Marlinspike #5

Winter 2015

Two Weeks Before the Mast

The New Ocean Classroom San Salvador

Windjamming on the Isaac Evans

$6.95 — about the cost of a Mai Tai

Number 5

Keep It Blue

MICHAEL RUTSTEIN

There is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as taking my family bareboating in the Caribbean. But when we returned from our last cruise, I sat down and wrote to a letter to the large charter company we had sailed with.

They’d done a terrific job, but I couldn’t get over their holding tank policy, which was essentially: “The tank is empty now. The valve is pointing overboard.

And we expect this tank to be empty when you get back, or we’re going to charge you.” Did I mention that there are no pumpout options in that area?

They expect their bareboat customers — many of them inexperienced “credit-card captains” — to access that valve on a daily basis during their charter, opening it during “passages” and closing it when anchored, docked or moored.

That’s going to happen on some boats. But not on others. And even wellintentioned skippers can forget, as they drop the hook and the kids all jump overboard and the adults get the rum out, that they’re supposed to dig down through the settee cushions and turn that valve or valves.

The policy is appalling, as is the lack of waste-treatment facilities throughout the region. Those of us who love the Caribbean need to take action to preserve the islands’ pristine environment. We can pressure the companies that do business there to clean up their act, and we can support those that are working to improve the situation.

Luckily, there are some smart and dedicated people addressing problems such as waste management, climate change, and overfishing. On our Facebook page this month we’ve linked to a dozen organizations that are working to preserve the marine environment in the Caribbean and elsewhere. We hope that all our readers will join us in supporting these groups with their consideration, time and money.

After all, messing about in boats won’t be nearly as much fun when the mess gets bigger than the boats.

Fair Winds,

8b

SEA shows how a personal approach can bear fruit

10 b Due Diligence

Efforts are underway to reboot the sail-training icon

14 b Voice Entre: Les Tall Ships Independence Seaport’s ambitious new exhibit

SPRING 2015 • NUMBER 6

Michael Rutstein, Editor & Publisher Cover Photo: Editing: Carrie Ott

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Michael Rutstein, Publisher

4 b Creating a Community

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28 b Boatyards 30 b Calendar 33 b Sailing Opportunities 34 b Boats, Bars & Beaches 40 b Tools of the Trade 44 b Job Listings 47 b Jen Buttery

L’Hermione fronts this year’s Tall Ships Challenge MarlinspikeMagazine.com

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Two Weeks Before the Mast

By MICHAEL RUTSTEIN Like many of our readers, I’m on a boat 150 days each year between April and November. So why would I pack my bags in December — when I could be reading the Sunday paper and watching football in my bunny slippers — and fly west to join the steel ketch Hawaiian Chieftain for their Two Weeks Before the Mast program?

Well, lots of reasons. I’m a schooner captain looking for square-rig experience. I’ve got an inland license and I’m looking for near-coastal time. I’m a wooden-boat guy wondering what steel boats are like.

And… doesn’t it sound like fun?

I flew to California on December 5 to join the ship. Travel was the biggest expense involved, since the program itself is a very reasonable $650 and there’s little call for spending money beyond that. If you’re already on the West Coast, the cost of this program is within reach for everyone, and scholarships are available.

I’d never seen the ketch or met any of the crew. My only interactions with Grays Harbor Historical Seaport, which operates the Chieftain and the Lady Washington, had been with the front office. They had e-mailed me a “Waistcoat Manual” full of useful info about the program and the ketch, and a sheaf of paperwork to fill out. But I located the Chieftain easily enough, docked in Sacramento’s Old Town, and was greeted by the mate before I even had a chance to hail her. In short order I was assigned a bunk, issued a climbing harness, and had signed the Ship’s Articles.

Joining a ship whose crew has been together for any length of time is a little awkward, especially so when you are a short-timer and an unknown quantity. Although everyone was perfectly polite when I came aboard, there is a certain reserve which I would characterize as: ‘Hmm, how’s THIS guy going to work out? Will he go aloft, will he pull his weight, is a he creeper, will he be a pain in our collective ass?’

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These are legitimate concerns on vessels this size.

During my time on board, Chieftain had a pretty full crew of between 13 and 15 people. While the skipper has a private cabin and the officers (mate, bosun, cook, and engineer) live together in the focsle, that left ten people bunking together in the main hold, a space about 20 feet square. There are two heads on board and just one shower. There’s not much privacy, so a little consideration goes a long way.

But if two-weekers have the social skills to live in a dormitory, and if they are willing to pitch in on chores and maintenance, they are welcomed. Because there is plenty of work to do.

I had chosen this particular two-week slot because it featured a 500-mile transit from Sacramento down to Long Beach. But long transits are the exception. Although short transits are common, most of the time the Grays Harbor vessels are making extended port visits, either together or separately. A typical day might involve opening the boat for public tours, conducting a dockside educational program, doing an “ed sail” underway, or heading out to engage Lady Washington in a Battle Sail. The rest of the day — which is to say, most of it — is taken up with the ship’s work.

After breakfast, morning muster, and chores, the mate and bosun organize the crew for projects. In our case, these included rust-busting, painting, splicing docklines, windowcaulking, renewing chafing gear aloft, and of course the never-ending stripping, sanding, oiling, and varnishing of woodwork. If you have skills, so much the better. If not, well, bosuns are great at finding work for you to do, and

you’ll walk off the boat with new skills and new confidence.

Along those lines, each two-weeker (pronounced ‘tweaker’ by the regular crew) has a checklist of skills and knowledge that they are expected to acquire during their time on board. Completing the checklist is important, not merely because it enumerates the skills you need to contribute to the working of the boat at the dock and underway, but because that’s how Grays Harbor will evaluate your fitness to return in the future as a volunteer or in a paid position.

Most of the items on the checklist are skills (such as knot-tying) knowledge (learning the ropes) or procedures (“this is how we do this on the Chieftain”). For example, the day after I came aboard, the mate took me up into the main rigging. We reviewed the proper way to climb the ratlines, safe places to clip in, negotiating the futtock shrouds to reach the maintop, and so on (trainees are encouraged to try working aloft, but not required to do so). Check, check, check. Back on the deck, the focus shifted to learning how to tie sail gaskets and other knots for working aloft. Check, check.

The next day I was allowed into the rigging by myself, and 48 hours later I found myself aloft, at night, casting off gaskets in a rolly seaway. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

THE TRANSIT Chieftain’s engaging captain, Eamon Kennedy, assured me that “there’s no such thing as a typical trainee” in respect to age, gender, or experience. That was certainly true during my two weeks. Our crew was evenly split by gender. There

The Friends of Windjammer Days in Boothbay Harbor, Maine would like to thank the following schooners for helping make a spectacular 2014 event:

Alert, American Eagle, Bowdoin, Eastwind, Heritage, Lazy Jack and Sherman Zwicker

The dates for 2015 are June 21-27, with the windjammers arriving for a clambake on Cabbage Island on Tuesday the 23rd and the Parade of Sail into Boothbay Harbor on the 24th. Interested in joining us for 2015? Visit our website:

www.windjammerdays.org or email windjammerdays@gmail.com MarlinspikeMagazine.com

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‘A’ Watch at sunrise off the California Coast

were three teenagers on board, four crew in their 20s, four more in their 30s, two in their 40s and two in their 50s. As to experience, both two-weekers and all of the deckhands had previous boating experience, but it varied widely.

Perhaps the area in which I differed most from other two-weekers was my focus on the long transit. That’s what had appealed to me, as a licensed mariner who has been sailing for 40 years but who spends most of his time taking tourists on two-hour day-sails. I wanted to get offshore, I wanted to be underway at night, and I wanted to make tracks. The Chieftain’s transit from Sacramento to Long Beach delivered on all fronts.

On Saturday, December 6, the day after I joined the ship, we departed Old Town and motored down the rainswollen, debris-strewn Sacramento River, under or through what must have been nearly a dozen bridges, to Antioch, where we docked for the night. The next morning we fueled and watered, pumped out, and continued motoring down river into San Pablo Bay. By nightfall we were in San Francisco Bay. Around 2100 we passed through the Golden Gate, and having snapped some photos I hit the sack, knowing I’d be woken at 0345 to stand the 4-8 watch.

That first morning watch was cloudy, dark, and cold.

There was a light breeze out of the south, so we were motoring into it with the staysail and main trysail set to dampen the roll. There were four of us on ‘A’ watch, including the mate. At the top of each hour he’d plot our position and check the radar while the rest of us stood lookout, did boat checks at the bottom of each hour, and steered the boat.

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Boat checks involved logging the engine gauges, checking the fuel level and belts in the engine room, counting the drips from the prop shafts — the Chieftain has two Volvo diesels — and checking six different bilges.

That first night, with the boat rolling and the diesels heating up the engine room, it was a little nauseating scrambling around on boat check. A couple of the crew seemed to be suffering from seasickness the first day or two of the transit, but nobody was in a truly bad way. And the crew had done a good job sea-stowing all the gear, so that nothing came loose.

Chris, the mate, had told us that the best thing about the 4-8 watch was seeing both the sunrise and the sunset.

Once the sky began to lighten, the time went quickly, watching the sun come up over the California mountains and seeing Michael the cook turn on the galley lights to start making breakfast. After the meal, though, I turned in for another couple hours of sleep. At sea there was no maintenance work being done. Crew were either on watch, asleep in their bunks, or lounging on the poop deck.

By our Monday afternoon watch, the wind was showing signs of working around to the north. A little after sunset the captain sent us aloft to cast gaskets, and we set the lower topsail. This was what I had signed up for — going aloft in darkness to handle sail! — but I have to admit I was less sure of myself in the poor light.

On our next morning watch, we spent most of the dark hours motorsailing and watching a line of fishing boats that we were slowly passing to port. One of the lights didn’t quite fit with the others, and after a while Chris began to think it might be the Lady Washington, which was joining us in Long Beach. He hailed them on the VHF and sure enough, it was Lady. She was under sail and steering to cross our wake and round Point Conception a little further out than we planned to.

With the first light of dawn, there was no sign of Lady — her running lights had slowly faded astern — but a pod of dolphins joined us for a time. A spectacular sunrise brought the first oil rigs into view, and we realized we’d be fortunate with our rounding of the Point, where the seas can be rough.

When we came on deck for our afternoon watch, the captain had set the main course, and the Chieftain was bounding along in a following northwest breeze. Her motion was lively, but it was a gorgeous day and all hands were enjoying the perfect weather. The next 24 hours as we ran down the Santa Barbara Channel was some of the most enjoyable sailing I’ve experienced. We were making such good time that the captain decided we would make a stop in Catalina, which we did Wednesday afternoon after another visit from the dolphins.

Twin Harbors on Catalina was interesting — sort of like what the Virgin Islands might look like if the Park Service was in charge — but with rain in the immediate forecast, we weighed anchor after a three-hour visit and motorsailed the 20 miles to Long Beach, passing the Queen Mary just as I

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those first two days it was opening the boat for public tours.

Chieftain provides the crew with period clothing — “funnies” — and three or four people are detailed to deal with the public while elsewhere, maintenance goes on. Once trainees have a grasp of the Chieftain ’s history, stats, and programs, LOS ANGELES they can be part of that team. We did not have a lot of visiAs exciting as the transit was, everyone was pleased to be tors in Long Beach, but those that came on board had all the usual questions: Do you live on board? How long is she? Are tied up in Long Beach and to take a hot shower and sleep those cannons real? Can you take a picture of us at the the night through. Thursday morning we were allowed to wheel? sleep in an extra hour, and then we returned into the dockLater in the week we had an underway education sail side routine of breakfast, muster, chores and boatwork, with scheduled. Since short ed sails are a part of my own business, an occasional bout of sail-training. One day we spent two I was interested to see how the Chieftain’s crew would hanhours setting and striking the squares at the dock, with the dle a longer sail on a much more complex vessel. I was crew taking turns calling out the evolutions from the quarimpressed with their program. With all those sails, every stuterdeck. That was hugely helpful in seeing the big picture.

dent had an opportunity to haul away on the halyards. The Each day our routine was broken by some event, and on program was well-choreographed, alternating between hands-on time and teaching time, and the three stations were well-supplied with props. Most importantly, the crew teaching those stations had an excellent grasp of the material and seemed to be enjoying themselves.

