Wind Jamming on the Maine Coast

June 2013

Although I grew up in northern New York state, my parents are both maniacs, that is from the state of Maine. My father, being an art professor and having long periods of the summer free, would take the family back to Maine to visit relatives and take us tent camping on the coast. A favorite spot was Camden where he would sit and paint watercolors and my sister and I would play around the docks, climb the waterfall, and investigate tide pools for marine life. This enchanting town was, and is, home to a small group of schooners that take folks out for week-long adventures. I expressed an interest, but didn’t meet the minimum age requirement of 15. Time passed, school and summer jobs pre-empted trips to Maine, and forty years later Beth asked me what I’d like to do for a vacation. Our son had just turned 15 and that triggered something in the back of my mind about schooners in Maine. A little bit of web searching turned up a site for the Maine Windjammer Association and three weeks later we were climbing the boarding ladder onto a ninety-foot wooden schooner built in 1962 named the Mary Day. With two masts, seven sails, no engine, and only a wood stove for cooking, she would be home for the next six days. We shared the Mary Day with a crew of eight, nine other passengers and the ship’s bob-tailed cat. Her Captain and owner, Barry King, was welcoming and proved not only to be a talented seaman, but a gracious and entertaining host. We settled into our cabin; tiny, by cruise ship standards, or spacious compared to sailboats we’ve owned and spread out the coats, sea boots and all the other gear we had in preparation for a week on the water in June.

Monday morning the Jon Boat was lowered and its diesel engine pushed us through the crowded harbor and out into Penobscot Bay. As soon as we cleared the moorings the boat was back in davits and we had our first experience raising the seven sails that would power us on our adventure. Sea chanteys such as “I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Weiner” had us all in stitches as we hauled on the halyards to raise the peak and throat of the two big gaff timbers.

We settled into the routine of rising after the crew pickled the decks to have hot coffee at 0700 followed by breakfast at 0800. Sailing commenced shortly after breakfast and we would head for whatever Island Captain Barry thought we might enjoy and that the wind and tide might allow. Afternoon usually involved a trip ashore, returning for dinner at 1800. Evening was a time for socializing and impromptu music as the crew could handle strings as well as lines. Captain Barry played the guitar, deck-mate Jenny played the mandolin and we all joined in singing. Not many of us could keep our eyes open much past nine, so the boat became very quiet as the crew cleaned and pickled the decks before heading to their bunks for the night.

We anchored in a fiord, climbed a mountain, explored a garden on a hillside, walked to a chocolatier, saw bronze parts being cast at the Brookline Wooden Boat school, and climbed a hill on brimstone island where the only residents were sea gulls. Every day held unique adventures and the week ended much too quickly. The best endorsement may be that our self-proclaimed teenage computer nerd survived being disconnected from the internet for a week and said he would do it again. I can’t say enough about how great the crew, food and fellow travelers were. Here are a few photos to give you a feel for the trip.