Take one step aboard a windjammer, and your whole world changes. Noisy phones and laptops are left behind, and for the moment time is suspended.

In June, several wooden schooners sail down from Camden and Rockland and drop anchor in Boothbay Harbor for two nights.

While thousands of spectators line the shore waiting for the majestic windjammers to sail in, the true experience is getting a ticket to ride.

“It's just about being able to relax and enjoy yourself; you don’t have to be anywhere else,” said Ron Adolf of Gorham. “I'm not a Carnival cruise type of guy, so this was on my bucket list.”

Adolf, like many of the other passengers on the Lewis R. French, want to experience the coast of Maine in the traditional fashion: on a wooden boat without a motor.

“I’ve always seen these tall ships and I knew I wanted to be on one,” said Linda Hoopes of Atlanta, Ga. “I turned off my phone days ago, and now I’m completely off the grid.”

For six days, 15 passengers from Georgia, North Carolina, Colorado, Connecticut and Maine sailed from Camden under the warm hospitality of Capt. Garth Wells and his three-person crew aboard the 64-foot Lewis R. French.

“Yesterday the sailing was beautiful. We were healed right over and just charging along under blue skies,” said Dave Field, who owns a summer cottage on Willard Beach in Portland. “We definitely don’t starve out here, and they cook everything on a woodstove.”  

The passengers are as unique as the ship they sail on, and everyone on board agreed the cooking is outstanding. Breakfast consisted of blueberry pancakes and maple sausage links, lunch was spiced pumpkin soup, and dinner would be stuffed haddock with roasted asparagus and hot buttered rolls.

“I think a lot of people who choose to come on here choose this boat because of its history in Maine, and having been around here for so long,” Wells said.

Built in 1871 in Christmas Cove, South Bristol, the French brothers named the ship after their father. Not only is the Lewis R. French the oldest ship in the Windjammers Association’s fleet, “she’s the oldest commercial schooner in the United States,” Wells said.

During the 1890s the ship was a fishing vessel ported in Boothbay. It later serviced the Northeast with bricks, lumber granite and fish, and now carries passengers.

“If you would have told the people who built this boat that it would be carrying passengers in the year 2000s, they would have thought you mad,” said Matt Lohan, the ship’s first mate.

Lohan said schooners were typically built to last about 20 years, but if a proprietor really liked the boat, they would continue to refurbish it. “If she always has something to do, she pays her own way,” Lohan said.

Wells has owned the Lewis R. French for 10 years. The season lasts from May to early October, when passengers book trips to the Windjammer Days, Great Schooner Race and Fall Foliage tours. Despite a relatively short season, Wells keeps occupied year-round maintaining the wooden vessel.

“The sailing season is the payoff. The other seven months is spent maintaining a boat like this. It’s an old wooden boat that needs everything from paint and varnish, to plumbing and sails,” Wells said. “You wouldn’t get into this business if you didn’t like wooden boatbuilding.”

Last winter local sailmaker Nat Wilson outfitted the Lewis R. French with a new mainsail. Upon arrival in Boothbay Harbor, Wilson would be dropping off another sail.

In keeping up with the tall ship tradition, Wells said he tries to keep things authentic. The crew still raises the anchor and sails all by hand.

After 15 minutes of passengers helping to haul up the anchor and manning the lines, it became apparent that working a windjammer can be hard, physical work, followed by moments of tranquil splendor.

“Windjammer Days is probably one the most exciting anchorages of the year to go down to Boothbay. We round up in that little cove, and swing the bowsprit over the all the people eating at the restaurant. Hopefully our anchor holds,” Wells said with a sly grin.

On June 27, the Lewis R. French crew hauled up the anchor and sailed out of Boothbay Harbor, back up the coast to the rolling hills of Camden, in search of another adventure, just like the sailors centuries ago.