The Battle Sails, however, are the highlight of the Grays Harbor schedule.

The only Battle Sail during my two weeks fell on my day off, but Captain Johann Steinke of the Lady graciously invited me on board so I could see how the other half lived — and get some beauty shots of Chieftain.

The Battle Sails are a treat not to be missed. Any time two traditional vessels are sailing in company, it makes it that much more enjoyable. But in this case, the desire to outsail and outmaneuver the other vessel, with the constant setting, striking and trimming of sails, takes it up three notches.

And then there are the cannon.

Each vessel is armed with two threepound carriage guns and two large swivels, manned by a gunner (KC on board the Chieftain; Emily on the Lady) who runs the deck, cleaning, loading and firing. There is a point system that rewards the ships for stern shots, bows shots, and broadside shots, but I’m not Gazela sure I understand it. At any rate, both crews were convinced they had won the Battle Sail that I was on. crichmond@allenif.com Last but not least, the work day An employee-owned company with offices in Camden, Rockland, Belfast and Southwest Harbor, Maine. usually ends around 1700 with muster finished washing the dinner dishes.

We found Lady already docked at Rainbow Harbor, and her crew took our lines as we ended our transit — 70 hours from the Golden Gate.

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Continued on page 43 7

Up in Portland, Maine, a group of diehards is working to create a new Ocean Classroom from the ashes of the old In our last issue, Marlinspike published a 7,000-word article on the demise of the old Ocean Classroom Foundation, which ceased operations this summer after 20 years of programming aboard vessels such as the Spirit of Massachusetts, Harvey Gamage, and Westward. This month, Marlinspike publisher Mike Rutstein sat down with Margo Mallar, executive director of the group which hopes to resurrect Ocean Classroom as a one-boat operation. We spoke about the challenges of reviving this sail-training icon.

Marlinspike: Tell us what’s going on.

Margo Mallar: Once everyone at Ocean Classroom was let go, in the middle of July, I began pulling together a design team to provide some of the services the organization would need if it were going to continue. That design team consisted of people who were school designers, business people, and alumni folks. As it became clear the OCF was not going to continue, then we began looking at this as a business to see if Ocean Classroom was a viable business, if it could be resurrected.

The folks who were involved were not operations folks.

Our assumption was that the programming and the business model were not the issue. OCF had been putting out a fine product. It was the financial challenges that needed looking at. We were pretty scrupulous over the next two months, examining the business plan, trying to figure out if we could make it work. Pretty quickly we decided that it was possible, and by mid-October we decided that we were going to go for it.

A lot of that came from the purchase of the former Ocean Classroom vessels by Phin Sprague. He bought the three vessels and has committed to not only making sure that Gamage gets the yard that was planned for this last summer but that she gets additional improvements as well.

Phin has really embraced the mission. He has the means, he runs a boatyard, he has the wherewithal, he’s well known as a philanthropist, and this is something that is right up his alley. So with his purchase of the Gamage and his commitment to make it available to us for programming by next 8

spring, we thought this was doable.

MS: So it’s a one-boat model now, that boat being the Gamage. Phin is going to continue to own the boat and charter it to you….

MM: He is doing this until we can bring it on ourselves, if at some point down the line we want to go in that direction.

The folks who are involved—Phin and the head of our board, Cyrus Hagge—are veterans of the non-profit organizations around Portland. Phin is not looking at this as way to make money, but rather as a way to make the boat available to an organization on terms they can afford so that they can run the kind of programs that Ocean Classroom has offered in the past.

MS: And at some point he will sell you the vessel?

MM: I think he wants to, yes.

MS: That would put the responsibility for long-term maintenance onto your shoulders, and financing the big yard periods was always a major issue for the old Ocean Classroom.

MM: Yes, but that will be four or five years in the future.

For now, major yards and major maintenance are the responsibility of Ocean Phoenix, the LLC which owns the boats.

Our responsibility is purely programming. That’s our focus between now and June, when we hope to start programming: fund-raising, getting the organizational systems in place, making sure that we have development as our prime focus.

Development takes time. We’re not going to turn these corners overnight. We have to re-boot with development being a primary pillar of the organization.

MS: Development was always an issue for the old Ocean Classroom. What can you do differently?

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MM: We can address it in a systematic way. With the old Ocean Classroom it was highly personal. It was successful and not successful for the exact same reasons. There was a dedicated core group of people, including Alix [Thorne], who were the support behind the organization. We must cultivate this in the way that universities do—making sure that we are continually in touch with our alumni, and that our primary focus is fund-raising.

It’s ridiculous to think we can go to our older alums, people who haven’t been contacted in twenty years, and say, “Hey, we haven’t been in touch, but give us some money!”

That’s not what it’s about. There’s keeping in touch, making our case with a new group of people in Portland, and also to coordinating and cooperating with other non-profits that are working in the same arena so that we can support each other. We have a vessel and a lot of those folks don’t. They have programming, and that could be helpful for us.

It’s also about clearly articulating what we do, clearly defining our outcomes, and assessing those outcomes.

Historically, I think the approach to Ocean Classroom has been, like Potter Stewart said, “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.” I can’t really quantify what we do— we just know ours is a really high-quality program and it works. But that data-driven assessment piece is important, especially when it comes to applying for grants. That’s what I mean when I talk about development, and that needs to be a focus for this new organization.

MS: Who are the players in this new organization? Are any of the old Ocean Classroom staff involved? Is Alix involved?

MM: Alix, absolutely; we met yesterday [November 6] and she’s been very supportive. I think she’ll be out there advocating on our behalf. We have a couple of other advisors from the old organization. I’m the only member of the staff right now, but we’re going to have another staffer coming on part-time as an admin, and we expect to have a couple of people on by January.

We have reached out to many of the old Ocean Classroom folks. But one of the things I want to be careful of is over-promising and under-delivering. One of our more senior educators was at one of the design meetings—John Petrillo—and he and I have been talking, and I expect that he will come on and look at the curriculum. We’ve talked to

some of the former captains, a lot of the crew. None of the old board is involved except in an informal, advisory capacity. They’ve helped with some technical things. The important thing is that we have them there to answer questions. I think we have their good wishes and their good will.

MS: Tell me about the Chairman of your Board, Cyrus Hagge. From what I understand, he’s one of the guys that made the Old Port what it is today, he has served on a number of boards in the Portland area, and he has a reputation as a very successful fundraiser.

MM: He’s somebody who did a lot of experiential education when he was a kid, went back to USM later, started his own general-contracting company, and has become a major property developer in the Old Port. He and his wife Patty are active philanthropists, and they are very interested in making sure young people have access to programs that help build the character and skills that will allow them to be successful.

MS: Was he involved with Ocean Classroom at any point?

MM: Not that I know of.

None of the new board members, with the exception of one, were involved with the old Ocean Classroom.

Currently on our board we have John D’Anieri, a school designer, currently head of school at Harpswell Coastal Academy; Kristie Rabasca, former president of the Society of Women Engineers, an environmental engineer; Eric Oransky, a former student of Ocean Classroom, and since then he has been a mate, worked on a couple of programs for Ocean Classroom in the past, working with kids who are near, or trying to avoid, or are just out of adjudication; Peter Barnard from New Hampshire, a consultant to credit unions, has done a lot of interesting things; Jen Feeney, a business consultant who also worked for Outward Bound for many years; Jeremy Morton, a surgeon at Maine Medical Center who sailed on Picton Castle; Alessandra Turati, a branding and marketing specialist; Catherine Boysen….

MS: What’s your background? You were hired at Ocean Classroom right before the bottom fell out.

MM: I have worked on the water for most of my working life. I worked for an educational travel company right out

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of graduate school—high-end small ships, a lot of educational programs in conjunction with the Smithsonian, the American Museum of Natural History, and many colleges. I did a lot of tour management and cruise direction with them and some program design.

In Portland I got more involved hands-on for a couple of seasons, doing tours on Casco Bay, did a lot with alumni associations and got very involved with alumni outreach.

And that’s why when I first came to Ocean Classroom I was surprised to find that outreach didn’t exist. That lack I identified as an immediate opportunity for us to improve. We also have a number of other people on the board who have extensive experience with alumni relations and outreach.

I used to run an English-language program in Poland, so I’ve done a bit of that exchange thing, taking kids back and forth. I did some seasonal work in journalism and insurance, especially when my kids were younger. So I have a variety of work experience, but my background is primarily in educational travel and teaching.

With Ocean Classroom, I found myself in a position where all of a sudden, when things collapsed, it was like somebody handed me the baby and said, “Here, take care of this.” And it seemed for the moment that I was the only one around. I figured this was an opportunity to try and do something, so I did. I don’t think I necessarily have a mission, a vision, a passion. But there I was, so I figured, let’s see what can happen, let’s see if we can do something about this!

efforts, to keep the ships going?

MM: That has been solved, for the time being, in that we have built into our business model a set bareboat-charter rate for Phin that will allow him to accumulate what he needs to finance the regular yards. That’s factored in. It’s not negotiable. Our maintenance funds won’t be a pot of money that we can play around with; it’s his pot of money. So that’s good discipline that we have no choice but to adhere to.

MS: And he owns Portland Yacht Services, so his costs for maintenance are less. How many paying berths on the Gamage?

MM: 24, plus nine crew, for a total of 33. Some of the focsle bunks haven’t been livable in the past, but that’s going to be fixed.

MS: The arrangement with Phin Sprague could hardly be improved upon, from your point of view. But do you anticipate that the very public failure of the old Ocean Classroom will hurt your ability to market your programs?

MM: Program Director. After Alyson Graham had left in February, I think it was, there were a couple of people trying to do her function, and then I came on in May.

MM: For those of us in this industry it was a big deal, but outside that industry? Not everybody who would send their kids on one of our programs is aware of it, although I’m sure a Google search would bring it up.

Obviously we need to explain what happened, and what’s happening now. And we have plenty of time to accomplish that. Our plan is not to be running a semester program until the spring of 2016.

If we had a huge advertising machine, that would be one thing, but we don’t. Signing up 20 paying students, that’s lot to do between now and next fall, so we’re not trying to do that. But between now and 2016, I think we can.

MS: What are your challenges going forward, apart from the obvious—to raise money?

MS: What do you see as the annual budget of this organization going forward?

MS: What position were you originally hired for at Ocean Classroom?

MM: To raise money, and to do the programming, to do the schedule in such a way that it’s solid and consistent.

How do you plan your schedule so you’ve got time to run your programs and time to do maintenance and down time for the crew and all the rest of it?

I think there’ll be a lot of expectations, given that the name is the same, but it’s not the same organization. We have new leadership, a new employer ID number; we’re a new company entirely. This is an amazing opportunity to start over without any debt. We don’t have any debt at all!

We’re starting from zero, and that’s a good place to be.

MS: And we’ve learned that Ocean Classroom can operate its programs at a profit. But at some point, it’s going to be time for that big yard period. Can you put enough aside, can you raise enough money through your development 10

MM: About $1 million.

MS: What if another organization came to you, between now and the spring of 2016, and they had 20-odd kids and they wanted to run a program on board the Gamage? Would that be something you’d be interested in?

MM: Absolutely, we can do that. Realistically, the boat might be available to us in April, and ready for programming in June. Earlier than that? It’s possible. In my fantasy world, I’d love to run a program for teachers from Maine, to get them on the boat and show them what we do… but we’ll see if that happens.

We need people to feed the program, to get people interested in coming on board the vessel, and to my understanding, Ocean Classroom has never really had a commu-

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nity presence. We had an office, a physical location, but it was never like, “Wow, they’re part of our community.”

MS: That’s something [former OCF Chairman] Peter O’Neill and [former OCF executive director] Greg Belanger talked about—the importance of the move to Portland, and how that had the potential to solve some of the problems that plagued the old organization.

MM: Alix said the same thing. Boothbay was not all that it was cracked up to be, but…lesson learned.

When I look back on the 20 years of Ocean Classroom, it’s with great admiration and affection, and in my attempts to understand where mistakes were made, it’s not with any sense of judgment—it’s not with any feeling that I would have done any better. It’s nothing more or less than an opportunity to learn. I don’t know that Ocean Classroom could have ended any differently. It was just crippling, the debt.

MS: Have the banks in Maine learned a lesson about loaning money against old wooden boats?

MM: I don’t know that that was the issue. The bank made a mistake in not working with Ocean Classroom.

