Picture Gallery

[SemiSalt]

Here is another schooner picture. The original is a half-frame slide and I've cropped it to half the area or less, so it' grainy. But you can see what's going on.

Two Schooners Racing.jpg

[BeauV]

Here is another schooner picture. The original is a half-frame slide and I've cropped it to half the area or less, so it' grainy. But you can see what's going on.

Two Schooners Racing.jpg

Semi, thanks for that. We don't ever sail MAYAN wing-n-wing. Mostly because I don't like to put preventers on the Main boom, Main Staysail boom, and Fore Staysail Boom. All three are low enough to the cabin top to sweep people overboard if the driver screws up or if there's a wind shift. Life's quite different sailing in place where the wind is almost always over 20k.

[SemiSalt]

Phil Bolger's HMS Rose in 1971.

HMS Rose_s.jpg

[Anomaly]

Semi,

Great photo, I wish mine (below) were of the same quality but these were taken a long time ago with a flip-phone camera.... The Rose as you know was sold off to Hollywood and featured in the Master and Commander flicks. The Rose is a replica of a British gunboat used during the (American) revolutionary war. It was sunk in Virginia and some bright entrepreneurs decided to build a replica for the tourist trade in New England. But there were only a few paintings/etchings in existence and nothing to give to shipwrights to build from. Enter Bolger who drew the lines drawings. His part was then erased from the public history of the Rose (II), at least the owners version. To show you how complete this erasure was, I tangentially knew a guy who was first mate on the Rose for a while and he vigorously protested the idea that Bolger was involved in any way. Of course, its all written down in the chapter on the Rose in "Different Boats."

Anyway, back when I used to live in Connecticut, I was driving home from work one day when I spied the Rose in the Mystic River just before the drawbridge. I sped home and got my daughter and the Bolger Brick box boat we had built together for her 10th birthday. We launched the Brick and she rowed us over to the Rose and a few (crappy) photos captured the two iconic Bolger works. I sent the photos to Phil and told him the perhaps the caption should be "two of the designers best efforts." He wrote back and commended us for the standing up/forward facing rowing and said "I did the Rose mostly just to prove I could, but Brick is the design that really needed doing." Classic Phil Bolger.

Rose&Brick1.jpg

Rose&Brick2.jpg

[SemiSalt]

Interesting how the color scheme was changed.

I was in grad school at Brown in 1971, and prowled the Narragansett Bay waterfronts from time to time. I found Rose in Newport, completely unattended and took a few pictures from an adjacent dock.

[Anomaly]

Your mention of the Rose in Newport brings up another aspect of the Rose story. Many years after the Brick-Meets-Rose on the Mystic River episode, I found a book in the Newport Public Library that tells the history of pre-revolutionary Newport-- "A Dependent People" by Julia Crane. Newport was extremely prosperous and once the third largest population center in all the colonies, all built around the slave trade and ancillary activities like rum production. But the Newport merchants weren't paying their taxes to the British and skirting acts like the Molasses Act. Eventually, (in the 1760s), the British parked the Rose (v. 1.0) off Newport Harbor and shelled Newport. To the ground practically and they occupied Newport. The slave trade shifted to Bristol and the merchant trade to Providence. I hadn't known the Rose's role in all this until reading Crane's book and the irony hit me. I called Bolger's widow and asked Susanne if she knew of the original Rose's history vis-a-vis Newport- can you believe somebody thought it would be a good idea to make a tourist item out of the boat that shelled Newport? Susanne laughed at the irony and said "yes, it would be like offering tourists flights over Pearl Harbor in replica Zeros." I think Hollywood is a better location for the Rose v. 2.0

[kimbottles]

Your mention of the Rose in Newport brings up another aspect of the Rose story. Many years after the Brick-Meets-Rose on the Mystic River episode, I found a book in the Newport Public Library that tells the history of pre-revolutionary Newport-- "A Dependent People" by Julia Crane. Newport was extremely prosperous and once the third largest population center in all the colonies, all built around the slave trade and ancillary activities like rum production. But the Newport merchants weren't paying their taxes to the British and skirting acts like the Molasses Act. Eventually, (in the 1760s), the British parked the Rose (v. 1.0) off Newport Harbor and shelled Newport. To the ground practically and they occupied Newport. The slave trade shifted to Bristol and the merchant trade to Providence. I hadn't known the Rose's role in all this until reading Crane's book and the irony hit me. I called Bolger's widow and asked Susanne if she knew of the original Rose's history vis-a-vis Newport- can you believe somebody thought it would be a good idea to make a tourist item out of the boat that shelled Newport? Susanne laughed at the irony and said "yes, it would be like offering tourists flights over Pearl Harbor in replica Zeros." I think Hollywood is a better location for the Rose v. 2.0

