I was recently interviewed by Everett Potter, travel writer, of the New York Times. Here are some of the answers to the questions he had for me.

Everett: Let’s start at the beginning: what is a “windjammer” and how did they become so closely associated with the Maine coast?

Barry: The term “windjammer” was originally a derogatory term used by sailors in steamships when they referred to those sailing vessels that, instead of sailing straight up wind had to tack back and forth sailing as close to the wind as possible to go places. Due to its lack of access by other means during the late 19th and early 20th centuries commercial sailing vessels were still in existence along the Maine coast. The first windjammer cruises were offered aboard some of these schooners whose captains were happy to have a new “cargo”. Nowadays the term windjammer refers to any of the traditional sailing vessels offering over night sailing cruises along the Maine coast.

Everett: Historically, when did Maine windjammers begin offering passage to paying customers?

Barry: Windjammer cruises in Maine began in 1936. A gentleman by the name of Frank Swift saw a potential market for folks from urban and suburban areas enjoying time aboard a traditional Maine coast schooner. Given the popularity of these cruises it seems like he was right.

Everett: Tell us about your ship, the Schooner Mary Day. Is it a vintage working ship or a later version of a windjammer?

Barry: Mary Day was the first commercial sailing vessel purpose built for windjammer cruises. She was built at the Harvey Gamage Shipyard in South Bristol from an original design by Capt Havilah Hawkins who had formerly owned and operated the schooners Stephen Taber and Alice Wentworth. Is she vintage or a later version of a windjammer? Well she was the first schooner ever launched just to be a windjammer. As a commercial sailing vessel she was designed for a different purpose than any of the other vessels at the time but she was none the less a commercial sailing, the first schooner launched along the coast of Maine since 1938. Capt Hawkins design reflected the best examples of his experiences aboard older schooners and added his own well-founded ideas about how to make a schooner more comfortable and easier to maintain. In essence she is a coasting schooner like all the rest, just launched a little later with a new cargo in mind. 51 years later I think he got a lot of things just right.

Everett: What are the classic reasons that a tourist would enjoy a trip on a Maine windjammer?

Barry: Have you ever met someone who didn’t really like to relax and couldn’t enjoy spending a few days poking around the coast of Maine? Windjammer cruises take folks away from the daily cares ashore. No cell phones, no computers, no radios or television telling us what the latest crisis in the news might be. Who doesn’t need a chance to leave “it” all behind. There are some folks who don’t want to let go and that is fine. There are some folks who get seasick looking at a picture of a boat so this type of vacation experience isn’t for everyone. But I can promise this, if anyone wants a chance to relax deeply, to see a still wild part of the coast, to enjoy the thrill of 100 tons of boat being propelled by nothing more than the wind, doesn’t need the constant hustle and bustle and can enjoy the company of others…well then this might just do all of that and more. I have yet to meet the person who doesn’t get just a tinge of excitement when they get a chance to take the wheel or see a seal pup and its mother lying in the sun on an exposed ledge or see porpoise or a bald eagle or the granite shores of an unspoiled spruce covered island.

Everett: What are the ports of call you might visit?

Barry: We have no itinerary. It is that simple. No schedule, no place to be. I like to think that we get guests off the beaten path. You can’t imagine that we could hide a big schooner like Mary Day but Maine is so full of islands and remote little coves it really isn’t that hard. Ports of call? Name any big town along the Maine coast and we don’t go there. A secluded beach, a small island community with a one room school house, a remote part of Acadia National Park that can only be accessed by boat, a small village where lobster boats far out number yachts. That doesn’t give you the names of any specific towns I know but then again most people wouldn’t have a clue where the fishing village of East Brookshaven on Little Long Island in Seal Bay is.

Everett: You belong to the Maine Windjammer Association – do you meet up with other windjammers in the course of one of your voyages?

Barry: Yes we do! The Maine Windjammer Association is a group of 10 owner/operators working cooperatively to insure the quality of the windjammer experience. The Association host several events during the season when the fleet has a chance to meet up for a “gam”, have a fun day racing around the bay or have a shoreside shindig with music and dancing. As the last and largest working fleet of traditional sailing vessels we can’t help but see and admire the other boats.

