COPYRIGHT 2002 DIAMOND PASS PUBLISHING
Maine's windjammer fleet represents the country's largest collection of actively sailed historic vessels. They have been lovingly restored, rebuilt, or even built new for the same reason they were originally built—profit. They once were fishing schooners, coasting freighters, oyster dredgers, and pilot schooners. By the mid-1930s, however, the profitability of working sailing ships had dwindled to the point where many were converted to power, laid up, or retired altogether.
COPYRIGHT 2002 DIAMOND PASS PUBLISHING
The idea of Maine's "headboats" as they were sometimes called, can be credited to Captain Frank Swift of Camden. In 1936 he began taking passengers out on a pair of chartered fishing schooners. Twelve years later he had a fleet of nine. He also had some competition. Today, more than 20 windjammers work the Maine coast, most of the largest centered around Penobscot Bay. But instead of carrying lumber or oysters or fish, their cargo is paying passengers.
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The passengers experience the Maine coast in a way like no other, under the tall masts and topsails of a working ship, guided by exceptional seamen with encyclopedic knowledge of the local waters. In turn, the passengers have created a market that has enabled these fine ships to be saved from certain collapse into the mudbanks of forgotten backwaters all along the Atlantic seaboard. In other cases, it has led to the birth of brand new schooners that continue the evolving tradition of working sailing ships.
Most of Maine's windjammers sail from Rockport or Camden in Penobscot Bay or from Boothbay Harbor along Maine's midcoast, but you are likely to encounter them almost anywhere along the coast. They include veterans Stephen Taber, the oldest U.S. sailing vessel in continuous service (now more than 130 years) and Lewis R. French, built at Christmas Cove that same year; Grace Bailey and Mercantile, both in Captain Swift's original fleet; the Isaac H. Evans, incongruously designated a National Historic Landmark; American Eagle, a true Gloucester fishing schooner; the William Hand-designed Bowdoin, Donald MacMillan's arctic research ship; the schooner yacht Nathaniel Bowditch; and newcomers Mary Day, the first schooner designed and built for the passenger trade, to be followed by Herb Smith's Appledores, Anglique, and Heritage.
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| Windjammer | Home port | Contact | Other services | Schedule |
| J & E Riggin |
Rockland | |||
| Nathaniel Bowditch |
Rockland | |||
| Wendameen | Portland | |||
| Bagheera | Portland | |||
| Angelique | Camden | |||
| Mary Day | Camden | |||
| Heritage | Rockland | |||
| American Eagle | Rockland | |||
| Stephen Tabor | Rockland | |||
| Victory Chimes | Rockland | |||
| Lewis R. French | Camden | |||
| Kathryn B. | Belfast | |||
| Timberwind | Rockport | |||
| Isaac H. Evans | Rockland | |||
| Ellida | Rockland | |||
| Grace Bailey | Camden | |||
| Merchantile | Camden | |||
| Mistress | Camden | |||
| Bowdoin | Castine | |||
Copyright © 2006 DIAMOND PASS PUBLISHING, INC.