Rename her “SURPRISE”

[JoeP]

Your mention of the Rose in Newport brings up another aspect of the Rose story. Many years after the Brick-Meets-Rose on the Mystic River episode, I found a book in the Newport Public Library that tells the history of pre-revolutionary Newport-- "A Dependent People" by Julia Crane. Newport was extremely prosperous and once the third largest population center in all the colonies, all built around the slave trade and ancillary activities like rum production. But the Newport merchants weren't paying their taxes to the British and skirting acts like the Molasses Act. Eventually, (in the 1760s), the British parked the Rose (v. 1.0) off Newport Harbor and shelled Newport. To the ground practically and they occupied Newport. The slave trade shifted to Bristol and the merchant trade to Providence. I hadn't known the Rose's role in all this until reading Crane's book and the irony hit me. I called Bolger's widow and asked Susanne if she knew of the original Rose's history vis-a-vis Newport- can you believe somebody thought it would be a good idea to make a tourist item out of the boat that shelled Newport? Susanne laughed at the irony and said "yes, it would be like offering tourists flights over Pearl Harbor in replica Zeros." I think Hollywood is a better location for the Rose v. 2.0

Rename her “SURPRISE”

LOL!

[Anomaly]

Rename her “SURPRISE”

That's exactly what they did. Hollywood took this:

HMS_Rose_poster.png

RoseTransom.png

And changed it into this:

RoseAsSurprise.png

For this guy:

RussellCroweAndRose.png

[kimbottles]

Yeah, we are big Jack Aubrey fans.....

[IrieMon]

Another sextant pic for ya.... dear old Dad on our way to Nova Scotia. Circa 1975

That looks like a cool boat and voyage - what's the backstory?

The vessel is a steel-hulled Little Harbor 36, built in Holland around 1967. Supposedly owned personally by Ted Hood and sailed over to New England around 1972 where our family picked her up. Sailed her out of Beverly, MA (Jubilee Yacht Club). After the Nova Scotia trip, she did 3 Bermuda trips (2 Marion races - 78 and 80 I recall). The steel hull was nice to have when beating into the Gulf Stream

My father was a navigator on a B-25 flying reconn out of Henderson Field on Guadalcanal in WWII. He could work a sight in record time....

Fun story is when we were about a day out of Bermuda on our first trip (not a Marion race), he was doing a sight when the telescope popped out, bounced on the deck in slow-motion, then into the drink..... My mother and I looked at each other with dear-in-the-headlights eyes bulging. Dad was never a big talker and just said... "Hmmm... that's interesting. Just stay on this course". Just before dusk, he picked up an RDF signal, then later that night we saw the light of St Davids. Being 10 at the time, I didn't realize the gravity of the situation... way before the days of GPS.

Here's another shot of her through Maine fog....

[Jamie]

Another sextant pic for ya.... dear old Dad on our way to Nova Scotia. Circa 1975

That looks like a cool boat and voyage - what's the backstory?

The vessel is a steel-hulled Little Harbor 36, built in Holland around 1967. Supposedly owned personally by Ted Hood and sailed over to New England around 1972 where our family picked her up. Sailed her out of Beverly, MA (Jubilee Yacht Club). After the Nova Scotia trip, she did 3 Bermuda trips (2 Marion races - 78 and 80 I recall). The steel hull was nice to have when beating into the Gulf Stream

My father was a navigator on a B-25 flying reconn out of Henderson Field on Guadalcanal in WWII. He could work a sight in record time....

Fun story is when we were about a day out of Bermuda on our first trip (not a Marion race), he was doing a sight when the telescope popped out, bounced on the deck in slow-motion, then into the drink..... My mother and I looked at each other with dear-in-the-headlights eyes bulging. Dad was never a big talker and just said... "Hmmm... that's interesting. Just stay on this course". Just before dusk, he picked up an RDF signal, then later that night we saw the light of St Davids. Being 10 at the time, I didn't realize the gravity of the situation... way before the days of GPS.

