Skip to main content

A Great Finish and a Wonderful Start

Image
By

Good morning everyone. We finished of f the Wooden Boat sail training experience with the “final exam” on Friday. We did not have much wind but this group really capitalized on the opportunity to take the reins and sail Mary Day back to the “barn”. I could not have planned things any better than how they happened. This particular group chose to elect captains for each watch group. The individual captains did a great job with tremendous support form their “crew”. I encouraged everyone to taste a piece of the cake. I can only hope that happened even if it might not have happened exactly as people might have dreamed. The lack of wind was offset by some beautiful sunshine… an element we did not see an awful lot of last week. We actually came out quite lucky with the doom and gloom forecast we faced at the beginning of the week. For the first time in weeks I actually had my rain gear on for a couple hours on Friday morning. My fruit trees back home were thankful for a refreshing drink.

We are off to the Sweet Chariot Folk Festival this week. Yesterday we sailed all the way from Camden to Brooklin at 8-10 knots most of the day and anchored up with time to have a walk ashore. We are due to attend the festival Wednesday night. There is quite the concert happening right now on deck. We have some very talented guests this week. Great voices and some fantastic guitar to go with it. The folk festival will be its usual diverse collection of folk genres. It isn’t Dylan but it is always entertaining. We will get a picnic in tomorrow with any luck. It is another forecast with showers here and there throughout the week. But as I always say… a bad day on a schooner still beats the heck out of a good day at the office.

Have a great day. Be well. Do good.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hail Mary

By
My heart is heavy with sadness as I write this particular blog. Since the beginning of August our dear friend and cook for the last 12 years, Mary Barney, had been struggling with cancer. I have intentionally respected Mary’s privacy and I apologize to you for not sharing any news about Mary’s health sooner. On Monday afternoon Mary passed away very peacefully at home, surrounded by friends and “family”. Her departure was as graceful as the rest of her life. Many people, including Jen, have been doing heroic work to support Mary these last few weeks. Oddly enough Mary was never very excited about transitions though this was about the fastest transition she ever made. And as I struggle to let go of Mary I realize I am terrible with transitions as well. We used to joke about how we liked things just the way they are, thank you very much, so why change what is working already even if it might be less labor intensive. Hard works is its own reward. I used to joke about getting Mary a Cui...
28 comments
Read more

A Golden Windjammer Anniversary

By
Happy Birthday Mary Day! 50 years ago today Mary Day slid out of the shed at the Harvey F. Gamage Shipyard in South Bristol, Maine marking the beginning of a whole new chapter in the history of the windjammer fleet. The Gamage yard had not launched a schooner since 1933 and Mary Day was the first commercial coasting schooner launched since 1938. That also makes her the first commercial coasting schooner launched in the second half of the 20th century and the first schooner ever launched for the windjammer passenger trade. There may be a few more firsts in there but that doesn't really matter. What is most important about this celebration is the fact that Mary Day was launched today and began her career touching the lives of thousands of people. This schooner was built by people, for people and has never done anything else but bring joy to peoples lives. She has become a legendary windjammer here along the Maine coast as part of the largest fleet of commercial coasting schooners...
1 comment
Read more