Sailing Vacations
A Maine Windjammer

Good morning everyone. Sun rise this morning in Fort Point Cove is quite peaceful. The sky last night was clear as a bell and the sun dancing on the calm waters is blinding. Grab the sun block folks, looks like another beautiful day in Maine. We are working on our photography and learning about the natural history of the Maine coat this week. Last week was our 7th leadership academy with the fraternity Delta Tau Delta and once again they have done it with style. We ask them to push themselves through unfamiliar territory as we challenge them to learn enough skills to get the schooner from A to Z on the final sailing day. Standing bow watch, learning safe line handling and knots, steering, helping with the domestic chores, and navigation... all in a days work for these guys. And a little soul searching about lifestyle choices and leadership to top it all off at the end of each day. Then up again the next morning for a run ashore and an invigorating dip. I know it was a challenge. Than...

Good morning everyone. We have had a very high energy cruise these last 5 days. Aboard for a sail training experience have been the 8th grade classes from the White Mt. Waldorf School and the Hartsbrook Waldorf School. Heads, hands and hearts have been put to work in the culminating experience for each of these classes that have been together with the same teachers for the past 8 years. The close knit tenor of these groups was displayed in their remarkable ability to tack sails, navigate, and tackle all the chores associated with running a large sailing vessel. As these photos by Hartsbrook educator Jeff Kalman will tell you. These folks were busy! Have a great day. Be well. Do good.

Good morning everyone. Today we finish another Wooden Boat Sail Training Course. It has been an amazing week. At the risk of sounding like a broken record I am once again in awe of this week’s participants and how much energy they have put forth. Yesterday our final exam was more of a trial by fire than anything else. A brisk nor’easter blew through during the late morning and early afternoon. With a reduced sail plan and teams at the ready we beat out into the waves and had quite the sail. We never did get to our final destination but instead anchored earlier than anticipated in the lee of North Haven. I think most folks had their fill of excitement. We were singing sea shanties on deck Thursday night and so many of the songs dealt with the hardships of life at sea. What we have experienced, surging through the waves, and feeling the salt spray hit our faces, was better than any shanty. We have lived the 21st century version of the real thing this week. I don’t think the sail...

Good morning everyone. This week we are in sail training mode once again as we invite a group of adults to live as deckhands aboard the schooner. So if you ever wanted to work aboard a large sailing vessel when you grow up this is a chance to try it out without having to clean heads or stand night watches. In conjunction with the Wooden Boat School we are exploring “Schooner 101” with a varied group of sailors from all over the country. Some folks have plenty of small boat sailing experience and some are completely new to sailing. The challenge to being a deckhand is learning the ropes and learning how to work as a team to handle sails. Participants get a chance to get their hands dirty learning navigation and knots, sail trim and steering. At the end of Day 1 the students smartly tacked the schooner up into Mackerel Cove here on Swans Island and even learned how to sail a schooner backwards. (Backing the schooner three boat lengths under sail was performed in a closed course by ...

Good morning everyone. We are off and sprinting in very fine fashion. The crew is doing a tremendous job of pulling everything together. We just finished a very soggy cruise with a group of young adults from the Hartsbrook Waldorf School. I was so impressed by their maturity in the face of adversity. We had three straight days of rain, which I would call adversity for 8th graders, but these folks stood their watches in the rain without a whimper or a complaint. Our sail training program introduces all the elements of watch standing including standing a bow watch, sail handling and trim, knots and nomenclature, and steering. The domestic chores, galley duty and cleaning heads, are also a piece of the puzzle of shipboard life. The pictures here are from the last day when the sun finally came out and we had every kind of weather imaginable… sun, wind, fog… and even an afternoon thunderstorm. The students had sails down and the vessel secured in minutes and the storm tracked just to...

Good morning everyone. We were working down at the boat on Saturday with the usual gaggle of visitors checking out the boat. One young woman in particular was lingering and looking at the boats extra carefully. I asked her if she was interested in them and she informed me she worked on a similar vessel from the Chesapeake. She was on a short break before having to return to meet the schooner in Gloucester. We talked about the windjammers and all the Maine coast and she commented that almost every captain she had sailed with had cut their teeth here in the Maine windjammer fleet. That is an amazing commentary. As owners hiring crew we never know where our young charges will go with what skills we teach them. This week is our annual Wooden Boat School week. We are giving a whole group of people from all over the US and Canada the chance to play deckhand and learn the ropes. In conjunction with the Wooden Boat School we will be offering folks the chance to learn the soup to nuts of ...