Here's another shot of her through Maine fog....

That's a pretty boat. I imagine trying to get a sight in an airplane flying over a lot of water and unfriendly islands made you very good, very quick.

[SemiSalt]

My first boat, circa 1972. I believe this is Clinton, CT.

Tempest.jpg

[kdh]

My first boat, circa 2005. Can't believe this will be my 15th season.

[kimbottles]

Good lord Keith, only one boat? (And you started at the top with a Hinckley!)

FRANCIS is my 7th sailboat. WHITECAP is my 7th powerboat. (I also still have powerboat #4.)

I guess I just take much longer to figure out what I really want.

(I am not counting dinghies, kayaks, inflatables, canoes......)

[BeauV]

Kim, you raise an interesting point, at least to me. I hadn't thought about it this way. SCARLETT, our Moore-24 is the first boat I bought (previous boats like an FJ and a rowboat were bought by my parents, then I sailed on OPB for years). I still own SCARLETT... although she's tough for a 67-year-old to race competitively, we try.

When it was time to do long distance cruising, my x-wife and I set out to pick a boat purpose built for that mission. We bought the steel 65' Wyle ketch, SAGA (now called SEQUOIA). She remains, IMHO, the perfect long distance cruising boat for a family if you've got the $$s to support a project that size. Our criteria were: "Big enough to hold all our stuff, biggest that could be sailed by a couple who were extremely experienced cruisers, strong enough to make us feel safe with our 3 and 7-year-olds aboard in all weather conditions. SAGA did a wonderful job of fulfilling every aspect of that mission. As my x-wife would say years later: "You basically single-handed us around the S. Pacific." She singlehanded the boat quite easily while I was off-watch. When we returned from the 5-year trip, we lived aboard in Sausalito for about 9 months and realized that SAGA was unsuited to our newly acquired land-based mission. Sailing her around in SF Bay felt like riding on a ping-pong ball in a one-gallon can as it was shaken. Constant course and sail changes. We sold her on to a family who took her from SF to Europe and back. After them, another family used her for the same mission.

Then, post-divorce and after finding my lovely Admiral, we fell in love with a beautiful and highly impractical boat, the Spirit-46 S'AGAPO. It was as if we had a fling with a super-model. Realizing that our children and arriving grandchildren were not comfortably sailing a long narrow boat without lifelines in our local conditions, we started hunting for an appropriate boat for our new mission: Family Hauler. Of course, we'd had a taste of the supermodel, so we settled on a lovely old retired supermodel with MAYAN. She's an extraordinary Family Hauler.

I suppose the point of all this is that your serial polygamy with boats is probably similar to mine, the mission has changed. I think Keith would state that his mission has remained steadfast, in fact, I think he's actually said that a few times here, in that he wants to sail without spilling his drink in the company of friends. I reckon he picked the perfect boat for that mission and that's why he still loves her after all these years.

My Mission Creep:

Young guy's dream ULDB race boat, SCARLETT:


Ocean crossing family cruiser, SAGA. Crew dancing on the foredeck: (Second pic is of her as a sloop in the PNW, renamed SEQUOIA)



Supermodel couple's sailboat, S'AGAPO:


Classic family hauler on race day, MAYAN:

[Panope]

Guess it depends on when we start my "ownership" but it looks like I simultaneously hold the "longest boat ownership" crown while never having bought a boat. I'll likely take Panope to the grave. Any other boats will likely be just a fling.

Dad giving the photographer a playful salute for inadvertently "finding" that sand bar on a falling tide. Early 1980's

[Rob McAlpine]

My first boat was a Beetle Cat. This one needs a little more peak halyard:

Beetle Cat.jpg

Then I crewed 420's and Herreshoff S boats until I got a 110 class:

275px-One_ten_going_to_weather.png

I was boatless for about 15 years, got a Boston Whaler Harpoon for sailing on lakes in west Texas, but heck, the closest lake was 70 miles.

picharpoon52106a.jpg

I did get to sail my stepdad's boat, a Cheoy Lee Offshore 41, some in the late 70's early 80's, but my next boat looked remarkably like one pictured above:

IMG_4082_mhr.jpg

I hope to keep this one for some years, and to get a lot of the folks here out for an Eggemoggin reach or Newport Panerai regatta:

DSC_1877.jpg

[BeauV]

Rob,

RESTIVE is really lovely!

