Robert Walker Lewis (1950-2019)

Walker left us five days ago.  I remember his sly smile, and a cigarette between his lips, having just stepped off his boat Aeolus after a race.
His family - wife, sister, son, daughter, and crew movingly remembered him today.
It was a personal tribute - the 23rd Psalm the only vestige of Judeo-Christian ritual.
They began with a recording of  William Blake's hymn Jerusalem the heart of it the famous stanza:

Bring me my Bow of burning gold:

Bring me my arrows of desire:

Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!

Bring me my Chariot of fire!

Walker's sister Chris sang a waveringly beautiful acapella rendition of `You've got to walk that lonesome valley.'  His son and daughter recalled their Dad, a teacher who once labeled everything in the house with its Latin name.  His longtime crew Trevor spoke of their voyages aboard Aeolus, named for the Greek wind god.  And the memorial closed with Stan Rogers Northwest Passage a Canadian anthem for which the chorus is:
Ah, for just one time
I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin
Reaching for the Beaufort Sea
Tracing one warm line
Through a land so wild and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea

A Dublin Bay 24 framed - The Apprenticeshop

I first learned of the Dublin Bay 24 from  The Apprenticeshop leaflet above late last summer.  There was a time when a fleet of them raced on, of course, Dublin Bay.  The 24 refers to water line length.  Its long overhangs make it 37 feet length overall.  The unreferenced 13 feet beyond LWL become wetted surface dramatically increasing hull speed when she heels over and buries the leeward rail in the sea.  Doubtless a wet ride to windward. Now the boat has taken shape - literally.  They laid the laminated  keel plank (keelson) (see below), then steam bent the frames (ribs) that give the boat its lines and to which the planks will be fastened.  The parallel lateral strips you see are temporary - to hold the shape of the boat while it is planked.  There aren't any 36 foot strips of wood for that purpose so where one ends and the next starts they are joined by ribands. 

You can see that planking has begun.  Just above the keel are is a dark length of mahogany.  That is the first plank.  The standard first build  for students at the Apprenticeshop is a 10 foot row boat called a Susan Skiff.  This is a much more advanced project, one that I hope to be present for when it slides down the Apprenticeshop's launch ramp on Rockland  harbor.

Lunar lows and loons at spring equinox

With the spring equinoctal moon nearing full as it approached its perigee we saw high tides and low lows.  It was a good time to be in Maine - a beautiful spring break. -gwc

The Loon's Cry - Howard Nemerov

Sunrise 6:47 Sunset 6:46