give controlling interest to

and John

at

Foss,

one party.

It

was a working deal

worked as hard and invested

as

much

as

— Linda Lee.

anyone else.

Doug Lee Decisions were made

wart tKR u\k

i \

like

tiii:

at i/a

1

8

182

A PASSAGE

l\

TIME

Booming up

the Penobscot

Bay on a close reach.

want a traditional

and

craft,

that includes the size

of the materials she of.

"I

the

same

is

built

size. ..she

would have been built with one hundred years ago."

few these friends would have, were settled by majority vote.

jointly; disputes, the

A

five-year plan for building the Heritage

was drawn up

in the fall of

1978, with the

expectation that construction on the schooner would begin in 1979 and she would be

launched in the spring of 1984. The intention was of money during the

first

four years and a large

to

borrow reasonably small amounts

amount during the fifth, when they could

expect heavy outfitting expenses. Since they estimated their

own

labor on the project to

be worth $85,000, the total investment would be $3 1 5,000. They hoped to get bank loans

amounting

to

$200,000, leaving $1 15,000

to

be raised

among

themselves. Small loans

from private lenders and the summer income of the Lewis R. French and the Isaac H. Evans

would cover

that.

As things turned

out, the financial estimates

were right on the button, but their time

schedule was out of whack: They were a year ahead! By the time the Heritage was ready for sea in 1983,

$300,000 had been spent on the

vessel, not including the partners labor.

Almost $200,000 was borrowed from the bank, but not originally planned.

Instead, the partners

went

right

resources, then took out a big loan to finish the job.

up

increments as

in increasing

to the last year

on their own

The bank had no quarrel with

Three years of full-blast building experience was proof enough that they were a planked-up, decked-over passenger schooner

is

collateral

that:

serious,

enough for even the most

and

flint-

hearted loan officer.

The market value

—the

amount she woidd cost if she had been conventionally financed and built in a commercial yard was well over $500,000. In fact, of the Heritage



some people suggest you couldn’t build

a

wooden

vessel like the Heritage today for less

than three quarters of a million dollars.

January

3,

1981

The past week has been a landmark. The

first

piece of planking

was fastened on. The

aft piece of four-inch-thick

garboard on the port

side, starting at the sternpost

running 26

takes a mighty

But after steaming for

feet

forward.

It

twist.

five

and

hours

it

The excitement of the moment can really get you caught up. Everyone rushed around pushing and hauling and throwing big clamps around as if they weighed ten pounds, when some of them must have been pushing 80 to 100 pounds. Everyone had sore backs that night....

twisted easily,

and we had plenty

of time to

work

it.

January 15, 1981 Six planks today. Most so far....

January 17, 1981

24 planks

this

week

January 20, 1981

work today we had a long discussion on the scantling sizes actually required. Haddie Hawkins would build a vessel much lighter. He is correct that you don’t need After

1

84

A PASSAGE IN TIME

the strength

we

But what

re building into the Heritage.

is

the real reason for building

the vessel?

the

(1)

I

(2)

I

want

to be able to sail a large coasting schooner

want a traditional

around the

coast.

and that includes the size of the materials

craft,

same -dze framing and planking she would have been (3) The vessel must last a very long time

built

'lie is built of.

with 100 years ago.

February 16-20. 1081

34 planks.

March 9-13, 1981 -+3

planks.

March 20. 1981 The hull planking after lunch.

is

on the port quarter

finished, with the last shutter going in

right

Both happy and sad

—from Captain Douglas Lee’s journal Building a wooden schooner the size of the Heritage takes an incredible amount of materials, the cost of which can be secondary to their supply.

imately 100. 000 board

feet

of

lumber went

I

liink

about

it:

two tons of

into her. three tons of fastenings,

ironwork, a mile of rope, five thousand square

feet of

canvas, plus

all

Approx-

the bits

and pieces

—the windlass, galley donkey engine, pumps, steering mechanism, beads, plumbing, —and then the accommodations thirty-three passengers

of working gear

stove,

for

electrics

blankets, mattresses, pillows,

life

was an

and getting

it

delivered

never mind building

it

into a ship.

this stuff

jackets, eating utensils, pots

It

exercise in logistics that

was no mean

most observers believed that some materials, like

ironwork, just cottldn

t

in

is

in

when you

consider that

short supply,

and

others,

the vessel: white pine for the decking; red oak for the

backbone, framing, and planking; and Douglas it

would deter most people,

feat, especially

wood, were

like

Just locating all

be found.