Everett: How about families –is this a trip that families might enjoy?

Barry: Families are more than welcome aboard the schooners. We have hosted family reunions, weddings and small families that just want a chance to spend some quality time together without having to worry about who is doing the cooking or the cleaning. Some of schooners have a suggested age limit and some specialize in families with younger children. We suggest an age limit of 12 but we make exceptions for families with kids who are mature enough to understand the nature of the sailing experience and can communicate well with adults.

Everett As a passenger, can I participate in the work life of the ship, helping to hoist sails, say?

Barry: You bet! That is what we do best. These windjammers are a fabulous place to learn about sailing, traditional rigging, knots and navigation. Aboard Mary Day we actually offer sail training cruises for school groups and for adults looking for an exciting active experiential vacation that doesn’t require great physical conditioning or special equipment. We also offer a host of other cruises with themes that include folk music, natural history, lighthouses and this year, a beer tasting cruise that features craft beers from Maine.

Everett: Tell us a bit about the food and your chef.

Barry: Hearty New England fare…that is what we offer. Breakfasts such as blueberry pancakes with Maine maple syrup, scrambled eggs (from our own chickens) and sausage made by a local farmer who lives just down the road from us. Fresh fruit and plenty of hot coffee and tea along with homemade cranberry scones. Lunches are usually hearty soups with fresh garden salads with home made dressings along with fresh bread and something just a little sweet like almond chocolate chip cookies. Dinner entrees include fresh fish with lemon and capers, baked boneless chicken breasts with an orange marmalade glaze, or a southern pulled pork made from Boston butt (again from our neighbor farmer down the road) slow cooked in the wood cookstove. Every cruises includes an all-you-can-eat lobster dinner. Fresh pies from local fruits in season, a wicked moist chocolate cake with mocha frosting or a strawberry shortcake with light homemade biscuits, hand whipped cream and organic strawberries. Should I mention hand cranked home made ice cream?

Everett: And the cost – these are pretty reasonable trips, aren’t they?

Barry: Trips cost on average $175/person/day depending on the length of the cruise and the time of season desired. I have had more than a few folks tell us we don’t charge enough. We keep our rates as low as possible and the great thing, unlike other cruise experiences, there are no surcharges or shore visit fees or chances that the engine (in our case the wind) will break down. Our trips are an all-inclusive get-away package that gets you out of your car and answers the question “What are we going to do today?” during your Maine vacation. Between shopping, gas, meals, entertainment and room fees for staying at one of the local B&Bs we are a bargain. I think just knowing that you are doing something extraordinary, seeing the Maine coast from a whole new perspective instead of searching for a parking space from your car is worth the price of admission. The Maine windjammer sailing experience is something you just can’t find anywhere else in the world.

Good morning everyone. Do you know any characters, folks who you just can’t forget? Let’s see, a few characters that I will never forget: Major Floyd S Chadwick, USAF Ret., our dearly beloved Camden “Harbor Monitor” Now that man had a quip for everything and I must use a “majorism”, one of his often used witty explanations for life, everyday. Then there is Mary, Sweet Mary, who learned her baking craft from Josephine Day who ran the Trailing Ewe for many, many years before she called it quits at somewhere close to the age of 90. Mary learned how to do a days work in her 25 summers at the Ewe. Mary could do anything in the world without complaining and with a smile on her face. Everyone felt warmed by Mary’s goodness just by standing in the same room with her. My Dad had his moments, walking into the local yacht club like he owned the place. I didn’t find out until I was an adult that we used the launch service for years without actually possessing a membership card. Not a very good role model but he had a certain nerve you kinda had to admire and probably helped him stride confidently (wether he was confident or not) into many difficult situations. And then there is Bruce, as honest as the day is long, as forgiving as the clouds are high and as full of funny stories that redefine the word “embellishment” as the ocean is deep. Many of Bruce’s stories start with, “One day, down at the plant….” There are more characters I could name but you get the point. Undoubtedly you know a few yourself.

