A scene that will be repeated many times this summer in junior sailing programs all over the place: postgraduate rug rats learning to sail. Part of the process is to learn to get back in one’s boat should there be a man overboard. They can’t just fall out. They must launch themselves and it gets […]
Tag Archives | Great Harbour
They Also Serve
. . . who just hang at the dock and wait for someone to show up. It’s before dawn on a Saturday morning on a long holiday weekend. Superb weather must have weekend warriors really psyched for a couple grand days on the water. Fishermen, both commercial and pleasure, are already out. But not these […]
Next Stop Cornwall
The second start of the Trans-Atlantic Race is underway. The Maltese Falcon has but one turn to make at the start line then it is almost a straight shot to England. That’s good because this behemoth is not at all maneuverable. Most racing sailboats set their sails shortly before the start and, during, the countdown, […]
Sunday Racing
Sunday on Narragansett Bay has the promise of big doings. The schedule is full but it’s still early in the season so we wake up to almost white out fog conditions. Committee boats are out to set up races before the fog starts to lift but lift it does. Always busy on Sunday but no […]
Mystic’s Attic
And what an attic it is. Over 400 boats stacked and packed tightly in some two sprawling warehouses. Maybe a couple hundred engines ranging from steam engines to naphtha engines and outboards. All the engines are in working order. The boats remain untouched in the same condition they were upon arrival – some with straps […]
In We Go
Were we ever excited when we saw the steam box leaking steam first thing yesterday morning. That meant the crew would set a new plank in the hull before lunch. The interior planks are steamed for three hours to allow them to be bent into shape on the hull. They will stay pliable for about […]
Restoration, An Inside Look
An inside look at the restoration of Mystic Seaport’s whaleship Charles W. Morgan. An inside look because this is not public access space on the ship. We were fortunate to be invited up a ladder and through access cut in the hull for a look at the restoration work. Also an inside look because this […]
Firing Up Helen
Helen is a one cylinder engine used to raise the anchor on the L. A. Dunton, one of Mystic Seaport’s active museum boats. Mike here tells us that Helen is temperamental and hasn’t been running of late. Today, the engine ran so the anchor raising demonstration was not done all by hand. We came into […]
New York Harbor
New York harbor has just about everything a sightseeing boater could ask for. It has the usual, the well known icons that always merit another look and more appreciation: the Statue of Liberty with its ever present tour boats, water taxis & ferries galore, what has to be the biggest orange school bus in the […]
Big Lunch
Conventional rules of wildlife photography ask that there be no butt shots. Images of birds should be from the front or side. Other principles of photographic aesthetics place high value on gesture and suggestiveness. So today other principles trump the butt shot rule. It’s a small scene, almost intimate. Perhaps this is why the image […]