It’s early morning in Rockland Harbor and there’s no wind.

More crowded these days, but no less sheltered, Camden’s inner harbor affords the perfect winter berthing

On November 10, 1938, the laid-up steamer Vinal Haven snagged her guardrail, listed enough to fill with water, and sunk at the dock.

At Holiday Beach in Owls Head, and at other places along the Maine coast in the 1930s and ‘40s, no one much cared if a few traps and a boat or two sat out the winter.

Albert Condon’s drawings for this 110’ dragger are, like all his work, very detailed. There’s no guessing the size, shape, and location of the pieces that go into building her.

The 184’ Theoline was launched from the Francis Cobb yard in Rockland in 1917 as a coal carrier. She foundered in 1942 off Panama. She is in Camden at the P.G. Willey Company wharf delivering coal. Catalog Number LB2008.15.157

How could anyone interested in sailing vessels resist climbing aboard this pair?

Family lore had this as a model of the clipper ship Flying Cloud, but the flag shows Red Jacket.

The late Kennedy Crane (Rockland’s Senter-Crane department store) owned this handsome Friendship Sloop and kept her summers off his cottage at Dynamite Beach in Owls Head.

After languishing at Snow’s in Rockland, a new owner refurbished the George E. Klinck and put her back in service, the final phase being carried out in Camden.

Here is more of Capt. Swift’s fleet, laid up along Camden Shipbuilding’s wharves for the winter.

Although these three schooners have been tied up for the winter in Camden next to what is now Wayfarer Marine, and are ice-bound, some sails have yet to be taken ashore.

The yard crew guides the three-master Edward R. Smith onto Snow’s big railway for caulking and painting on the first day of June, 1940. This 565-ton schooner was built in 1911 in Phippsburg. Catalog Number LB2008.15.25

Carl Beckman’s 79’ dragger slides overboard September, 16th, 1939. Four months later, Clyson Coffin’s 110’ dragger, now in frame beyond Pelican, will be christened as the St. George.