They could have worked with Ocean Classroom to restructure the debt, which would have been in their best interest, because when all was said and done, they ended up with the boats, and like Greg says, it’s like a dog chasing a car. What happens when you catch that car? You end up with a mouth full of hot hosepipe.

I wasn’t there, so I can’t really speak for either side in this, but my guess is that the banks did not come out of this as well as they hoped to, or as well as they could have. It certainly was not a very popular decision. Playing hardball with a beloved organization didn’t sit well with the community.

MS: Even if the bank had agreed to refinance Ocean Classroom, the end result would have been a one-boat operation, such as the one you’re seeking to re-form.

MM: A one-boat operation with a huge amount of debt.

But now the debt is gone, because the bank ate it. And not the banks alone. I know Alix took a hit.

MS: You’re definitely going to call this new organization Ocean Classroom, not “New Ocean Classroom” or….

MM: Ocean Classroom. We tossed around a bunch of ideas, but the thinking was if we don’t actually own the vessel, and if we don’t own that name, then we don’t have alumni—all we have is a mailing list. And we need to tap into those alumni, who have an allegiance either to the organization or the vessel; that’s important for us.

Forgiveness will come with a good operation. A lot of businesses have been through this. Bad things happen, people are ticked, but then when you get it right, it’s OK. Stay focused on the mission—that’s what we need to do. Stay focused on doing this in a way that’s sustainable.

MS: What’s on your to-do list these days?

MM: Get the website up, do the programming, finalize the discussions for possible programming next summer, do a mailing, get our collateral material, finalize the logo, print up some t-shirts, start reaching out to alumni, confirm the hire date for the person I hope will be our marine supervisor….

MS: JB Smith won’t be coming back?

MM: He’s definitely going to be back as an advisor, but we’re looking for someone full-time, in Portland; someone’s who interested in wearing many hats.

At this point we can’t have a full-time marine supervisor—we just don’t have the activity to justify that—so we need someone who is willing to do that job but who is also willing to do whatever else needs to be done: chief, cook, and bottle-washer. For everyone we hire in this first year, half their job is going to be development and fundraising.

MS: Where do you expect your first round of donations to come from?

MM: A wide variety of folks. Some of the donors who donated previously, some new ones. We’ve had some nice seed money that got us through the first quarter of this year through a very small number of personal asks; that’s not bad.

We have a lot of folks that are engaged and interested.

People who said, “I’ll throw a thousand dollars at that, I’d like to see that go.” We’re working on fundraising as a primary task for the next eight months alongside all the other things we need to be doing, and we need to raise a couple of hundred thousand dollars over the course of the next year. I think that’s doable.

MS: You’ve taken on quite a project.

MM: [laughs] I may be that dog with his mouth around the tailpipe! I guess we’ll find out. It’s a great mission. My feeling was that I’ll try as long as I get support, and there’s been a lot of support. It’s not my mission alone to carry.

There’s a lot of support and love out there for this organization.

Talking with Alix yesterday, we recalled that not long ago Ocean Classroom was running three boats and hiring other boats to run programs. The numbers are there. The money’s there. The interest is there. We just need to connect it all. b

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Programming the San Salvador The San Diego Maritime Museum is in the final phases of launching and fitting out their representation of Juan Cabrillo’s galleon, San Salvador.

Marlinspike recently spoke with Susan Sirota and Dr. Ray Ashley from the Museum about the programming that will take place on board the West Coast’s newest and most distinctive tall ship.

Marlinspike: You are building one fabulous boat. What are you planning to do with it?

Susan Sirota: While San Salvador is at the Maritime Museum, she will be open to the public — the ship itself will be an exhibit. People will board her and they will encounter the ship as if the crew has just stepped away. There won’t be any tech panels, it won’t be like an exhibit gallery, because you’ll be looking at a ship that has everything in its place, where it should be, in the areas that the public will be visiting. But because she is a Coast Guard-regulated operational vessel, there are other areas, containing modern equipment, that won’t be on display for the public.

The interpretation will be delivered through either docents or volunteers. We have a partnership with the Cabrillo National Monument, and we are supposed to have a National Park Service Ranger Interpretive Staff with the boat, even when it’s at the Museum.

There will also be exhibit panels that are off the ship, that will give people a context for exploration, the reasons for it, the context of why people did it, what they were looking for, what they encountered, what they thought they were going to encounter, as well as getting people immersed in the 1500 sense of science and technology and the cultural and world systems that the ship embodies.

That’s dockside. We’re not going to do school programs until 2016.

We are in the process of developing a distance learning program, similar to the California State Parks’ PORTS program. It’s essentially an instructor leading an live lesson plan about exploration. They will focus on Cabrillo’s ship and his mission, and who they encountered at different places and how that impacted the landscape today. That program is being developed, as well as an online resource, EXPLORE, which stands for Experiential Learning Online Resources for Educators.

Basically there are a whole bunch of tools: reading, resources, lesson plans that have been developed. Over 160 teachers have gone through our National Endowment for the Humanities Award workshops, a national audience of teachers who have developed lesson plans for elementary, middle and high school, and those lesson plans will then be showcased on the EXPLORE website for anyone to download and use.

In addition, we have two different paper ship models of San Salvador for people to create, as well as some classroom bulletin panels about the exploration, the building of the San Salvador and the conception of the project. We are developing a treasure chest of resources for educators or anyone else who is interested in the topic of exploration focusing on specific "Early West Coast" exploration.

MS: Tell us about the underway programs you imagine the boat will be running.

SS: The underway programs we have planned for are for people traveling on the ship on what we would call "legs" going up and down the coast of California. We have 17 other organizational partners and we will be visiting about a dozen different ports in the fall of 2015. We don’t have our exact schedule yet.

On those trips, we have an interpretive program in addition to the dockside program. The underway programs will be 12

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basically life at sea, what it’s like to sail that vessel, a galleon of that type. And that’s not going to be routine… San Salvador is just a different ship to sail. The rig is different and it’s unlike anything that we’ve had on the West Coast.

ence and the volunteers crew of museum members are supported by a small cadre of paid staff who lead teams of volunteers in maintenance projects. All of our captains are paid Museum staff.

Dr. Ray Ashley: Fortunately, we do have a corps of trained sailors. We have a regular regimen of sail training for crew that sail all of our ships.

Every other year for instance, when we take the Star of India to sea, we take 100-150 people out on the vessels. Now, with San Salvador, we will be able to teach people how to sail ships from four different centuries. I don’t know anyplace else that has that spread of maritime chronology in their operational ships. In operating them we are regularly training people on an ongoing basis — not just for demonstration sailing, or instruction in how to trim and maneuver the ships, but underway on trips lasting several days like the Californian has been doing for several years now and will continue to do.

MS: How much overlap is there between the volunteers who have built the boat and the crew that will be sailing the boat?

MS: How will people qualify for opportunities to sail onboard San Salvador?

RA: In some cases, participation is a means of our generating the revenue necessary to maintain the vessels. People will be paying to go sailing on a specific voyage, be it a daysail or an away trip lasting days or weeks. These folks would be considered passengers from the Coast Guard’s perspective, but because participation and learning is emphasized, we typically call these folks guest crew. They may come to us highly experienced or not, on a case by case basis, and some ultimately decide to join the museum, join the regular crew and enjoy a long-term relationship with the ships and the institution.

Our regular volunteer crew is composed of museum members, most of them local residents, who are typically with us for an extended period, in some cases years, and they are the ones who maintain as well as sail the ships. Over the course of their experience they are presented with a host of learning opportunities, formal and informal, that allow them to continue acquiring skills and take on ever more important responsibilities, both in maintaining the fleet and in operating it. The background knowledge, skills, and capabilities specific to every job description on every ship is organized within a qualification system, documented within the training materials (texts and videos), and tested regularly. The system itself is constantly reviewed and amended in an ongoing process.

Finally, guest crew sailing with us for a learning experi-

RA: There are a lot of volunteers that have worked on the ship — approximately, 400 I believe. About twothirds of the skilled labor that’s gone into her is volunteer labor. Of those people, some of them just like building things and once the ship is finished, that’s it! They’re really not that interested in sailing it. Others have been members of our volunteer crew for a long time, and others were just drawn to this project and joined the Museum for that purpose, and we’d love it if all of them stayed with us. And then there is a third category of people that do expect to go sailing. They want to join the crew. Some of them have come over and sailed on the other ships while the construction of the San Salvador has been ongoing.

MS: I realize you don’t have a COI yet, but I am sure you have some idea of what that COI might be that you are going to go for, and maybe you can tell me how that would break down. How many people do you think it will take to sail that vessel, how many trainees do you think you could have on each trip?

RA: It’s a vessel of about the same size as the Californian and like Californian measures in at just under 100 tons. So if that COI is consistent, she will be certified, I anticipate, to carry 49 passengers. The minimal manning requirements, which is the number of people you need simply to move the ship from one place to another, are likely to be a captain and four, though that is officially yet to be determined. To operate the vessel at sea, for any length of time, we are looking at about 12 regular, qualified crew.

MS: Although the Coast Guard might not be cognizant of the fact that a galleon takes more people to run than a schooner, you guys understand that.

RA: We do, and those differences will become apparent soon enough. However, keep in mind that the San Salvador carries less sail area than the Californian, and with the exception perhaps of the lateen mizzen, the forces

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MS: Do you see any opportunities for San Salvador to travel south of the border, or north of the border?

RA: Probably at some point we will re-create the entire voyage. In 1542 Cabrillo left from a place called Navidad, which is near present-day Manzanillo, and the Mexican government is very interested in such a project. So far as going farther, to a large extent because the people of California have funded the construction of the ship, taking her outside the waters of the state for an extended period isn’t something that were presently contemplating, and moreover, the route she’s allowed will be specified by her COI.

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MS: Nowadays, people approach the Age of Discovery differently than in the past. Not everybody sees the European expansion as a triumph. Many people feel we need to consider the experiences of the Native Americans, and of course, for them this period was a very different story.

How is that going to figure in the way you interpret Cabrillo’s voyage?

RA: I understand your question, and it’s something we have been considering from the very beginning. Clearly the story we invoke was not a happy story for everyone, and it was never our intension to present the San Salvador purely as a Eurocentric triumphalist symbol. We know that the period she represents was troubled and violent, but we are also cognizant of that moment in time being extraordinarily important in shaping the world we live in now.

Until the beginning of the early modern era and the advent of ships capable of extended voyaging, the various branches of humanity had been separated by oceanic barriers for thousands of years. That joining of humanity — the change from several world systems to a single one — was RICHARD A. MEYER enormously traumatic and still is. While we can find inspiration in some parts of the story, there was also human tragedy on an unprecedented scale.

Some historians believe that when Cabrillo was sailing along the California coast, the population of the Americas numbered between 50 and 70 million people, about a fourth of the world’s population. By 1602, when Sebastian Viscaino sailed the same route, perhaps as much as 90% of that population was gone, almost entirely from succumbing to disease brought into the Americas by European contact.

The most interesting stories are always complex, and in this case there are elements that are violent, heroic, tragic, and strange, but most of all significant – no moment in human history was more so. We realize that descendants of the people that Cabrillo encountered in 1542 are with us still, and the preservation of their identity and culture is also

www.seahistory.org (800) 221-NMHS (6647) ext. 0

imposed on her rig should in some respects be easier to manage.

For example, the Californian’s mainsail is larger than any other sail in the Museum’s fleet, including Star of India.

But yes, with more yards and braces, some evolutions will naturally take a few more people, which considering the kind of learning opportunities we hope to provide, we look forward to.

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a story of triumph over adversity and a legacy of that first contact. They provide the human continuity to this story that allows us to claim our harbor as one of the sacred places of the American landscape where we can say “America also began here,” that American history isn’t simply a projection of the Atlantic world, that there is a Pacific narrative which influenced our history from the beginning. San Salvador sailed into San Diego Bay 78 years before the Mayflower raised Cape Cod, and 65 years before Susan Constant entered the Chesapeake.

MS: Do you have a launch date?

RA: You would think so at this point [early December], wouldn’t you? But there are still some technical hurdles that we have to overcome before we can set a firm date. It is bizarre, but we have spent vastly more time figuring out where to take the ship for an hour to launch it, than we did to locate a space to spend four years in building it.

