The Boatyard

My wife likes to tell me that I only take her to the nicest of places every time we goto a boatyard or a marine salvage place. I point out to her that she taught me to sail, so she's got no one to blame but herself.

I think I love boatyards more than marinas. In marinas, most - but not all - of the boats will be maintained to a certain extent. In boatyards, you'll inevitably find boats in various states of disrepair, but usually there are a few gems that are being returned to life by people that love them. One recent visit to a Chesapeake Bay boatyard in Cambridge, MD, we saw the spectrum.

A Chesapeake Bay skipjack was undergoing repair, though she looks to be a working boat, rather than a tourist or museum attraction. The Kathryn was built in 1901 in Crisfield, MD, but has changed hands so often that she's sailed a great deal of the upper Chesapeake Bay.

She closely approximates the rule of thirds that is common to all skipjacks: the length on deck (in this case 50 feet) is approximately three times the beam (15'), while the length on deck, plus the beam is the height of the mast (65'). These are the published dimensions as held in the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, so I assume accurate. She's a little wider than some other skipjacks, but I think pretty close. Oddly, she doesn't have the sharp chine, where the topsides give way immediately to athwartship bottom planks. Rather she's like the Rebecca T. Ruark and has a much softer turn at the chine. I'm just happy to see someone working on her.

Then there are those ships that you would love to see under sail, but likely never will. The Mist of Avalon is a case in point.

According to Tall Ships International: "The ship began her life in 1967 as the Motor Vessel “Liverpool Bay”... In December 1992 began the ship’s new life as 'Mist of Avalon' and in July 1993, she was ready to leave Nova Scotia for her new home port Ivy Lea, Ontario, Canada. Here, work continued on the conversion from motor vessel to a fully rigged sailing vessel in the tradition of the late 19th century Grand Banks schooners."

Her first iteration was as a schooner, as described above, but it appears from pictures and the rigging that someone tried to re-rig her as a briganteen. Essentially, it appears that they removed the foresail (boom, gaff and all) and rigged a square foresail and topsail onto the foremast. Fore and fore top staysails where the fore and aft foresail would have been completed the rig. I'm not sure how this would have balanced the ship, but ...

I've no idea how she came to be in Cambridge, MD, but I think she's at the end. Her bowsprit is gone, the rigging looks suspect at best and her hull looks like its rotted through in places. She'll be headed to the scrap yard soon unfortunately.

On the upside however, was an interesting find by my wife. While I was looking at tall ships, she found a beautiful international 12-meter yacht, Easterner. Built in 1958, she sailed in the 1958, 1962 and 1964 America's Cup Defender Trials for the Eastern Yacht Club. She was unsuccessful in capturing the Defender position, but had success elsewhere, winning the Astor Cup (NYYC) in 1962 and the Queen’s Cup (NYYC) in 1964.

In 2018 she was purchased with plans to race in Newport, RI and Annapolis, MD, but needed a refit. When relaunched in June of 2019, apparently the same person to chrisine her before did so again. Nancy Hovey bashed the champagne onto her bow, which she did 60 years previous when the Easterner was first launched. The Easterner sailed at the 2018 12mR North Americans. COVID wasn't kind to her, but her owner now has the non-profit Easterner Foundation overseeing her maintenance.