The Eggemoggin Reach, which we affectionately call the “Egg McMuffin Reach”, is a narrow 10-mile stretch of water protected by the mainland on one side, and Deer Isle on the other. With its calm water, few lobster traps, and less fog than elsewhere, it’s a very popular place for sailing. The predominant wind offers a beam reach on most days when you can see vessels of all sorts, from traditional wood schooners to modern hi-tech catamarans transiting the Reach.
We left Camden for a liesurely 3.5 hour sail to Brooklin, passing under the 85 foot Deer Isle Bridge. Despite its 10 feet of clearance above the top of our mast, the optics from the deck always make it appear as if a demasting is imminent. No matter how many times you check navigational charts and other sources of information, it comes as a relief when you pass under this or any bridge with your mast still upright.
Brooklin is home to the Wooden Boat School and the Brooklin Boat Yard.
This was the last official stop of the Salty Dawgs Down East Rally. Since it’s our first cruise with them, I guess that makes us Salty Puppies. 7 boats anchored behind Torrey Island, just across the Reach from the town of Brooklin where we had a tour of the Brooklin Boat Yard. This employee-owned business counts approximately 30 team members specialized in naval architecture, mechanical engineering, carpentry, electronics, and many other skills enabling them to produce incredible, custom-built vessels for fishermen and cruisers alike. Eric Blake, vice president of new construction, walked us through the campus, showing us various ongoing projects, and introduced us to the team. It was fascinating to talk to chief designer, Will Sturdy, Don’t you think there’s something reassuring about having your boat designed by someone named “Sturdy”? This young man manipulates a combination of 3D computer-aided design tools, which he uses to iterate with clients multiple times to agree on every detail of a vessel, and traditional hand drawings, which are than used by the various shops to build the vessel.
The yard also offers hands-on experience to local youth, who can build wooden skiffs. Those skiffs, with names such as “Skiffy”, are docked at the yard and available for the public to take out for a row around the harbor.
The buildings in the yard are largely left open day and night, and a pickup truck is made available to visitors needing to run to the general store. No paperwork required!
The Salty Dawgs were invited to use the facility for a potluck dinner. Sandy made a delicious jumbalaya that was very popular. The Dawgs bid farewell after dinner, although those of us continuing to cruise in Maine created a WhatsApp group and plan to stay in touch over the next weeks.
As new Mainers, we were delighted to hear how enchanted the Dawgs, mostly from the South or Mid-Atlantic, were with our adopted home state, many promising to return “every year.” We hope to stay in touch with this nice group.
8 Responses
Very interesting!
Impressive place, the Brooklin Boat Yard. Question from a landlubber — what are all those arrows in the Rigging Shop used for?
Larry, Those are wind indexes (aka windvanes). They are mounted to the top of the mast and point to the direction from which the wind is blowing. They are connected to the electronic instruments that display wind direction, and use it to calculate other important navigation information. D
Dan and Sandy,
One of my favorite Maine memories was going to Wooden Boat in Brooklin on the Schooner Roseway. September 13th, 1994, partway through our Schooner cruise we went to Brooklin for the annual Schooner rendezvous. We were one of the last Schooners to arrive at the anchorage. Each skipper wanted to outdo the others and ours, Captain John was no exception. We dropped the sails and 8 of us got in the the launch, tied a painter to the Roseway, and we pulled her with nothing but oars and muscle past all the other schooners with lots of cheering and applause from the passengers on the other vessels. Once anchored, we detached the painter and rowed around the other schooners just for fun and got many more cheers.
We rowed past the “Grace Bailey”, “Timberwind”, “Lewis R French”, the “Mercantile”, “Isaac H. Evans”, “American Eagle”, “Victory Chimes”, “Heritage”, “J.E. Riggins”, and “Nathanial Bowditch”. It was spectacular!!! Besides the “Hertitqge, built in the eighties if I am correct, all the others were built as working Schooners and got a second life for the tourist trade. Beautiful old boats.
Afterwords we went to Wooden Boat for at tour and surprisingly, several passengers from the other Schooners recognized the rowing crew that brought in the beautiful Roseway, Each ship was gorgeous, but Roseway was the prettiest by far,
Love following your blog, especially this year as Maine is one of my favorite places to visit, particularly Penobscot bay by land or sea!
Cheers!
Hi Joe, Thanks for sharing your shooner story. We apprecaite you following our blog and your comments. If you come to Maine in the future, do let us know. It would be great to catch up. D&S
I keep a log of almost every sail I’ve done both on my previous boat Freedom and my current boat Liberty. Not a traditional nautical log but more like your blog referencing where I was going, who I was with, conditions, places I’ve visited and people I’ve met and laughs we’ve shared.
Between the 2 boats I have more than 1500 log entries which means more than 1500 times I went out not counting decades of racing on other peoples boats and being a sailing instructor at RYC. Makes great fireside reading during winter snows.
Referencing my log is how I was able to come up with all the Schooners we rowed past.
The only year I didn’t keep a log was the first year I owned my first Sloop, my Catalina 27,Freedom. Wish I started it then because that was a year of wonderment, discovery, and gaining seamanship skills. It was magic, but I don’t have a written record for my aging memory.
Good process, Joe. One of the reasons we write the blog is that it creates a lesting memoire of the experiences. So much happens on a cruise that, even a year later, it’s hard to remember all the details.
Like you, we log each departure and arrival with location, engine hours, log (NM), and fuel level. We use Nebo to keep the “legal” log en-route. It’s an automated system that detects boat movements and logs position, bearing and speed at regular intervals. It also provides a nice route map after each movement.
Fascinating photos and enjoy the town names. TU