Windjammer Emporium in Boothbay Harbor has a new item in its growing collection of artifacts historic to Boothbay region shipbuilding. The Rotary Club of Boothbay Harbor has loaned the original half model of schooner Bowdoin, of Hodgdon Yachts fame, to the Emporium.

Emporium owner and artifact collector Mark Gimbel stressed how important the model is to the region’s history and how it was nearly lost recently.

“Timmy Hodgdon who is fifth generation, current owner of Hodgdon Yachts, his great-grandfather made this … This is a pre-production model for the Bowdoin before they made it in 1921 and this is a significant find … Anytime a vessel is built, whether it be power or sail and it's a large vessel, they always do this first. A Naval architect designs the hull … and on the back of this one, it's got the signature of (Hodgdon’s) great-grandfather with the date, Sept. 23, 1919.”

The half model changed hands Oct. 24 in a ceremony which involved a tour of the business’s Maritime Heritage Center, lots of champagne and many stories. One was about how the model, long in storage, was nearly lost in August.

“In our original clubhouse on Townsend Avenue, it hung on the wall,” said Rotary President Rick Elder. “When we sold that building it got put into storage and fast forward to this summer, it almost ended up in our Rotary Auction inventory and almost got sold. Fortunately somebody spotted it and knew what it was and pulled it out.”

Elder said Sonny Hodgdon was a longtime member and had gifted it to the club. So, when Rotarians realized what they were dealing with, they knew they had to come up with an idea for the public to view it and learn its history.

Said Elder, “The first idea was to maybe do something at our facility, and then we had some reach-out from Mark and I'd known what Mark was doing here. I talked it over with our board and decided that the right thing to do to have the most people see it would be to have it on display here with all the other maritime artifacts. We think it's going to be a great thing to have out there.”