Three types of wood were used

easiest to locate:

and pans.

in plentiful

fir

for the ceiling.

The Douglas fir was

the

supply and was custom-ordered from the west coast. Pine

and oak were another matter. After

all.

you can

t

walk

into a

lumberyard today and pick

out the stock you want in the dimensions required, especially proper crooked stock for the

double-sawn frames.

The

proprietor would scratch his head and ask

if

knottv-pine

paneling would do. Like the shipbuilders of a century ago. the the trees as they stood, having

the rough planks in their

went

into the

them felled and hauled to a

own shop.

the Brooks Mill of nearby

trio

I

It

buying

for the pine,

ripping and finish-planing

hey shopped locally for the oak, striking a deal with

Thomaston

appropriate widths and lengths.

mill,

woods

was

for the best stock that could be

found

in the

a fortuitous choice, because Karl Brooks turned

out to be as interested in seeking out and supplying quality timbers as he was in

WOTHER

I.t\k l\

making

THECH l/A

185

money. His perseverance

in milling the right stock at the right time for a particular job

was part of the reason why the Heritage could be launched a year ahead of

What

of the impossible-to-find ironwork

plan.

—the mast bands, the chainplates, the block

yawlboat davits? Finding no supplier for those, Doug Lee decided

straps, the

to

make

them himself. He set up a forge, read a number of technical books and articles, talked with blacksmiths, and pounded hot steel for a couple of months until the job was done. It II:

sounds

If

like the

we

exists,

it

philosophy of the

ll

get

it; if it

logistics

doesn't,

we

branch of the U.S. Army during World War

make

11

it; if it

can’t be done, we’ll do

it.

January 22, 1982 I

was fastening the trailboard knees, using the half-inch “hole-hog”

drill.

I

had drilled

with one bit and was about to switch to another and was talking to Eric, when

1

put

my My

hand on the drill (rushing as usual). The countersink grabbed my cotton glove. hand went into instant pain. The little finger was torn open and the top joint bent way off to one side. My first thoughts were, Damn, now I won't get this finished today and now be bored to tears waiting for a doctor to take care of it at the hospital, which was true. T urned out it was only dislocated. Never wear cotton gloves while running a drill .... left

1

11

January 29, 1982 Peter

making

is still

working on the trailboard knees, Glen finished fairing frames and

his first covering

board on the main deck, the other John has three deckhouse grubs sanded,

I

made the

false

boards from the break,

is

now

board on the quarterdeck. John has four pieces of covering chamfered and

all

covering board, which are extensions of the main deck covering aft....

February 15, 1982

The

laying of the

March 4, 1982 Today was great,

main deck

started today....

The deck

is

working. Also the waist and inside are splined beautiful,

finished

rail

clamp

is

with four people

finished. Also the watertight

bulkheads

and screwed on. The railcap stock came from Brooks’s, $892 worth. feet long, the rest are curvy and 16

worth every penny. Six pieces are 27

long. All are eighteen inches to twenty inches

up

—twelve working days,

Looks

this afternoon.

wide at the butt.

It is

feet

We got the deck all cleaned

real impressive

— from Captain Douglas Lee’s journal Only about

six

months out

of each year were available for

October through March. The other Isaac

//.

six

months belonged

Evans. Spring was for fitting-out,

just as well:

to the

work on the Heritage Lewis

summer for sailing, and

About the time the Lees and Foss were

tired of sailing,

R.

fall it



French and the

for layup.

was time

to

It

was

begin

work on the Heritage and about the time they were exhausted from horsing big timbers ,

around,

186

it

was time

to

A PASSAGE IN TIME

go

sailing.

—on the the night, many weekends and holidays — but

Doug, Linda, and John were the constants during the building of the Heritage job every working day, sometimes far into

Word spread quickly along the coast that a big wooden schooner was under construction in Rockland, and willing workers who knew this was a rare chance to practice an ancient trade soon turned up to offer their services. Many were turned away, but just as many were hired according to the needs of the yard and the availability of lun< Is. Some were skilled, some were not. but it was a splendid opportunity to gain experience, since there wasn much wooden shipbuilding going on elsewhere. For the most part, Doug and John would work alone or head up a work party, such as the planking gang or the metalworkers. Linda handled the finances and much of the

they were not alone.

t

logistics, filling in

on the construction crew as required. Even after the Lees' AXOTHER

LI \ K l\

THE

first