Technically, we could launch the ship now, but we’re getting more work done in the shipyard than we would be able to accomplish at the museum, so at this point it’s not actually delaying the completion of the ship by delaying the launch. But we’re quickly approaching a point where that won’t be true anymore.

MS: Are we still talking about a giant Army Corps of Engineers crane coming and picking the boat up and placing it in the water?

RA: There is one scenario with a crane, not an Army Corps of Engineers crane, perhaps, but a big one, lifting from her present location into the water at high water. It’s not just the weight, which is about 133 tons at launch — it’s the reach. Can you get something close enough to the water’s edge, that’s strong enough to bear the weight, that can reach to deep water? You would think that there would be lots of places like that which we could get to, but not so much, it turns out.

Another alternative is to take her down Harbor Drive to Broadway Pier, close to the Museum, approximately two miles down the road, where she becomes a pretty big trailer boat, and launch her there with a floating crane. Both scenarios cost about the same amount of money; both of them still have technical difficulties yet to be resolved. The goingdown-the-road-scenario would likely draw the most attention, but we are working both possibilities. b Throughout our first year of publication, Jerry Soto has generously allowed us to use his spectacular photos of San Salvador and Swift of Ipswich. To see all of Jerry’s photos, visit http://jgsoto.smugmug.com/Boats

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Windjammer We A fall weekend on Penobscot Bay, sailing a traditional schooner without any of the attendant responsibilities. What a treat!

This fall the first mate and I tried something we’ve always wanted to do — we went for a cruise on one of Maine’s windjammers. We’d sailed with the now-defunct Windjammer Barefoot Cruises in the Caribbean, and those were some of the best vacations we ever had. We really wanted to see what that experience would be like in Maine.

For starters, we booked a four-night trip through the Maine Windjammer Association (www.sailmainecoast.com), and nothing could have gone smoother. The schooner we chose, the Isaac H. Evans, promptly sent us a packet with lots of useful info about what the trip would be like and what to pack.

We drove up to Rockland from Massachusetts — a pleasant drive in the fall with no traffic and plenty of enticing stops, from retail outlets to lobster shacks. Other guests flew into Boston or Portland and drove up. By evening we had all arrived at the picturesque North End Shipyard.

The Shipyard is home to two other members of the Maine Windjammer Fleet, Heritage and American Eagle. Like the Evans, they offer a variety of different sails each season. The Evans offers everything from lunch and dinner sails to six-night cruises. Theme trips include races and festivals with the rest of the fleet; pirate, music and wildlife cruises; and much more.

Every boat is unique, every captain is unique, and truly each has something different to offer.

That first night, we went aboard for a meet-and-greet with Capt. Brenda Thomas and the other guests, had dinner on the town, and settled into our small cabin.

Our double bunk itself was big and comfortable, but this is a 19th-century schooner, not a cruise ship. There’s just room enough for one person at a time to change their clothes. And given the size of the cabins and their proximity to one another… what’s a nice way to say this? It might not be the right setting for a young couple’s honeymoon!

Our first morning we were up bright and early, with coffee and tea served at the stroke of 7:15, as promised, and breakfast at eight. Of course everything tastes better on a boat, but still we never ceased to be surprised and gratified by the delicious hot meals that Wally served up from the cast-iron Glenwood stove in the focsle.

The captain may be in charge, but the cook is everything to a windjammer, and the Evans was well served in that

The Maine windjammer ISAAC H. EVANS rests at anchor off Middle Island in Penobscot Bay as the crew and guests indulge themelves in a lobster bake ashore

Weekend

ALL PHOTOS M. RUTSTEIN

Lobster bake!

respect. Not only did we enjoy three hot meals a day (hot being the operative term in mid-September) but there were afternoon snacks and wonderful baked treats for dessert — the special province of Capt. Thomas, whose shortbread dessert topped with chocolate schooners and apple rose tarts are show-stoppers.

The only complaint I had about the Caribbean windjammers was that the different-island-every-day schedule allowed for very little real sailing. Not so in Maine! The Evans is engineless, and although Capt. Thomas used the yawl boat to get off the dock, we hadn’t even cleared the breakwater before we were setting sail in a light westerly breeze. The Evans sets a main topsail and two headsails, and with just five crew, the passengers are integral in raising all this canvas. It was just the right amount of work to build up an appetite for the next meal. The rest of the morning was spent in a leisurely reach through the islands of Penobscot Bay, with the occasional sighting of a seal or a pod of dolphins.

The light airs that first day left plenty of time to get acquainted with the crew. It will not surprise any reader of this magazine to learn that the crew were as interesting as the boat — built for oystering in 1886, and now a National Historic Landmark — and maybe more so.

They were all accomplished sailors, of course. Capt.

Thomas has been working on windjammers for over twenty years, becoming, in her own words, “just as happy and confident with a paintbrush as I am with a wrench, saw, mop, computer keyboard, multi-tester, caulking iron, welding rod, fork truck, or hammer.”

Her competence and experience were obvious. It was a pleasure to watch her and the mate lead the crew, which had not been together long, through the setting & striking of

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Guests celebrating a wedding anniversary with champagne

sails and the handling of the anchor with a minimum of fuss.

Jason the young mate is a cross-country ski instructor who was new to the Evans and had worked his way up to mate over the course of the summer. Wally the cook is an old salt who’s done deliveries all over the world, has great stories to tell, and is planning a circumnavigation. Jazz the animal-loving deckhand had cut her teeth on the Kalmar Nyckel. Like everyone else who’s learned the ropes on that fine vessel, she wants to soak everything with Penetrol.

Mike, the volunteer deckhand, was earning sea time so as to get back his captain’s ticket. He had formerly served as mate on windjammers and on the sail-training vessel Te Vega, and had an impressive repertoire of sea chanteys and RICHARD A. MEYER folk music, all sung in a fine baritone.

By late afternoon we dropped the big hook off Middle Island. The crew immediately set about organizing a lobster bake. Capt. Thomas confided that the lobster bake is her favorite part of the trip, even though she estimates she’s done 600 of them. During the preparations, my new friend Jeremy and I rigged the sailing dinghy Rebecca and tacked around the anchorage.

Later that night, after lobster, corn on the cob, hot dogs, hamburgers, s’mores, and who knows what else, we dug into the cooler — the Evans stocks a large cooler with ice for its BYOB guests — and got to know our fellow passengers a bit better.

Although Capt. Thomas has two young children and the Evans prides itself on being family-friendly, welcoming all sailors over the age of six, this fall trip turned out to be strictly 40+. Although the guests came from all over — New York, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Massachusetts and Maine — it quickly proved to be a sympatico group, and everyone talked easily and swapped beverages. When it was time for bed, soapstone bedwarmers heated up on the galley stove made sure that nobody got cold feet.

The next day began with light showers, but by lunch the rain had stopped and the crew, assisted on the manual windlass by a few of the guests, plucked up the anchor. The Evans close-reached across to Camden in a southerly breeze, tacked, and reached back through the islands en route to Marsh Cove, where we anchored just at dusk. Running

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Rockport Light; the author rigging the sailing dinghy along the shore of North Haven really brought home what a gorgeous place Penobscot Bay is, and how devoid of traffic after Labor Day. There are literally hundreds of anchorages in the region. Capt. Thomas estimates she drops the hook in 50 or more different spots each season, thanks to the relatively shallow 6’ draft of her schooner.

We experienced this beauty again the next day, when we profited by the still, sunny morning to launch the rowing dinghy Daniel (Rebecca and Daniel were the children of a previous owner) and the kayak to explore the cove. The first mate paddled over to Hog Island to search for rocks, and our new friend from Oklahoma gave the kayak a try.

Eventually we got underway. The Bay was calm and the wind was light, and I seized the opportunity to go aloft.

Like the Evans herself, the rig with its two massive Douglas Fir masts was reassuringly solid. The passengers took turns clambering into the double-wide hammock which hangs from the Evans’ stern davits. The hammock is not only comfortable enough to fall asleep in (just for a minute, I swear); it’s a perfect symbol of the Evans’ laid-back atmosphere.

“We don’t claim to be the oldest, the newest, or the fastest windjammer,” says Capt. Thomas. “We’re simply a very comfortable, homey schooner from the Golden Era of sail.”

Later, the breeze picked up and we had long, close reach over to Rockport, with many hands taking a turn at the wheel. The Evans handles easily, tempting us to steer from the rocking chair that sits by the wheel.

During the long reach we had two of the other windjammers in sight. I hoped the skipper would run down to them, to sail in company for an hour, but as usual she knew best — by holding our course, we barely got into Rockport before sunset, passing the handsome lighthouse (exhaustively photographed by the guests) and anchoring a boat length off the rocky shore.

That night, after a typically excellent dinner — I can’t remember if that was the chicken cordon bleu, or the lobster-stuffed halibut — the crew put on a show for us. The

highlight was Jason the mate, appearing as a buxom mermaid, but one and all had a chance to contribute their mite.

Unfortunately, I forgot the words to the shanty I launched into, but at least the two verses I remembered were delivered in a fine roar.

The last day of the trip again dawned sunny and clear, and a westerly sprang up to carry us along the coast to Rockland. We struck sail as we passed the breakwater, and twenty minutes later Capt. Thomas laid us alongside at the North End Shipyard with practiced ease.

But Capt. Thomas is the first to admit that operating a windjammer isn’t easy.

“Owning a windjammer involves more than just sailing.

Essentially, I have several jobs: electrician, carpenter, plumber, janitor, teacher, painter, camp counselor, and businesswoman.”

And no matter how well she does those jobs, she has no control over the weather — or the stock market. The Great Recession put many boats on their beam ends, and Maine’s windjammers were no different. Thomas says that the years of the recession were difficult ones, and some of her plans had to be put on hold.

Undaunted, the Evans sails on, one of eight members of the Maine Windjammer Association (seven schooners and a steel ketch) that even now are preparing for the 2015 season.

“Everyone always asks, ‘What do you do in the winter?’

Thomas says. “Even though we sail for just over four months of the year, the business is a year-round commitment.

“There’s website maintenance, brochures to design, stuff, and distribute, phones to answer, bulk mailings to sign, seal, and send, correspondence, tax preparation, PR and advertising — in addition to all the boat maintenance, sanding, painting, and varnishing.”

No doubt about it, it’s a lot of work — but someone has to do it, so that we spoiled guests don’t have to. For those of us lucky enough to experience a Maine Windjammer vacation, it’s all about great food, great sailing, and great people. b

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The Fine Art of Tall Ships Gunnery

PHOTO: BOB HARBISON

This month, Marlinspike reached out to a handful of vessels that are known for having—and firing—cannon. We received responses from Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftain, which are well known for the Battle Sails they hold up and down the Pacific coast each summer, and from Lynx and Fame, which both represent armed schooners active during the War of 1812.

Q. Tell us about the cannon on your vessel.

Avio Brooklyn, Lady Washington: We have two threepounder deck guns, as well as two one-pounder swivels. The gun ports for the deck guns are on the after part of the main deck, just about amidships, and the swivels have multiple mounting points on the rails surrounding the quarterdeck. Éamon Kennedy, Hawaiian Chieftain: We have four three-pound deck guns in carriages located two per side on our main deck. They are cast iron with a steel sleeve in the barrel. In addition, we have two swivel guns mounted in our poop deck rail.

Lori Berube, Lynx: We have four six-pound carronades and four one-pound swivels.

Mike Rutstein, Fame: The original Fame had two sixpounders, believe it or not, but we mount two swivel guns, one on each side, amidships. They’re iron guns with stainless-steel sleeves. They were made for us in 2003 by RBG in Connecticut and personally delivered to the boatyard.

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Q. In what circumstances do you fire them? How often?

LW: We most often employ our guns during battle sails, an event in which Lady and the Hawaiian Chieftain would simulate a battle, not only attempting to outgun, but also outmaneuver the other vessel under sail. These are weekly events, depending on the port we’re visiting. The guns are also used for salutes.

HC: Both vessels maneuver under sail, vying for optimal shots on the other vessel. Both ships will fire around 20 shots per battle. The Chieftain doesn’t use her swivel guns due to their proximity to passenger seating. The main deck is always cleared of passengers to maintain safety.

On our shorter public sails, we will offer a gunning demonstration and fire off a charge or two. We also enjoy firing a salute upon our arrival at a port.

Lynx: Every sail, and sometimes there are multiple salutes per sail.

