Schooner Bowdoin, Arctic Veteran Turns 100

Maritime Topics Maritime History
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I don’t often pay much attention to sailing vessels, mostly because of this from Melville:

Again, I always go to sea as a sailor , because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid.

I have been aboard the Bowdoin once and know a little of it’s story.

The video at Old Salt Blog is a good one, about the captain and crew but especially the people of the far north who knew the Bowdoin from past voyages and visited her again on her return.

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In 20/20 hindsight I should have wrangled a tour of the Bowdoin when it moored near the Bluenose in Lunenburg a few years ago. I’ll probably never have that opportunity again.

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I was aboard the Bowdoin a few years ago when she was in Portland (Maine).

Took a couple pictures:

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The TS State of Maine was also nearby:

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I also took some pictures of the Bowdoin when I was visiting MMA in Castine with a group of girl scouts.

Chilly spring day, April 2007. Perhaps not very interesting wrapped up in a blanket.

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I walked by it but would have liked to see the inside.

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Yeah, you probably would have appreciated it more than I did. It wasn’t even my idea to visit in the first place. Merchant mariner visits sailboat.

If I visited it now, knowing her history better, I’d appreciate what I was looking at more.

I was at the Bowdoin College Perry McMillian Arctic Museum as well but it was a long time ago.

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I think I saw this up in Belfast in May of this year. Was hauled out at Front Street Shipyard. Looked to have 6 or so (I assumed) cadets performing various repairs.

Went up there last weekend to check out this story but the shed was all locked up.

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By the Jesus chummy, Finest Kind!

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Well it’s not any old run of the mill fair-weather WAFI weekender. No shame in checking it out given its unusual construction and history.

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FWIW, the “Sail, Power and Steam” Museum in Rockland (ME) has a quantity of logs, instruments and other artifacts of its Arctic history. Apparently Capt. Sharp was involved in restoring her at some point.

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I’ve actually have some experience on a couple run of the mill fair-weather weekenders and enjoyed it, Puget Sound, San Juan Island, Canada’s Gulf Islands. A little time on sail boats both bigger and smaller as well. I just don’t really have enough knowledge of these wooden schooners to really appreciate what I’m looking at.