RUTH - a 1935 Maine-built touring boat

The folks at Portland Schooner Co.  have purchased - and plan to launch tomorrow - RUTH - a 1935 touring boat.  Built in Falmouth Maine in 1935 by Handy Boat Company it will be returning from Friendship to its home waters after years as a lake boat.  I'm sure she will appreciate the preservative virtues of salt water. - GWC

At Lash Brothers, Friendship for minor repairs.

 

Friendship - July 2023

 

Dreamboats - Points East magazine

 High Idle was one of my late friend Jeff Armstrong's great passions.  He told the story beautifully in one of his long mid-winter letters For Love of a Boat.  If you follow me you know about my now 24 year affair with North River 2.  We have a house in Friendship, Maine because when I was ten years old I fell in love aboard a Friendship Sloop owned by my Dad's friend Lou Peretti in Hempstead Harbor. And then there was the 15 foot Snipe on which I learned to sail, kept up with it through college and bought another - built by Hermann Gerber on City Island - when I won my first trial.

Snipes

So that's how Don Street started out - in Manhasset Bay, L.I. But he went on to cruise Iolaire a 46 foot wooden sailboat (that word meant NO engine - the Times used to list boats for sale as Sailboats and Auxiliaries.) that he cruised and wrote  A Cruising Guide to the Lesser Antilles. The first edition was a mimeograph but it went on to appear hard bound and in paper as a classic.

Don Street - now 92 shows that it's never too late to fall in love with a boat.  So last fall he fortuitously went for a sail on the restored Arion - a Sidney DeWolf Herreshoff boat.  He wrote of his enchantment in June's Points East. A "pierhead jump" onto a classic - - Arion - Don Street - Points East Magazine

Rumination continued.  How would I re-design that perfect boat with modern materials?  His answer is My zero-carbon-emissions dreamboat - Points East Magazine .

Arion

But the editors of Points East got the brilliant idea to ask sailboat designer and artist Chuck Paine to comment on Street's vision.  Paine's answer is a brilliant, friendly critique.  Read Designer Chuck Paine's comments on Don Street's dreamboat.

- GWC July 23, 2023

Archaeologists Find Maya City in an ‘Empty Zone’ of the Yucatán Map - The New York Times

Archaeologists Find Maya City in an ‘Empty Zone’ of the Yucatán Map - The New York Times

A wall of icebergs in a foggy Labrador Sea.

 

Thanks to Lisa Olson for passing on Lyman's updates on Felicity's voyages.

UPDATE Sunday 7/23/23:  Tracking Felicity is now live. It looks to me like they have made it to Cartwright, Labrador.

Monday, July 24:  

UPDATE - Departure from Cartwright,  NL 

 53.42N   57.7S  Predict Wind

Yesterday we left Cartwright after seeing that the southerlies we were concerned about did not develop. We stayed close to the coast, ending up in Domino Harbor after rejecting an earlier anchorage. The harbor was a 300 ft wide slice into the cliffs. We were anchored off an abandoned (in the 80s) fish processing plant. Since the guide was written, an indigenous community has grown at the head of the harbor. We left this morning under somewhat overcast skies,  making our way towards Frenchman’s tickle. We see more and more abandoned fishing communities as we head south. Leaving Frenchman’s, we came across a lot of icebergs. One was the size of a cruise liner. 

As usual, the fog rolled in so we made our way south using the radar. Labrador has quite a complicated coast. In this region there are multiple inland passages with hundreds of coves, bights, harbors, islands, etc. We turned into land so we could take Squasho Run, a narrow long passage lined in places by 80ft moss/lichen covered cliffs with a few small trees clinging for life. It’s a destination for many sailors. On the south end is Eagle Cove ( 53d 1.5m N,55d 49.6 m W) where we are now.
After anchoring, we climbed a nearby hill and got spectacular views. We went for a brief swim (the water is 55F). Later, another cruising boat, the first we’ve seen since leaving, came into the cove. Not too long after that, a whale joined us briefly. A seal is sunning itself on a rock 100 ft away.

In harbor

7/22/2023

Well it was quite a couple of days. Yesterday we had a beautiful sail. We followed our plan, which was to go to 55 d N, and the cut over. About 125 nm out we came across a set of 8 bergs where there should have maybe been one. We kept on hoping that it was anomalous. It was. By this time we were motor sailing. The number of bergs increased as we approached land. At times it was foggy and at times clear. About 40 nm out there was a berg every 4 nm. Lots of them split up. Early this morning, about 30 nm out we were fogged in and there was almost a wall of bergs on the radar in the direction we were headed (west). We pushed on at low speed relying on the radar. Then the fog lifted and we saw the path. At some point we just stopped counting. There were hundreds of bergs and bergie bits of all kinds of interesting shapes. We made our way to Edwards Harbor. The guide says the entry is 50 ft across. It is beautiful. We went ashore for more stunning views. We had to anchor four times
  to get good holding even with double anchors. There is a lot of kelp on the bottom. Of course there were other difficulties. After we shut off the engine for the first time, we noticed more diesel on the engine than usual. The fuel input line to the injectors had sprung a leak. A failure of the line would have been a disaster, but we fixed it and seem to be in good shape. At the moment we are eating cheese and crackers, drinking beer/wine, and soaking in the location. Tomorrow we head to Cartwright.

Maine - July days

 

End Tourism to Antarctica Now - The Atlantic

 

On the southernmost continent, you can see enormous stretches of wind-sculpted ice that seem carved from marble, and others that are smooth and green as emerald. You can see icebergs, whales, emperor penguins. Visitors have described the place as otherworldly, magical, and majestic. The light, Jon Krakauer has said, is so ravishing, “you get drugged by it.”

Forty years ago my late, dear friend Louise gave me N by E - Rockwell Kent's account of his 1930 sailing voyage to Greenland in a 33 foot cutter.  They got there, but not back - the anchor dragged in a storm.  The two crew returned. Kent stayed.  That was the origin of my fascination with the high latitudes.  My friend Richard Hudson has sailed to those environs, north and south aboard his 50 foot steel staysail schooner Issuma. Very low impact.  I'm in favor of that kind of tourism.  But the case against any other sort is well stated here.

End Tourism to Antarctica Now - The Atlantic

The Last Place on Earth Any Tourist Should Go

Take Antarctica off your travel bucket list.

By Sara Clemence

Remembering Nancy Armstrong and Jim Salafia