Fame: Every public sail, we tell the story of the original Fame, a privateer during the War of 1812. We talk about the way warships, privateers, and merchant vessels were armed, and then we fire the leeward swivel. We’ve learned better than to fire to windward. Usually the first thing passengers say is “Again!”

Q. What procedures do you follow when firing your

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cannon?

When the gunner is to take a shot, he or she calls, “Prepare for gun fire!" pauses, then shouts, “Fire!” and touches off the gun.

At the end of the battle, the guns are wormed and swabbed and run back in. The remaining charges and priming powder are placed back in the magazine chest, which is then locked. The gunner calls “powder secure” and we resume normal deck operations.

Lynx: We give an educational gun talk explaining the use and maintenance, we ask that no one is within six feet and that no one is directly behind, and when they hear “fire in the hole” that’s the cue for covering their ears!

Fame: The loading of the gun is part of the demonstration, and I am usually explaining what I do as I prepare to fire. Kids especially are very keen to examine the fuse, the powder, and so on. When we fire the gun, we shoo everyone to the far side of the vessel and warn them to cover their ears, but often they’re trying to take photos or videos and don’t do it. I don’t wear ear protection, but I always plug my ears.

LW: Gunnery always starts with a safety briefing for both the crew and any passengers that may be on board.

Specifics about what areas are danger areas, as well as the strict no-open-flames policy, are outlined during this briefing, and the covering of ears during firing is also gone over.

Before any powder is brought out on deck, the guns are run out, and all auxiliary equipment is placed for easy access—worms, swabs, rammers, buckets.

After all that is taken care of, the call “Powder on Deck” is made as the charges for the day are loaded into the gunnery satchel, and then the remaining powder is resecured.

From there, it’s pretty standard. When ordered, the gunner loads the gun, by first worming, wet-swabbing and dry-swabbing (just to doublecheck that the gun was cleaned and all embers snuffed), then a charge is loaded by hand via the muzzle, rammed home and tamped.

Priming is accomplished by pricking the charge via the Q. What do you use for touchhole, and priming the powder, for fuse, for vent. wadding? Do you make up When the officer in cartridges? charge orders the gun fired, the gunner calls “Fire in the LW: Main charges are Fg hole!” and the priming charge black powder, Goex being the is lit with a linstock and slow favorite. No fuse in our guns, match. just priming powder, FFFFg HC: Before any powder (very fine grain) black powis brought on deck, our desigder. We make charges in alunated gunner will give the minum foil and don’t typicalpassengers a speech explainly need any additional wad. ing the tools used as well as HC: The Grays Harbor safety protocols the crew and boats roll their own charges BOB HARBISON passengers are to follow. made up of 1F black powder A call of “Powder on and a little biscuit powder LADY fires on HAWAIIAN CHIEFTAIN Deck” is made as the powder (for additional smoke) and during a Battle Sail is removed from magazine roll them in foil. chest. From that point on, our main deck is closed to pasRather than a fuse, the cannons are primed with 4F sengers until the powder has been locked away again at the powder and touched off with a slow match. end of the battle.

Lynx: Lynx makes half-pound cartridges using Single F For safety, the gunner dons eye and ear protection for Black Powder charges and fires using a friction pin. the duration of the guns’ use.

Fame: We use about an ounce and a half of Pyrodex The gunner swabs and loads all four deck guns, then and a fuse. The crew took a black-powder course where they pricks and primes the charges—punctures the foil and fills tried to persuade us to use aluminum foil or plastic bags to the touch hole with 4F powder. make up cartridges, but we didn’t want to be firing foil or The gunner lights the slow match, which is a three-foot plastic into the ocean all the time. We place the fuse, pour stick with fiber rope soaked in saltpeter solution. It’s basiloose powder down the muzzle, and follow it with a small cally a large punk. At this point the gunner calls all guns amount of wadding — half of a paper towel. If we tamp it “pricked, primed, and ready to fire.” down well, we get a good bang, and we feel the bits of paper MarlinspikeMagazine.com

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LADY WASHINGTON

towel have less environmental impact than the foil or the plastic would.

guns with a tompion (big wooden stopper) in the muzzle and grease the touchhole for long-term storage.

HC: After each sail, they are hosed out with fresh water and swabbed dry.

When not in use, they are run in and lashed to the bulwark, facing fore and aft. If we are expecting a transit with heavy seas, the gunner may fill the touchhole with petroleum jelly to prevent salt water intrusion.

Lynx: Constant maintenance—they stay on deck all the time.

Fame: The guns are always on the rail, so keeping water out of the muzzles and touch-holes is a job. Our crewman PHOTO: BOB HARBISON John Beirne made tompions and touchhole covers for us which work well, but occasionally they go adrift and he has to make new ones. We sand and paint the guns every spring.

Q. How you maintain and store your cannon?

LW: After use, the guns are scrubbed out with water, and sometimes a simple solvent. Guns are tilted muzzledown to drain, and then relashed to the rails. We seal the

Q. Have you ever had an accident while firing your cannon?

LW: Worst accident I ever had while gunning was get-

Marlinspike’s cover artist is James Williamson

www.jamesrwilliamson.com

Readers can find over 400 artwork images at:

FineArtAmerica.com Artist: James Williamson Artwork available on paper, stretched canvas, acrylic and metal — also available as greeting cards Enter discount code DJYNJM for a 15% Discount on all James Williamson prints from Fine Art America 22

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“Fire in the hole!” ting a finger pinched while trying to elevate the muzzle.

Beyond that, solid safety practices were very effective.

HC: To my knowledge, there have been no major injuries or incidents while firing our cannons. Our program and procedures have been reviewed and approved by the Coast Guard and are strictly adhered to. Every gunner is a trained crewmember and at no point is a member of the public allowed to fire the guns. This helps mitigate many of the dangers of black powder operations.

Lynx: No. Fame: One of the relief skippers bought some fuse that was very inexpensive, but it also burned unpredictably and it was thinner and did not fill the touchhole. The crew who was firing the gun had it go off unexpectedly, and powder shot back up the touchhole into his face. Thank goodness he was wearing glasses. He was OK, but that was a wake-up call for us.

Q. How does the public react to the cannon?

LW: Most folks love the guns, and a lot of the public are even more interested to learn about the history and

BURNHAM BOATBUILDING

process of muzzle-loading naval artillery than they are to see and hear them going off. Photographers love trying to get the perfect shot of a touchhole venting a bunch of flame and seeing the muzzle blast all in one photo.

HC: For the most part, the public are very excited about cannon fire, whether they’re up close and aboard the vessels or on shore viewing from afar. A couple of years back, the port of Ventura expressed disappointment that we didn’t fire a salute upon entry of the harbor. We won’t make that mistake again!

There are, of course, a few folks that find the loud noise surprising and upsetting. We attempt to be respectful when choosing where the cannon blast is directed to minimize upset reactions.

Lynx: They love it, they can’t get enough of the guns, unless they’re trying to catch a nap on the beach!

Fame: It’s a highlight of the trip for most of our passengers, no doubt. Other boats see us out there having fun firing our cannon and they’ve gone out and bought little guns of their own, mostly little shotgun-shell signal guns. One of the houses on Naugus Head has a gun, too. We never know when we’re going to be attacked. b

Photo: Mikael Carstanjen P. O. Box 541 / Essex MA 01929 (978) 290-7168 * haburnham@gmail.com

Indigenous, traditional vessels designed and built to pay for themselves.

Our customers are our best sales team: schooner.org in business since 1997

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Readers can find our cover photo and over 70 other images at: FineArtAmerica.com search for “Mikael Carstanjen” Artwork available on paper, stretched canvas, acrylic and metal * Also available as greeting cards *

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ADVENTURESS was built at the Rice Brothers Yard in East Boothbay, Maine. Designed by B.B. Crowninshield, the two-masted, gaff-rigged schooner was launched in 1913.

Her owner, John Borden II of Chicago, commissioned the vessel for his personal use to embark on an Arctic expedition to collect specimens for the American Museum of Natural History, with the particular goal of adding a bowhead whale skeleton to the museum's exhibits. The goal would go unrealized, however, and ADVENTURESS would move on — without Mr. Borden — to other endeavors, including several decades of service to the San Francisco Bar Pilots.

ADVENTURESS came north to Seattle in 1952, and today she serves as the flagship of Sound Experience, a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of Puget Sound.

Carrying more than 3,500 passengers each year on educational expeditions, the vessel has become an icon for environmental awareness and stewardship.

A New Look for Cape Ann’s Maritime Past

ALL PHOTOS STEVE ROSENTHAL

By Erik A. R. Ronnberg Jr.

Since late August of this past year, visitors to Gloucester’s Cape Ann Museum have been treated to a new look to its galleries. New objects join familiar ones in exhibits that are both visually exciting and informative. Seekers of marine art will find Fitz Henry Lane’s paintings, drawings, and lithographs in their former gallery, but in very different settings.

Those with a passion for maritime history and objects will find a spectacular lighthouse lens and a variety of maritime artifacts freshly displayed and explained, with more changes to come.

A year ago, following much planning and a successful capital campaign, the Museum closed for some major overhauls and repairs. The Museum reopened in late August with its entryway and first floor galleries completely transformed. The former Davis Gallery — renamed the Cape Ann Gallery — offers a spectacular introduction to the 26

Museum’s collections, driving home its mission to preserve the art, history, and culture of Cape Ann. Fine arts, domestic arts, and the fisheries all share this space in a harmonious presentation of paintings, sculpture, fine furniture and domestic wares, as well as a re-mounted diorama of Gloucester Harbor that was originally made for the Columbian Exposition in 1893. A special backdrop for the diorama is Fitz Henry Lane’s large painting of the Burnham Marine Railway, which mirrors the railway in the diorama.

Facing the entrance to the Cape Ann Gallery is the redesigned Fitz Henry Lane Gallery. The center of the gallery has three connected alcoves, each serving as part of a “period room” decorated with carpet, wallpaper, and furniture recreating a period setting for a Lane painting.

Closing the Museum gave the staff the unique opportunity to re-examine every object in the collections, compile

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inventories and thus gain an overview of all the collections.

This paid off handsomely when reinstalling the maritime exhibits by adding new material and information. These additions led to a new exhibit on Cape Ann’s coastal fisheries and a new place and labels for the Museum’s ballast cart — one of the Museum’s largest objects.

New exhibits with new objects means new labels, which leads to new research on the objects! As this task proceeded, a fresh problem arose: the usual labels told what the object was, but very little about what it did and why. This is where labels can become very long and boring, so it was time to try another approach. Enter Thacher Light.

A major part of the Museum’s renovation included the creation of a gallery for the Fresnel lens once mounted atop the south tower on Thacher Island off Cape Ann. This lens had been dismantled by the Coast Guard in 1980 and put on exhibit at the Coast Guard Academy. The Thacher Island Association successfully campaigned for the lens’s transfer to Cape Ann Museum as a permanent exhibit. A new Lens Gallery was created by enclosing a deck separating two wings of the Museum and equipping it with special lighting effects. A state-of-the-art video/audio display was installed, with seven programs to describe aspects of the lens’s design, construction, installation, and operation from 1861 to 1980.

Visitors have been enthusiastic over the lens exhibit and its video presentations, which has led to experimental use of a smaller video display in the north maritime gallery. A silent film made in 1927, documenting a fishing trip of the schooner Columbia, it has been an attention-getter since its installation. A larger, more elaborate video display to illustrate waterfront activities (rigging, sailmaking, fish processing) and life at sea (fishing, navigation, sail handling) is being considered by Museum staff.

While models make up the standard representations of historic vessels, two surviving Gloucester-built watercraft are on display in the north maritime gallery. The older, a large dory built in Gloucester by Higgins and Gifford, was sailed single-handed across the Atlantic by Albert Johnson in celebration of the nation’s centennial. The other, a sloop, built in Gloucester in 1900 by Archibald Fenton for Howard

Blackburn, was named Great Republic and also used for long distance voyaging. With her, Blackburn made his second solo Atlantic crossing in 1901.

Museums are more than collections and exhibitions, and Cape Ann Museum is no exception to this rule. Education is the objective, and there are more than just curators working to this end. The Museum’s education department is the most conspicuous agency for this work, but allied to it are volunteers who assist as guides for tour groups, as docents for specific topics, and as aides for programs in the Activity Room, and in outreach to schools. Others assist curators with collections, the library staff with books and archives, and management staff with special activities and with interaction with other museums.