I had two sails on a 210. Both times a friend who owned the boat asked me to step in for his lightweight skipper who couldn't' make it. It was a wonderful boat to sail!!!

[Rob McAlpine]

Thanks Beau, you know you and the Admiral have an open invite. Easier than bringing Mayan to the east coast.

Driving the 110 upwind is my 2nd favorite ever helm, after the S-boat Musketeer, S61. Over several years I drove at least 10-12 S's, Musky was sublime, unlike any boat I've driven. The balance and feel was the stuff of dreams. Unsurprisingly, she was also a consistent winner in the class.

I'm starting to get excited about Marion-Bermuda with Orestes, Larry and Tim. Musketeer's skipper when I sailed on her as tactician/trimmer is a late addition to the crew. He did the first 2 M-B's on Sparky, then got sidetracked. I'm stoked to have him back aboard, we've sailed with/against each other since grade school in Beetle Cats.

[BeauV]

Rob, thanks for the open invite. Grandkids and boats are keeping me really busy out here for now. But someday!

I have never sailed an S. Wayne Ettle agrees with you, that it's one of the best boats ever to drive. Someday you'll have to drive a Moore-24, especially downwind in a blow. I feel the same way about it, which is why I've kept the darned thing so long.

[Chris Chesley]

I guess I'm a serial owner as well. As Beau says though, it's an ever changing mission. For me, it's driven by where I am sailing at a given time and what the budget is at the time and who will be sailing with me and how much time (esp. daysails vs cruises) I can devote to using a boat.

Herreshoff America catboat (Maine) - young family
Yankee One-Design (still pretty much the (boat) love of my life (PNW) - young family
Hobie 17 and Hobie 18 (Hawaii) teens and solo
Yamaha 25 (SoCal) solo
J-105 (Newport, Ca) couple
F-28 cc (Long Beach, Ca ) couple
Mainecat 41 (Maine, Fl, Bahamas, PNW) couple live aboard
Mainecat 38 (PNW) couple (and looking like it's for sale with optimism for the future and a couple more someday)

The last two became/will become groceries and software, cuz, like, entrepreneurial demands sometimes do that, yeah, they do....

[BeauV]

...snip...

The last two became/will become groceries and software, cuz, like, entrepreneurial demands sometimes do that, yeah, they do....

Yes, entrepreneurial demands do that. Fingers crossed it works out. I sold SAGA and put some of the money into a company called HeartFlow. It has worked out extremely well. May my good fortune be contagious through this wish.

[Chris Chesley]

It's harder on the Admiral---she sorta 'imprints' on each boat and can never imagine another....

Thanks for the good wishes. I wouldn't do it if I didn't think it was a good investment. I also don't believe employees work well for a company that is treading water or circling the wagons.

[Tim Ford]

Here's another shot of her through Maine fog....

Looks like the boat also survived a vicious hair & dust storm, too!

Let me guess. It's a copy of a color slide shot on Ektachrome 64 ?

[IrieMon]

Winner winner, chicken dinner !

My Dad had a few thousand slides... after he passed I just quickly scanned in without much editing (or cleaning of the actual slides) for a presentation. Some day I'll go back and edit the important ones.

[kimbottles]

I love the simplicity of Rob’s 110. Pure pleasure of sailing.

[Jamie]

Optimist: WLIS first boat at 7 or 8yrs
Dyer 9:' WLIS ( family tender and used for frostbiting) - just sold it last year...sniff ....but the new owner has made it new again and sails it with his children
Blue Jay: WLIS - Early teens
Laser: WLIS - High school
FJ /IC 420: ELIS - High school / College
Skipped a number of years living in Taiwan and took up windsurfing (I'm the fat guy on the right)


International Dragon - Hong Kong (young family)


Taipan 4.9: Shanghai (young family) Not the best boat for a young family.
Weta Trimaran: Shanghai (young family) A much better boat for a young family


SB3/SB20: Singapore (young family)


Hood 38: Maine (family and now couple) Planned retirement boat. Had it 8 years now and can't see selling it; it does almost everything I ask of it.

[Rob McAlpine]

My first boat, circa 2005. Can't believe this will be my 15th season.

You're a very smart guy, but buying that boat is probably one of the smartest things you've ever done. I know buying Sparky was in my top ten ever best decisions.

[BeauV]

Rob - I'm certain that many of us agree with you. Buying a boat is a critical bit of being a happy person with one's life.