Maine Sailing Partners

The next America's Cup?

The Sidney Herreshoff designed double-ended ketch Arion one of the first fiberglass sailboats and her wooden near sister Walter Greene clawing to weather.  Arion was resurrected by Falmouth Mass boat-builder Damian McLaughlin, who was so impressed with her performance that he built her sister, but this time out of wood.

Hayday

One of the great pleasures of our job is watching a beautiful boat take flight under our sails.  One of the prettiest ever is this beautifully restored, 1930 vintage Q-Boat.

A hint of the detail:

Original Equipment

This is a cotton canvas, mitre-cut, original equipment Turnabout main.  Our customer's father bought hull # 1657 for him in 1959.  Now our customer is restoring his boat for his grandchildren to sail on Sebago Lake.  Turnabout mains have changed a little bit since 1959.  A new MSP Turnabout main is made of Dimension-Polyant's 180S SquareWeave Dacron, has radial corner patches, and larger girths than this original.

I Can Sail, Canoe?

This is a real classic . . . a lateen sail to an Old Town sailing canoe that a customer would like us to copy.  One would think that this is a real rarity and perhaps it is, but it's the third Old Town sailing canoe sail that we've been asked to make in less than a week.

Sail it Old School

Although they are called National 10s almost everywhere else, Turnabouts are still Turnabouts in Maine.  This new main has the old school Turnabout insignia.  The customer, a Maine summer resident, is restoring #3101 for his grandson.

She sails

Brooklin Boatyard's latest 'spirit of tradition' yacht, the 76' Goshawk, stretches her legs for the first time on Eggomoggin Reach.  Congratulations to owner Richard Schotte, designer Bob Stephens, Steve White and the crews at BBY and Rockport Marine for a gorgeous creation.  Spars by GMT Composites, rigging by Sound Rigging, Cuben Fiber sails by MSP.

Photos courtesy of Billy Black - click for a larger view

The Hundreds are Coming

The first of the J/100's has arrived at our neighbor, J-Boats Dealer East Coast Yacht Sales.  These are selling like hotcakes with over 80 sold less a year after the prototype sailed on Narragansett Bay for the first time.  We already have orders for inventories for three.

Migratory Visitor

The Arctic Tern is said to have the longest of migrations, flying some 20,000 miles per year round trip, from Arctic to Antarctic and back.  This week, another long distance flier with 46,000 miles traveled in her first two years of life, stopped in to have some wing feathers looked after.

Pelagic Australis is on her way from her Southern summer of traveling among Tierra Del Fuego, South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula to her Northern summer in Greenland and the high latitudes.  Those of you with some leisure time and a hankering to visit some very wild parts of this planet might want to hitch a ride with her some day...