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Schooner Views

We missed a month blogging here, but as 2024 begins, there are still plenty of stories to tell with this group of photos, which cover a lot of ground (or water, more aptly).

In November, we mused a little about ketches and yawls, making a distinction for the layperson and pointing out the virtues of these “split rigs”. This month, we turn to the other split rig, much more familiar to the modern eye—the schooner.

Definitions first: Schooners carry fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts. For schooners having only two masts, the mainmast is taller than the foremast. Until a century ago, most have been gaff-rigged, making both foresail and mainsail quadrilateral, and supported by spars (mast, boom, and gaff) on three sides. Gaff-rigged sails allow more sail area for the same mast height compared to a three-sided Bermudian, aka Marconi, sail. But as schooner rigs evolved, schooner yachts tended to have gaff-rigged foresails and Marconi mainsails, or occasionally gaffs were shed altogether, and staysails occupied the space between the masts. Speed to windward was the primary incentive for these rig changes, and staysail schooners were notoriously fast.

Merchant schooners in the last decades of the Age of Sail stretched to hundreds of feet in hull length and carried three or more masts, maximizing speed and cargo capacity, and minimizing crew size. Two-masted schooners are today’s favorites among both sailors and non-sailors, partly because of their balanced silhouettes. The highest part of the hull is forward, and the tallest part of the rig is aft, which somehow connotes balance and stability.

The most common niche for the schooner in mid-coast Maine today is in the passenger trade where former fishing and cargo schooners (and a few purpose-built ones) offer summer cruises. There’s a nostalgic glamor about these vessels. Their proportions and the rustic nature of their accommodations contribute to their appeal. In the 1930s, Captain Frank Swift realized the potential for this when he began taking groups of young campers out on Penobscot Bay. His entrepreneurial brainchild gave rise to the windjammer fleets which are an iconic feature of the mid-coast region today.

Photographer Bray’s travels, close to home and far away, have acquainted him with diverse examples: elegant, veteran, modern, tiny, gargantuan, derelict, storied. His images give a terrific glimpse of the modern-day cache enjoyed by traditional designs among boat owners.

Aboard the schooner Roseway, mate Terry Young (son of Captain Orville Young) slacks a halyard as a sail is lowered. Bray made these images during a week as a passenger with his wife, Anne, in July 1979.
At the 1980 Classic Yacht Regatta in Newport, Rhode Island, the 53' schooner Yankee gives the John Alden schooner Adventurer a run for her money.
The John Alden-designed steel-hulled schooner Puritan—built at Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut—strides along the wind like royalty at the Classic Yacht Regatta in Newport, Rhode Island, in September 1980.
The planking crew—dressed for cold weather—hangs a steam-softened oak plank on the 95' cruise schooner Heritage in February 1981 at the North End Shipyard in Rockland, Maine. She was designed by Doug Lee and launched in 1983.
At the Apprenticeshop in Bath, Maine, Dave Foster adzes the forefoot of the pinky schooner Maine. Most of the little vessel was built under the direction of Will Ansel who worked for the Maine Maritime Museum—the builder of record. The shape of her hull came from a 19th-century half model made by Levi Reed and discovered at the Boothbay Region Historical Society. From it, Sam Manning developed a lines drawing and a table of offsets.
The 27' centerboard schooner Teal, designed and built in 1983 by David Judson in Grimstead, Virginia, cruises near Gwynn Island in November of her inaugural year.
The schooner Adventure of the Camden windjammer fleet noses powerfully through the waters of Maine's Penobscot Bay on her way to Boothbay Harbor.
The gaff-rigged schooner Lewis R. French flies nearly a full complement of canvas at the September 1987 schooner gathering off WoodenBoat's waterfront in Brooklin, Maine. The French was built in 1871 at Christmas Cove in South Bristol, Maine, and worked for decades carrying freight and fish.
Departing Greens Island in July 1989 after an overnight visit with the Brays, the Porter family hauls anchor of their un-powered pinky schooner Ellen. From here, they'll head to Great Spruce Head Island and, ultimately, back home to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.
Preparing to depart the Mystic River at Noank, Connecticut the crew of the 97’ topsail schooner Pride of Baltimore II begin hoisting her headsails.
The 97’ topsail schooner Pride of Baltimore II makes her impressive way along Fishers Island Sound in September of 1989. Note the square sail flown from her foretopmast; this, and the aft-raked masts, characterized the clipper schooners of Baltimore.
The John Alden-designed schooner Adventurer makes vigorous headway flying two headsails and a staysail aloft near Noank, Connecticut. Note the gaff-rigged foresail and the Marconi-rigged main.
The 61’ Sparkman & Stephens-designed schooner-yacht Brilliant idles along during the same 1989 regatta off Noank, Connecticut, depicted elsewhere. She’s rigged similarly to Adventurer—flying a staysail between the tops of her masts, and Marconi-rigged on her main.
Bray was once a member of an advisory committee for the 88’ schooner Bowdoin and one of the perks was a sail up West Penobscot Bay in June of 1991. Bowdoin was built in 1921 specifically for Arctic exploration under the command of Donald MacMillan, the American explorer and sailor who made over 30 voyages to the Arctic during his long career. She's now owned by Maine Maritime Academy and sails from Castine as Maine's official tall ship.
Roseway, a veteran of fishing, piloting, and WWII military patrol, joined the Camden, Maine windjammer fleet in the 1970s. Here, she’s seen drying her sails on a summer day in 1991. She got badly needed restoration in the aughts after being donated to the World Ocean School, an experiential youth education program operating out of St. Croix.
This portrait of the windjammer schooners Grace Bailey and Mercantile includes the fleet’s iconic background: Mount Battie and the Camden Hills. Two years prior, the 81' Bailey had been Mattie (the name she bore ever since a 1906 rebuild, and through windjammer founder Frank Swift’s years beginning in 1939); she had formerly been a coasting vessel, moving goods to shore-accessible towns remote from roads. Her near-sister Mercantile was also a veteran of coastal trade, then the herring fishery, before Swift acquired her in the 1940s.
The Chesapeake Bay ram schooner Victory Chimes, formerly named Edwin & Maud, competed in the 1991 Great Schooner Race from North Haven, Maine. Bray attended, and photographed her as she was being pushed down the Fox Island Thorofare by her yawlboat, sails raised. Unable to pass Coast Guard inspection, in 2023 this rare three-masted survivor was towed to Manhattan to become a floating restaurant.
Maynard Bray takes a turn at the helm of Victory Chimes, with a deck-full of passengers and a stiff nor’wester blowing. She’s under reefed sails and heading from Brooklin, Maine, to Bass Harbor in 1991.
The Block Island cowhorn schooner Sun Spirit drifts along lazily in the light breeze, with sails raised and family and friends aboard, off Brooklin, Maine, during the summer of 1991.
The 83’ John Alden-designed, Lawley-built schooner Serena of 1916 lies at the dock in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, 1991, during the early stages of restoration. The project was ultimately abandoned and the vessel was hauled out to weather away—a sad fate for such a lovely craft.
In mid-September, toward the end of the 1991 tourist season, the Lewis R. French joins other schooners of the windjammer fleet as she prepares to drop anchor off Brooklin, Maine.
The Grace Bailey (right) lies at anchor off Brooklin, Maine, preparing to take on passengers—no casual feat on this blustery day in September 1991. Already reefed and scooting off before the wind is the Stephen Taber while the J&E Riggin, sails raised, will soon join her. This was the day following the annual rendezvous at the WoodenBoat anchorage when a very brisk northwest wind blew up overnight, causing all boats to tie in reefs and head to the eastward.