Behind this beehive is a Board of Directors which oversees the broader aspects of museum activity and determines museum policies. It is in turn assisted by several committees (including a maritime committee) which deal with specific goals and long-term projects. For all this complexity, there is a strong spirit of camaraderie and unison of effort to achieve and to improve.

Given the dire situation of Gloucester’s fishing industry and the uncertainties of the future of its waterfront, the importance of preserving its maritime past becomes a matter of growing concern for museums and historic preservation groups. The Cape Ann Museum is paralleled by the work of Maritime Gloucester, Schooner Adventure, and the Essex Shipbuilding Museum. The preservation of Cape Ann’s maritime heritage is the concern of every Cape Ann citizen and every visitor to Cape Ann who appreciates its history. It will take their combined efforts, joined with those of other concerned organizations, to ensure its preservation. b Erik Ronnberg is currently employed as Adjunct Maritime Curator at the Museum.

The Cape Ann Museum is located at 27 Pleasant Street, Gloucester, MA. Open Tuesday-Saturday, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm; Sundays, 1:00 to 4:00 pm. Closed Mondays and major holidays.

Admission: $10.00 adults, $8.00 Cape Ann residents, seniors, and students. Children under 18 and Museum members free. The Museum is wheelchair accessible. Information: (978) 283-0455; online at www.capeannmuseum.org.

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MATTHEW TURNER

Educational Tall Ship continues to make rapid progress on their sail-training brigantine, Matthew Turner.

The vessel, when complete, will be operated by Call of the Sea, who has been running on-the-water programs since 1984. Matthew Turner will more than triple the organization’s reach from 5,000 to 17,000 kids each year.

Call of the Sea currently operates the 82’ steel staysail schooner Seaward, which berths 22. Seaward is currently preparing to head south from the Bay Area to Los Angeles, Cabo San Lucas, La Paz, and Puerto Vallarta, returning to the Bay Area in the spring.

Matthew Turner is being constructed in Sausalito, CA, in Marina Plaza, just off the waterfront in a historical shipbuilding district. The shipyard and Visitor Center are open Monday-Friday, 9:00-5:00.

For a live feed from the boatshed, be sure to check out www.educationaltallship.org. There is also a detailed discussion of the project’s processes and materials (with photos) on the WoodenBoat forum.

H Following a successful summer of programs aboard a chartered ship, the schooner Mystic, the SSV Oliver Hazard Perry will soon be completed and underway for the 2015 season. Her lower masts were stepped in September. The 28

topmasts, t’gallants and jibboom have been raised and then housed for the winter. Once complete, the rig will tower more than 130 feet above the water.

Below decks, the woodwork and bulkhead paneling is expected to be finished by the New Year. In the engine room, the sea water and fuel lines are being fitted, and the steering gear is hooked up and ready to go. The heating and fresh water plumbing are already on. And once the yards are up and sails are bent on, she’ll be ready for crew training and

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NONNI SANSOUCY

Coast Guard certification in the spring of 2015.

H The San Diego Maritime Museum’s full-scale replica of Spanish conquistador Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo’s galleon San Salvador is now expected to be launched in January. The house-moving firm Hansen and Son visited the shipyard in mid-December to size up the task of moving the 252,000pound vessel. Exactly how and when the vessel will be launched was still up in the air as of mid-December.

Construction of San Salvador began at Spanish Landing Park near the San Diego airport in February 2011. The $6.2 million vessel has been built almost entirely by a corps of nearly 400 volunteers.

During what remains of the construction phase, the shipyard will be open daily from 11-4. To view hundreds of photos of the construction (and pix of LAMI’s Swift of Ipswich restoration in nearby Chula Vista) go to http://jgsoto.smugmug.com.

H Work continues on the traditionally-built reproduction of Maine’s First Ship, the pinnace Virginia.

This fall, a couple from New Portland, Maine stopped by the boatshed with an offer of donated hackmatack for ship’s knees. The trees in question had already been pulled from the swamp in which they were growing, but that still left a lot of work to do for the Virginia volunteers, who arrived with a tractor, power sprayer, chainsaws, axes, chains and a handy ATV to haul it all around.

Virginia, the first ship built in North America by English colonists, was constructed in 1607-1608 at the mouth of the Kennebec River. During her lifetime, Virginia crossed the Atlantic at least twice.

The 51-foot replica of Virginia will be built to USCG Subchapter T standards. When the pinnace is complete, middle school and high school students will participate in

SAN SALVADOR VIRGINIA

COLUMBIA

programs that teach operating and maintaining a traditionally-rigged sailing vessel.

For more info, visit www.mfship.org.

H Updates on the Eastern Shipbuilding Group’s steel Columbia replica have been among our most popular Facebook posts all year, but all good things must come to an end. Columbia was launched in August, underwent sea trials in September, and was featured at the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show in October. She sadly no longer qualifies for inclusion in this space, as she is destined not for sail-training but for the luxury charter market.

Nil desperandum, however. A second hull is being built to the same specs.

Columbia II will be launched in 18 months, give or take, and ESG is actively looking for a buyer. b MarlinspikeMagazine.com

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To be included in future editions of our calendar, e-mail your event information to marlinspike1812@gmail.com.

WEST & SOUTH Council of American Maritime Museums LAMaritimeMuseum.org April 13-14. Annual meeting at the Los Angeles Maritime Museum.

Maritime Museum of San Diego, San Diego, CA (619) 234-9153 * SDMaritime.org April 19. Launch of the San Salvador, the Museum’s full-scale replica of conquistador Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo’s galleon.

Los Angeles Maritime Museum, Los Angeles, CA (310) 548-7618 * LAMaritimeMuseum.org April 13 -14, 2015. Council of American Maritime Museums (CAMM) Annual Meeting. More information available at http://councilofamericanmaritimemuseums.org/annual-meeting/ Texas Seaport Museum/ELISSA, Galveston, TX (409) 763-1877 * TSM-Elissa.org Passage to Galveston: The Story of Elissa, is presented every day on the hour and half-hour, in the theater. This 17-minute, award-winning documentary beautifully tells the story of Elissa’s discovery, purchase and restoration.

The San Francisco Yacht Club, Belvedere, CA (415) 435-9133 June 13. The eighth annual Great San Francisco Schooner Race.

Participants are encouraged to arrive at the SFYC docks in Belvedere Cove on Thursday before the race and stay through the weekend. The race takes place in San Francisco Bay and includes marconi and gaff divisions.

GREAT LAKES BaySail – Appledore Tall Ships, Bay City, MI (989)-895-5193 * BaySailBayCity.org The half-day Science Under Sail program encourages students to engage in real-world problem-based learning. Available from May to mid June and from September to early October.

Inland Seas Education Assoc., Suttons Bay, MI 231-271-3077 * www.schoolship.org ISEA's Schoolship program is a half-day science learning adventure aboard the schooners Inland Seas and Manitou. Students from 4th to 12th grade collect and analyze samples from the bay.

Spring programs run from early May–mid June and the Fall programs run from early September–early October.

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Erie Maritime Museum, Erie, PA (814) 452-2744 * FlagshipNiagara.org May 12-June 2. College History Consortium. The planned itinerary includes port calls at the major maritime museums and historical sites on Lake Erie, including Buffalo, Toledo, Put-InBay, and Cleveland.

Michigan Maritime Museum, South Haven, MI (269) 637-8078 * MichiganMaritimeMuseum.org This year’s Classic Wooden Boat Show will be held June 20-21.

Wisconsin Maritime Museum, Manitowoc, WI (866) 724-2356 * WisconsinMaritime.org May 15-17. 39th Annual Midwestern Model Ships & Boats Contest and Display. Modelers from throughout the US will fill the Riverview Room with exquisite models for the weekend.

EAST COAST Annapolis Maritime Museum, Annapolis, MD (410) 295-0104 * AMaritime.org The Museum's Summer Camp engages campers with the ecology of the Chesapeake Bay and the maritime history of Annapolis. At our waterfront location, campers will explore Back Creek and Annapolis through hands-on nature activities, exciting games, crafts and songs. One-week sessions start June 29.

Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, St. Michaels, MD 410-745-2916 * CBMM.com June 19-21. Wooden classics, vintage race boats, and other antique and Chesapeake Bay-related boats are coming to the Museum for the 28th annual Antique & Classic Boat Festival.

Clearwater Festival, Croton-on-Hudson, NY (877) 435-9849 * ClearwaterFestival.org The 2015 Clearwater Festival will take place June 20-21 in Croton-on-Hudson. Inspired by Pete Seeger’s desire to clean up the river over forty years ago, this event initially helped raise the funds to build the Clearwater, now a world-renowned floating classroom and a symbol of effective grassroots action.

Conn. Maritime Heritage Festival, New London, CT CTMaritimeFest.com Sept. 9-12. This year we are recognizing the Coast Guard as it celebrates its 225th birthday!

Herreshoff Marine Museum, Bristol, RI (401) 253-5000 * Herreshoff.org The Museum offers youth and adult sailing classes for the summer and fall. The mission is to teach the art of seamanship and the principles of sailing, as well as the design, beauty, and

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unique features of these classic vessels. All classes are taught on our Herreshoff 12 1/2s — 16 foot wooden sloops with jib, main & spinnaker — or our Sea Sprite 23 on Narragansett Bay. Historic Ships in Baltimore, Baltimore, MD (410) 539-1797 * HistoricShips.org June 11, 6:00-9:00 pm on board USS Constellation, Captain’s Jubilee: a seated four-course dinner with wine pairings in support of preserving and restoring our maritime heritage.

Independence Seaport Museum, Philadelphia, PA (215) 413-8630 * PhillySeaport.org Opening this spring: a new exhibit on the birth of the US Navy in Philadelphia, featuring a 102’ replica of the Diligence, a locally-built schooner which served in the Revenue Service and in the Navy during the Quasi-War with France.

attracts antiques dealers, collectors, whaling history devotees, and interested bystanders from all over the country and abroad..

North Carolina Maritime Museum, Beaufort, NC (252) 728.7317 * NCMaritimeMuseums.com May 2 from 9:00 to 4:00. The museum’s annual Wooden Boat Show features a variety of small wooden boats, historic vessels, nautical crafts, educational activities, boat models, traditional skills demonstrations and displays. Admission is free.

Peabody-Essex Museum, Salem, MA (978) 542-1609 * PEM.org More than two centuries of collecting have produced the finest and most comprehensive assemblage of art and objects relating to the sea in the country, including grand gold-framed oil paintings, drawings, ship models, marine decorative arts, tools, weapons, navigational instruments and ship and yacht plans.

Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, Vergennes, VT (802) 475-2022 * LCMM.org Thge Museum proudly announces its inaugural Lake Adventure Camps this summer. Each program offers experiential adventures for young explorers to discover our region’s rich maritime heritage and environment. Participants will work with our team of counselors, professional archaeologists, ecologists, divers, and mariners while learning new skills in and out of the water.

Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport, ME (207) 548-0334 * PenobscotMarineMuseum.org One of New England’s largest displays of classic small craft, with more than 50 boats on view in several buildings. The collection contains craft of every description, including lobster boats, peapods, dories, cedar/canvas and birchbark canoes, Whitehalls, racing sloops and more, all with a Maine pedigree.

Long Island Maritime Museum, West Sayville, NY (631) HISTORY * LIMaritime.org June 20-21. Annual Pirate Festival. Roving entertainment and live music!

Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME (207) 775-6148 * PortlandMuseum.org Through April 26. The Coast & the Sea: Marine and Maritime Art in America. Organized by the New York Historical Society.

Lowell’s Boat Shop, Amesbury, MA (978) 834-0050 * LowellsBoatShop.com May 17. Spring launch!

Strawbery Banke, Portsmouth, NH (603) 433-1100 * StrawberyBanke.org Two-hour hands-on workshops (11:00-1:00) allow participants to learn open-hearth cooking skills as they make and enjoy a traditional menu. Hearth-cooking workshops will be offered March 28, April 26, and May 10. Each workshop requires a minimum of 6 participants. Cost: $55 Members, $65 Non-members.

