The 62nd annual Boothbay Harbor Windjammer Days will take place on Sunday, June 23 through Saturday, June 29. This year we will celebrate our local boatbuilders and shipwrights. Please visit boothbayharborwindjammerdays.org for the full schedule of events.

Tony’s career has spanned 50 years. Tony grew up on the south shore of Massachusetts and came to Maine in 1999 around the time he married his wife, Bet, owner of the current Bet’s Fish Fry. Up until that time he had worked at boatyards in Massachusetts and also in Virginia and Florida. When he moved to Maine he considered himself “retired” from boatbuilding since he thought that he might not be able to break into the business here, but instead found people very welcoming and willing to subcontract his specialized services.

When Tony first came to the Boothbay Region he and Bet bought the JH Welch General Store. He worked there for a year. and also at his sawmill which he still operates. He then got a call from Sample’s Shipyard who needed his services to work on the Roseway, a 137-foot schooner. After a year or so he returned to Sample’s to work on the Luna which was undergoing a major overall of it’s hull structure. The Luna is the first diesel electric tugboat built and is now in Boston Harbor. More jobs at Sample’s ensued including working on the HMS Bounty while she was here the first time in Boothbay Harbor for repairs. Since then Tony has been on his own doing jobs at Ocean Point Marina and in Key West for the Appledore as well as working with Finn Sprague in Portland on the Harvey Gamage. He has also worked out of Gloucester, Massachusetts on the Lynx and schooner Adventure, both of which often visit Boothbay Harbor during Windjammer Days.

Tony’s company, Back Narrows Boatyard, is a wooden boat restoration business. Their current projects include reconditioning the masts on the Harvey Gamage. They are also putting a new cockpit in the Applejack. Additionally he has been working on the schooner yacht Savannah for the last two years in his shop.

Tony says that he has learned a lot from people in the region and in turn they have learned from him. He would like to thank the Boothbay region for accepting him when he moved here in 1999. Special thanks go out to Frank Luke, Jimmy Jones, Bradley Simmons, Mike Mayne and the late Joe Jackimovicz. His plans for the future include eventually turning over the business to two of his employees, but says that he will still be around to keep a watch over all the comings and goings.