Sailing Vacations
A Maine Windjammer

Good afternoon everyone! Is this a trick or a treat? Well, if it has anything to do with sailing aboard a windjammer it must be a treat. During our last cruise we had some very special guests drop by as you can see. They were the life of the party and quite a windy party it was. We will be at the school All Hallows Eve celebration and then a little trick or treating in Camden. Courtney is going to be a pirate (as the bumper sticker says, pirate chicks kick butt) and Sawyer is going to be a mummy (where old schooner linens make their last public appearance). Hope you folks have a great Halloween celebration. Have a great evening. Be well. Do good, wicked good. Thanks for the photo Jim Dugan

Good morning everyone. Well it was a wild weather weekend here at the global headquarters. Storm force winds were observed offshore and I am guessing they made here. We tried to sleep with the windows open but the wind was just too loud. Nature has a way of “reefing” the trees against the density of the cold winter winds and Saturday did a good job of depositing quite a few piles of leaves in the dooryard. Jen and I were up most of Saturday night on watch, checking the mooring lines and chafe gear. The house didn’t move much more than a inch or so off the foundation. Trees were down across the driveway. Sawyer and I had a few hours of bucking up firewood and chipping limbs. We had a few calls with the fire department sawing tree tops out of the local roadways. Friday night we hosted our annual crew dinner here at the house with a surf and turf celebration. Sawyer built the campfire complete with tiki torches. Jen prepared a huge feast. I doubled as grill master serving sirl...

Good morning everyone. We have been enjoying a beautiful stretch of weather these past few weeks. With all of the brilliant foliage and sunny days this has been an Autumn to remember. The crew have been hard at it aboard the schooner. With the cover in place we can get to all of those cover-dependent projects like painting the mast heads. We paint the mast heads in the fall to provide the best protection during the very long winter. And it is looking like a long winter with snow forecasted in the western mountains of Maine this evening. Under cover the gaffs and topmasts have been getting the first of several coats of varnish. The white plastic shrink wrap allows enough solar gain to heat the air to a reasonable painting temperature yet not hot enough to cause all of the wood to dry and check. With all of the nice weather we have been having and the full moon casting shadows through our woods at night I have been amazed at how brilliant the stars have been, even with the moon....

Good morning everyone. Hope you folks have been enjoying the crisp autumn air as much as we have. You can't imagine how busy we have been this last week. Getting back ashore involves many hours of dismantling and down rigging. The crew have been hard at work. We did take this Columbus Day Weekend off and escape to the North Woods thanks to some very generous friends that allowed us to share their small cabin on the shores of a beautiful lake over looking Mt Katahdin. We even met a few of the locals. Folks often ask where we go for vacation and these pictures should tell you why we seldom leave the state of Maine. We returned home to the frenzy and yesterday unrolled the shrink wrap. Capts. Garth and Jenny from the Lewis R French turned to and helped with our cover and we reciprocated. Two schooners covered in one day! The final shrinking is still to be done but the cover is tight enough for the moment. Today we start sanding and painting the mastheads and winterizing yaw...

Good morning everyone. Well we have finished the sailing season in very fine fashion. Notice the bow-in winter configuration and the lack of sails on the spars. I won’t try to gloss over the amazing wonders, and challenges, that have given this season its unique twists. A few short sentences can’t sum it all up. I have been marveling with wonder at the amazing people and places we have been. While I will miss the bay very much I will also tell you it feels good to be ashore back with family and friends. These last few cruises were certainly challenging with weather systems moving through like a ball in ping pong match. The foliage is like nothing I have seen along the coast in years. My jaw hung open Saturday as Jack Frost’s magic spread far and wide across the entire Camden Hills. A photograph just couldn’t capture it all. The foliage on the drive from Camden to Appleton is astounding. So life here is good… no, great! We have just a few very busy weeks to get the boat put t...