Maine Maritime Museum, Bath, ME (207) 443-1316 * MaineMaritimeMuseum.org Coming in 2015: a significant redesign and renovation of “Lobstering & the Maine Coast.” The exhibit will be a thematic expansion and upgrade of the existing exhibit installed in 1985 in its own 6,200 square foot, two-story building, just steps from the Kennebec River.

The Mariner’s Museum, Newport News, VA (757) 596-2222 * MarinersMuseum.org Through April 26: B is for Buttersworth, F is for Forgery. Solve a Maritime Art Mystery!

Mystic Seaport, Mystic, CT (860) 572-0711 * MysticSeaport.org June 26-28. The 24th Annual WoodenBoat Show. Last year’s show featured 11,000 attendees. Eight boats were built over the weekend!

New Bedford Whaling Museum, New Bedford, MA (508) 997-0046 * WhalingMuseum.org May 15-17. 27th Annual Scrimshaw Weekend. This gala event

US Naval Academy Museum, Annapolis, MD (410) 293-5275 * USNA.edu/Museum Highlights include Oliver Hazard Perry's famous "Don't Give Up the Ship" flag from the Battle of Lake Erie, a piece of USS Monitor, a video and light display illustrating the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the Rogers Ship Model Collection, the largest collection of 17th- and 18th-century models in North America.

USS Constitution Museum, Charlestown, MA (617) 426-1812 * USSConstitutionMuseum.org The ship is currently drydocked and closed to visitors, but the Museum remains open. In “All Hands On Deck” you can explore the harsh realities of life at sea and join USS Constitution just as the War of 1812 is declared. Discover the unique world afloat and the men and women that made history alongside USS Constitution. b Got an event for our next Calendar?

E-mail us at marlinspike1812@gmail.com

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A select list of sailing programs, summer camps, and passage opportunities open to the public.

WEST COAST Grays Harbor Historic Seaport, Aberdeen, WA (800) 200-5239 * HistoricalSeaport.org Two Weeks Before the Mast programs on Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftain.

Los Angeles Maritime Institute, Los Angeles, CA (310) 883-6055 * LAMITopSail.org Sail-training for school and youth groups.

Schooner Adventuress, Port Townsend, WA (360) 379-0438 * SoundExp.com Overnight programs for teens, adults, seniors, and families.

Schooner Zodiac, Bellingham, WA (206) 719-7622 * SchoonerZodiac.com Windjammer cruises in the San Juan Islands, April-October.

Schooners North, Friday Harbor, WA (360) 378-2224 * SanJuanSailCharter.com Cruises from the San Juans to Alaska on the schooner Spike Africa.

GREAT LAKES Appledore Tall Ships, Bay City, MI (989) 895-5193 * BaySailBayCity.org Day-sails, charters, educational programs, and overnight sail-training opportunities.

mid-May through early October.

Ocean Classroom Foundation, Portland, ME OceanClassroom.org Revamped organization plans to offer programming beginning this spring, and semester-long programs in Spring 2016.

Oliver Hazard Perry, Newport, RI (401) 841-0080 * OHPRI.org Week-long summer teen camps; educational programming for students of all ages; sail-training cruises for adults and families.

Schooner A. J. Meerwald, Bivalve, NJ (856) 785-2060 * BayShoreCenter.org Day and overnight Maritime Camp programs for children 13-17.

Schooner Alliance, Yorktown, VA (757) 639-1233 * SailYorktown.com Windjammer-style Caribbean cruises during winter months.

Schooner Ardelle, Gloucester, MA (978) 281-0470 * SchoonerArdelle.com Ed programs in conjunction with the Maritime Heritage Center.

Schooner Fame, Salem, MA (978) 729-7600 * SchoonerFame.com Schooner Camp. Week-long Schooner Camp sessions for ages 8-14.

Schooner Mystic Whaler, Mystic, CT (800) 697-8420 * MysticWhalerCruises.com Single-day education programs for youth, overnight cruises for adults.

Brigantine St. Lawrence II, Kingston, ON (613) 544-5175 * Brigantine.ca Sail-training programs on the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario.

Schooner Pride of Baltimore II, Baltimore, MD (410) 539-1151 * Pride2.org Passages ranging from two to 46 nights.

Traverse Tall Ship Co., Traverse Bay, MI (231) 941-2000 * TallShipSailing.com Education, day-sails, charters, and multi-day windjammer cruises.

World Ocean School, Boston, MA (340) 626-7877 * WorldOceanSchool.org Education programs on board the schooner Roseway.

US Brig Niagara, Erie, PA (814) 452-2744 ext. 214 * FlagshipNiagara.org Live-aboard sail training and Boot Camp weekend programs.

Schooner Sultana, Chesterton, MD (410) 778-5954 * SultanaProjects.org Weeklong “Chesapeake Adventures” programs for ages 11-14.

EAST COAST

Schooner Wendameen, Portland, ME (207) 766-2500 * PortlandSchooner.com Overnight trips for up to 14 passengers on Casco Bay.

Barque Picton Castle, Lunenburg, NS (902) 634-9984 * Picton-Castle.com Ongoing world voyage, divided into passages, open to all.

Liberty Fleet of Tall Ships, Boston, MA (617) 742-0333 * LibertyFleet.com Windjammer-style Caribbean cruises during winter months.

Maine Windjammer Association, Midcoast Maine (800) 807-WIND * SailMaineCoast.com Eight vessels offering windjammer cruises on the Maine coast from

SEA Semester, Woods Hole, MA (508) 540-3954* Sea.edu Accredited semester-at-sea programs for college students.

Sea/mester, Sarasota, FL (941) 924-2900 * Seamester.com Semester-at-sea and gap-year programs for college students. b

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b

In a Battle Sail held off Long Beach, CA in December, HAWAIIAN CHIEFTAIN under Eamon Kennedy tries to escape to windward while Johann Steinke in LADY WASHINGTON maneuvers for a stern shot 34

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b

M. RUTSTEIN

In late November, the Spirit of Massachusetts was hauled from Portland to her new home in Kennebunkport, where she is being converted into a floating restaurant.

The Raymond family of Arundel, ME purchased the 125-foot schooner this summer. She will be docked in Lower Village near the Raymonds’ other businesses: the Pilot House restaurant, Performance Marine, and the First Chance Whale Watch and Scenic Lobster Cruises.

“I’ve wanted to do a floating restaurant for a long time,” Dwight Raymond told Seacoast Online. “I’ve been looking for the right one for years.”

The Spirit of Massachusetts was launched from the Charlestown Naval Shipyard in 1984 and enjoyed a successful 30-year career as a sail-training platform, most recently with the Ocean Classroom Foundation. Spirit and the other Ocean Classroom vessels became available this summer when the organization went belly-up.

“She has sailed over 500,000 miles. She has been all over the place, to Canada, the Caribbean, Trinidad and Africa… she’s had quite a life so far,” Raymond said.

The floating restaurant is expected to be completed by the spring.

The decor will feature memorabilia from the schooner’s builders, former sailors and fans. Some of the items include advertising and booklets from the launch, photos of the boat at sea and during construction, pictures of the builders at work, blueprints and more.

“People from all over are excited about this and have been great, showing up with pieces of her history to share. Portland artist Jeff Herguth even made an eagle with a seven-foot wingspan for the stern... We’ve had people offering to help, just because they want to be a part of this,” Raymond said.

Raymond said there is another aspect planned for the preservation of the schooner.

“This won’t necessarily be the last of her sailing days,” he said.

“We are planning to keep her maintained as a sailing ship. Every three years she will be hauled out for maintenance. We are excited about all the possibilities.”

H The schooner Spirit of South Carolina remains in Charleston after two local businessmen, Tommy Baker and Mike Bennett, bought her at auction in June for $440,000.

The Spirit was built in 2007 for an estimated $4 million and enjoyed a short career in sail training before running into financial difficulties. She had spent the last two years sitting at the Charleston Maritime Center.

“I really had no desire to own it, but wanted the ship to stay in town so that the thousands who invested in her in one way or another could keep an eye on her,” co-owner Mike Bennett told the Moultrie News, adding that he could not stand the thought of South Carolina's ship becoming the “Spirit of” some northeastern state.

Bennett and Baker have hired a temporary captain to oversee the boat, and had the hull painted. They’re working on restoring the vessel’s Certificate of Inspection.

“It is awe-inspiring to stand on the helm of that boat,” Bennett told the News. “She’s in remarkably good shape. Even after they lost control of the Spirit of South Carolina, the South Carolina Maritime Foundation and volunteers did a great job of maintaining her.”

“We want the boat to visit other states with Charlestonians MarlinspikeMagazine.com

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onboard,” said Baker. There are also plans to offer an accredited Semester at Sea aboard the schooner.

Baker and Bennett will be hiring a captain and a director to run the organization.

“We see ourselves not as owners of this ship, but as custodians,” Baker said. “We’re preparing it for the future for the state of South Carolina.”

He foresees eventually turning the ship over to the state at some point.

“It belongs to the state. It’s not our boat,” said Baker. “If we get her well-funded and in great shape, it will be mission accomplished.”

H The historic schooner Ernestina-Morrissey (officially renamed in December) has secured funding for a two- to three-year rebuild which is currently underway in Maine.

Boothbay Harbor Shipyard was chosen to do the work in November over bids from Mystic, CT and Gloucester, MA. Ernestina-Morrissey was built in Essex, MA in 1894 as the Effie M. Morrissey and sailed as a fishing schooner, Arctic explorer, and as Ernestina, as a packet vessel between the Cape Verdes and the US. She was returned to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1982 as a gift from the people of the Cape Verde islands.

Ernestina-Morrissey spent the next four years undergoing a rebuild that earned the vessel and Captain Dan Moreland an award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

After receiving her Coast Guard certification in 1987, she worked as a sail training ship, living history museum, and goodwill ambassador. In 2005, however, she lost her COI due to her deteriorated stem, stern, and transom. The

fiscal crisis of 2008 hampered efforts to raise funds for a rebuild, and the schooner languished for nearly a decade.

This summer, Bob Hildreth, one of the founders of the Schooner Ernestina-Morrissey Association (SEMA), and Gerry Lenfest, who has had an interest in the ship since childhood, committed a total of $2.8 million to her refit.

SEMA is committed to raising $1 million, and the Commonwealth has pledged $2.5 million.

Ernestina-Morrissey, Massachusetts’ official tall ship, is managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation. When restored to service, plans call for the schooner to be used for training cadets at Massachusetts Maritime Academy (MMA) and also for educational and sailing programs in and from New Bedford, her home port.

MMA has proposed an $8 million pier project which could serve as a home for Ernestina-Morrissey, provide a harbor of refuge for canal mariners, and support both academy aquaculture projects and hydrokinetic studies along the Lshaped structure.

MMA cadets would live aboard the vessel during the fall semester, and the ship would sail during the remainder of the year.

H Amistad America’s debts total more than $2 million, including a claim by former executive director Greg Belanger for $139,000 in back pay and money owed to three board members who made loans to the organization, according to The Day newspaper..

Among the 50-odd creditors are Mystic Seaport, which says it is owed more than $45,000, former captains and crewmembers, and numerous small businesses.

Past visitors to Jost Van Dyke will recognize this shell-studded beach bar as Ivan’s, or as the rooftop sign used to say, “Ivan’s Local Flavor Stress-Free Bar.” RumShopRyan.com informs us that Ivan’s is in the process of being rebuilt and expanded. The new bar will be bigger, and include a rooftop deck. Hopefully they’ll hang onto the shell-covered style of the original establishment. The photo at right, taken in November, is courtesy of RumShopRyan.

Ryan is a young rummy based in Florida whose blog and facebook page are invaluable resources for those who, all things considered, would prefer to be limin’ in the islands right now, at some such place as Ivan’s. Which, it is thought, may even re-open in time for the New Year! — MR 36

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Amistad America, which lost its nonprofit status for failing to file federal tax returns, is now in the hands of a state receiver. Connecticut took action this summer after state representative Diana Urban pushed the General Assembly to call Amistad America to account for how it has spent $8 million in state funding. Her efforts led to the state halting its $390,000 in annual payments to the organization, a state audit, and the appointment of the receiver.

“I have no interest in Greg Belanger or anyone on the Amistad America board getting paid for not doing their job.

They should be getting in trouble, not getting paid,” said Urban. “We’re supposed to pay them now for messing up?”

Urban announced in November that she is preparing to introduce a bill that would require Amistad America to submit to a results-based budgeting report card each year.

