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.

I think many of us in the boatbuilding community became boatbuilders because of a passion about boats and boatbuilding and through the absorption of bits and pieces of wisdom from a number of mentors. Many of our mentors were willing teachers and others we may have observed from a greater distance, but we were still able to gather tasty tidbits of their knowledge and techniques. And time, it takes time to develop the necessary skills and vision to make a career in the trade.

I spent many hours on the lofting floor at Sonny Hodgdon’s with Sonny teaching me many of the details of lofting. After construction of the small schooner started Sonny would spend time explaining small details to me. It was the same when I worked for Paul Luke. Paul would pull me aside and explain stuff that perhaps I did not need to know for that particular job but that made me better equipped for next. I always kept my eye on Earle Dodge as he was a master and I am sure he knew more than the young workers in the shop all put together. Reg Wilcox was the first mate on my father’s schooner, Blue Dolphin and a lifelong mentor. Reg was a Dutch uncle to me and taught me stuff when I was just a little kid on up until he passed away. He was Bob Bartlett’s nephew and sailed many trips to the arctic on Bartlett’s schooner Effie M Morrissey and a number of trips to Labrador and Greenland on the Blue Dolphin with my father. I owe
Reg for so much.

Out on my own I leased space at Boothbay Region Boatyard (now Hodgdon Yacht Services) before developing my own shop on Southport. Although my preference was classic plank on frame wooden boat construction fiberglass, aluminum, and steel were all boatbuilding materials in the mix. The business consisted of routine repair and maintenance hauling in the fall and launching in the spring. We also finished off hulls from other builders on a custom basis for local clients. We did major repairs on a number of boats including a new keel and a multitude of new frames in one of several Concordia yawls entrusted to our care.

My wife, Judy Sandick, a physician, was talking to a patient and in the course of their conversation Judy revealed that I was a boatbuilder. He said ‘I want a boat.’ One thing led to another and I designed a 30’ Maine lobster style boat modified from a half model loaned to me by Earle Barlow. That winter we built for him the first of a number of Southport 30s.

In 2000 I sold the business and Judy and I and our four kids did a six-year circumnavigation. Upon returning to Maine, work on boats beckoned, and I focused exclusively on the region’s beloved 21’ classic sloop, the Boothbay Harbor One Design. I stored many of them, doing repairs and major rebuilds. I built 4 new ones bringing modern construction techniques to the fleet. Many of the One Designs can be seen sailing in the harbor all summer long.

After more than half a century in the trade I am now retired. In my yard is my family’s Boothbay Harbor One Design, Coriolis, hull number 31, built by Sonny Hodgdon in 1962. I have fleeting memories of seeing her under construction at the old Hodgdon Brothers yard in Easy Boothbay. Maybe that is what set me on the path down which I have spent so much of my life.