Urban, who said she will continue her efforts to make sure Amistad America repays small businesses, said she expects the court-appointed receiver, Katherine Sacks, to get Amistad America back on course.

“I want to reestablish support for Amistad America because its story and message are very important to the kids and people of Connecticut,” she said.

The schooner is currently at Mystic Seaport, and reportedly has enough funds on hand to sustain operations through July.

H Plimoth Plantation and Mystic Seaport have announced a collaborative AMISTAD project to restore and repair Mayflower II, the full-scale reproduction ship owned by Plimoth Plantation. Work on the historic ship will take place at the Seaport. A cohesive restoration plan will be established in conjunction with Plimoth Plantation’s Maritime Artisans Program, led by the museum’s newly-hired Associate Director for Maritime Preservation and Operations, Whit Perry.

Mayflower II was scheduled to depart the Plymouth waterfront for Mystic Seaport in December.

As soon as Mayflower II arrives, work will begin on a multi-year phased restoration plan, honoring the ship’s original construction and using traditional methods with the goal of restoring the ship to her original state when she first arrived to Plymouth in 1957. Inspections in 2013 revealed that Mayflower II is in need of a major refit, which is normal for a nearly 60-year-old wooden ship. Recently, Plimoth Plantation completed some major repairs to secure a safe condition for the ship to continue operations on the Plymouth waterfront. These efforts were the initial steps toward addressing the long-term restoration.

The restoration plan will proceed through three phases:

Perhaps the highest praise for the Painkiller, and the truest testimonial as to the aptness of its name, is that my poor mother-in-law can only have one of these before she forgets the name and starts calling them “Brainkillers.”

There are a dozen Painkiller recipes, all with their devotees, as well as several different ways to garnish the drink. I was taught that a little fresh ground nutmeg is the correct way to top off this Virgin Islands staple.

But it doesn’t matter how you make it, or what you use as a garnish. A Painkiller in your hand is the simplest and best way to say: “I’M ON VACATION!” — MR

Painkiller

2 oz Pusser’s® dark rum 1 oz cream of coconut 4 oz pineapple juice 1 oz orange juice

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survey, document, and restore. A survey will be completed by Paul Haley of Capt. G.W. Full & Associates. Stone and iron ballast will be completely removed for the first time since the ship’s construction, to allow proper inspection of the bilges. The scope and plan for this winter’s restoration work will largely be determined by the needs identified once the ship is out of the water and the ballast is removed.

Mystic Seaport recently completed the restoration of its 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan, a National Historic Landmark vessel and America’s oldest commercial ship still afloat. The Morgan sailed on her historic 38th Voyage this past summer.

“Part of our mission at Mystic Seaport is to pass on the skills and techniques of traditional shipbuilding and historic preservation to the next generation,” said Steve White, president of Mystic Seaport.

The significant restoration of the 57-year-old wooden ship is scheduled for completion prior to 2020—the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival.

“Mystic Seaport is the clear choice for restoring Mayflower II. She will be in good hands with the Museum’s skilled craftspeople and shipwrights,” said Ellie Donovan, Plimoth Plantation’s executive director. “We greatly appreciate the enormous support for Mayflower II, especially from

for Schooner VICTORY CHIMES Three-masted schooner in the Maine Windjammer trade. 1900, oak on oak. Located Camden, ME. COI for 50.

Asking $1,200,000.

Schooner TIMBERWIND Engineless two-masted schooner in the Maine Windjammer trade. 1931, oak on oak. Located Camden, ME. COI for 20.

Asking $410,000.

AMERICAN EAGLE

Schooner HIGHLANDER SEA Two-masted schooner, formerly a yacht and a sail-training vessel.

1924, oak on oak. Located Gloucester, MA. Asking $2,000,000.

Schooner AMERICAN EAGLE Bald-headed schooner in the Maine Windjammer trade. 1930, oak on oak. Located Rockland, ME. COI for 56 daysails, 28 overnight. Asking $685,000.

Schooner UNICORN Topsail schooner, currently a sail-training ship. 1947, steel. Located Lunenburg, NS. COI 12 daysails, 6 overnight.

Asking $495,000.

Sloop PROVIDENCE Replica of Revolutionary War sloop, travels to tall-ship events and appears in films. 1976, fiberglass. Located Newport, RI. 59 GRT. COI for 40 daysails, 6 overnight. Asking $780,000.

Schooner PIRATES LADY Bald-headed two-masted schooner running sunset sails and Boy Scout trips. 1984, steel. Located Marathon, FL. 40 GRT. COI for 28 daysails. Asking $249,999.

Schooner HERITAGE Three-masted schooner in the Maine Windjammer trade. 1983, oak on oak. Located Rockland, ME. COI for 30 overnight. Asking $995,000.

Schooner VIRGINIA Two-masted schooner built for sail training. Laminated white oak frames with wana planking. 98 GRT. Located Norfolk, VA. No price listed yet.

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Monkey Point on Guana Island, to the northeast of Tortola, makes a pleasant lunch stop when beating up from Jost Van Dyke before settling into Trellis Bay or Marina Cay for the night.

It’s a nice place to swim with turtles.

Take care not to scare them and they are surprisingly tolerant of humans. There are also tarpon and the usual suspects that you can find around the coralheads like tangs, parrotfish, sergeant majors and the occasional puffer.

A quick swim through the coralheads brings you to a nice beach that opens up to the windward side of the island. A favorite pastime here is to collect the smooth, flat stones adorning the beach and stack them into little towers.

— Captain Cory Crowner, schooner Liberty Star Post a photo of your favorite beach to our facebook page, or e-mail us at marlinspike1812@gmail.com

the Massachusetts state leadership for ensuring a major part of the funding for her restoration.”

Mayflower II will be available for visitors to view in the shipyard at Mystic Seaport, allowing her to continue to educate and inspire the public throughout the restoration process. The shipyard is open to visitors during museum hours. If repairs go as planned, Mayflower II is expected to return to Plymouth in late May. H In August, just two months after being featured on the cover of Marlinspike #3, the schooner Virginia cut short her summer sailing programs and returned to Hampton Roads to be laid up and sold.

Her Board of Directors announced that “revenue from current operations and other sources has proven inadequate to support her current operating model... Accordingly, the sale of the vessel appears the most prudent decision.”

The vessel, however, has not been offered for public sale as of late December, and no updates have been issued since the summer.

Virginia is a reproduction of the last all-sail vessel built for the Virginia Pilot Association. The original ship sailed for the pilots from 1917-1926, training apprentice pilots in seamanship and navigation. The reproduction, built in Norfolk between 2002-2004, was designed as an educational platform, but with just 16 berths, the schooner has struggled financially. b Do you have news for Boats, Bars & Beaches? Send it to us at marlinspike1812@gmail.com

MAINE MARITIME MUSEUM Home of America’s Great Schooners Only at Maine Maritime Museum can you: 䡵

See the full-size sculpture of Wyoming, largest wooden U.S. sailing ship

䡵

Tour the intact historic shipyard site where the great schooners were built

䡵

Go aboard and below deck on a Grand Banks fishing schooner

䡵

Inspect the remains of Snow Squall the last American clipper ship

䡵

New Blacksmith Shop exhibit opens this summer

Open year-round, 9:30 to 5 daily

 Washington Street • Bath, Maine • -- www.MaineMaritimeMuseum.org

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The mate takes advantage of a fuel stop in Antioch, CA to show the crew how to splice the Chieftain’s new docklines and dinner. The crew are free to go ashore for the evening. and although the crew was well-behaved during my time on board, there are definitely opportunities for drinking-age crew to have a beer or two. One of my last nights featured a chantey-sing aboard the Lady, with singing in English, Gaelic, German and Russian.

THE TAKEAWAY Was I glad I went? You bet. The transit was everything I had hoped for. I learned a great deal about the square rig. I improved my pathetic marlinspike skills. During the second week, once I felt a part of the crew, I was more comfortable on board and had more fun. Although most of the crew were quite a bit younger, they were kind to me and I truly enjoyed them.

I will admit that at 50, I am not crazy about busy-work.

I was much happier when I had a project that was both useful and stimulating, such as splicing the new docklines. Next time I’m on board, I’ll try to identify and tackle a similarly satisfying project right off the bat. That would make the days go quicker, and help me feel as if I am contributing.

Now, should you go? Absolutely! If you’re healthy, if you’re mobile, if you can co-exist in close quarters with people of different ages, genders and attitudes, then go. I wouldn’t hesitate to send a teenager, although he or she would have to be a mature, self-directed teenager with some social skills.

Personally, I would target a two-week period when the vessel is making a longer transit. I also might be tempted to

bring a friend — someone to share the adventure with. It would make that first week easier, but then again, it might hinder you from making new friends. And that’s one of the many, many joys of sailing. b The Two Weeks Before the Mast program is an opportunity to experience the life of a tall ship sailor. For two weeks, you’ll live aboard one of the Grays Harbor vessels learning the basics of knots, sail theory, traditional and modern maintenance skills, and maritime history.

You can browse upcoming ports and dates, complete the online volunteer intake form, and download the application packet at http://historicalseaport.org.

NEED TO HAUL OUT? Marine railway service available for historic wooden vessels at working waterfront non-profit.

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JEN BUTTERY

A Season Ashore

Back when I was working in Russia, teaching English, I remember standing on the Yenisey riverbank and thinking of my days sailing. They felt distant and impossible.

But their memory led me to transition back into a more adventurous lifestyle — to a seasonal job in Mongolia leading back-country horse treks (www.zavkhan.co.uk), and then to educational tall ships as a way to re-enter life in the US after three years abroad.

Oh, I’d hiked, reveled, climbed, learned Russian, explored abandoned mines and villages, made a home that I loved. But the reality of being tied to an office job in order to maintain my business visa drove me to the windy, outdoor places pretty often, and eventually to sea.

My last column was about sailing being the sanest life.

As always, the sailing opportunity comes at season’s

lenging and fun, but unsurprisingly, you get pretty good at it. Being a captain is the epitome, but maybe it is only half of life. If sailing is the daytime, then what is the night?

I see many sailors undergoing this late-twenties transition toward some semblance of adulthood. Many have heard the siren call of Gulf Coast supply vessels. As a mariner, I see the appeal. A place worthy of committing to isn’t so easy to find or make in our little industry. So why not answer the transitional question my peers and I are facing with commercial boating, job security, and a living wage?

As for me, I’ll call that Plan C. Because I know who I am on the water — it’s all clear there. But I’m afraid I’m addicted to being the one leaving.

As John Steinbeck says in The Log From the Sea of

Maybe my goodbyes have become too easy. That means it’s time to muster only myself, make my own meals, and turn my worklist inward for a season or so... change: a boat to get on, with pay and shipmates and purpose, or the other choice. To stay somewhere, and do... something. But five minutes looking at the classifieds (gutter installer, CDL driver, chimney sweep, deli clerk, data enterer, and just plain laborer) is usually enough to send me scampering back to the Caribbean, where at least I don’t have to try to figure out where I fit in.

Alas, sailing twelve months a year may not be for me.

Most of us have felt the dilemma. It doesn’t allow for much development in one’s non-boat life, which leaves things like relationships, music, and different dreams in the lurch. But dear God, I was not meant to be someone searching those ads. The boats have spoiled us, in some ways, for land-life.

Still, the fact remains: here I am, plugging away on shore. And being pretty grumbly about it. Yet the perspective and experience that sailing has grown in me — it has grown my dreams, too. Many sailors reach a plateau in their tall ship careers. Being a mate never stops being chal-

Cortez, “It would be good to live in a perpetual state of leave-taking, never to go nor to stay, but to remain suspended in that golden emotion of love and longing; to be loved without satiety.”

Maybe my goodbyes have become too easy. That means it’s time to muster only myself, make my own meals, and turn my worklist inward for a season or so, I guess. To make the bright seasons, land, home, sea, and far, part of a larger pattern of golden suspension, an appreciated one, not for their escapism from a mundane life, but for their ability to highlight the golden love and longing of every day everywhere. So that the surety felt under the gaff and stars offshore remains in the heart — and shows when it’s time to skip that gas-pumping job, say no to the money, and take the unknown path to something we can call work with a capital W. To those things we dreamt about under those dark, lovely skies.

With maybe a little snow-removal work on the side.

The spring will come soon enough. b

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