Character is earned through hard work and very challenging life experiences. When the Major came out of the Battle of the Bulge during WW II alive he had earned a few stripes, literally and figuratively. No one who ever worked for Josephine Day at the “Ewe” ever left the same as when they arrived. More often than not character is formed, tempered if you will, “under fire”. So that begs the question, how will the up and coming generations find their character. I have been in many sail training situations aboard the schooner with college students and younger adults. More recently I have wondered if young men in particular were going through the moves, looking right for the part but not really grabbing life by the horns and shaking it for all they could. Without having had too much stress in their lives why would they? Finding crew for the schooner is a huge challenge these days and the best crew more often than not come from what I consider the strongest families or in the opposite extreme the hardest family situations from which by the grace of God they have emerged self-reliant. Do you know how many 19 year olds we have had arrive at the boat who have never cooked, cleaned, shopped for food, done their own laundry or otherwise had to fend for themselves emotionally, financially or physically?

Someone decided to call this Generation Y or “Millenials.” Sociologists have put a pile of labels on these folks. Goodness knows I lacked all sorts of emotional maturity during my 20s, 30s and 40s. Most people wonder about me today. I don’t like labels but what I will say, based on my own experience, is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find young adults with the strength of character to go the unnoticed extra mile, to stand behind their word when making difficult choices, to put in a long days work without having to stop every half hour for a water break or check their Facebook page. And what is up with young men with bad backs?
Don’t get me started!Oooops, too late.

At any rate, I am probably sounding like an old geezer by now. That’s OK with me. The point is this. We are looking for a few good men and women who are not afraid of a long days work where back muscles actually get sore, where strength of character is pushed while standing bow watch in the pouring rain, where perseverance is challenged when standing next to a hot wood stove kneading bread in a moving boat with no visible horizon. Crewing on a windjammer is not the easiest summer job but it is the coolest. So if you know someone full of the energy and idealism of youth with a strength of character tested by life experience please send them our way. Applications are available online.

Have a great day. Be well. Do good.

Good morning everyone. The idea of being an insider this time of year is appealing especially to those of us who happen to have a wood stove to wrap ourselves around. The temperatures this past week have been a tad bit chilly. I don’t believe the thermometer here at the global headquarters broke the single digits all week long. The chickens stayed huddled under cover. It was so cold….how cold was it??? It was so cold then when the rooster crowed the steam from its warm breath froze instantly to its beak and fell to the ground . The sound never actually reached the house only a few yards away as it was frozen inside that pile of ice. Come spring all those sounds laying around the dooryard are going to defrost and the best hearing protectors around will do little to dampen the forthcoming cacophony.

Maine Insiders: Barry King from Maine Office of Tourism on Vimeo.

But that isn’t the kind of “insider” I was trying to tell you about. An insider is also someone who is in “the know” about what ever it is they think they know about. Last spring I was accidentally mistaken as an “insider” by the Maine Department of Tourism. They came down to Camden to take some video footage during which Colby stole the show which is why so much footage of other folks is spliced in there. At any rate, because the phone is starting to jangle with people wanting to reserve space for next summer I thought I better, in the spirit of full disclosure, let folks see what they might get stuck with (me that is).

Hope you enjoy this video. And really I am not as big a blabber mouth as the video makes me out to be. Probably worse. You’ll notice the Maine Office of Tourism has pretty well buried this thing on the internet so that mothers and their children are safe from any harmful effects.

Have a great day. Be well. Do good.

Good morning everyone.

“DIN is an acronym for Deutsches Institut fur Normung, the German regulatory body that oversees the standardization of settings for every field of technology.”

Recently at an alpine ski race I was standing in the starting gate about to launch myself down through a maze of red and blue poles stuck in the snow in a seemingly random pattern of horizontal and vertical distribution. It can be quite a thrill getting this 50-year-old body to do what my 19-year-old mind dreams of. I get nervous excitement raising my pulse at every start. Sometimes it even dawns on me that this thrill seeking activity might be a really silly or even dangerous thing to do.

But it is all safe enough because I know the DIN setting for the release on my bindings will mostly keep me from harm. If I somehow get out of control and crash the chances are good that I will walk away from a catastrophic “yard sale” with nothing more than a shattered ego. For those of you unfamiliar with the term “yard sale” just imagine gloves, goggles, ski poles and skis strewn about the hill or hanging in nearby tree branches as if thrown from a helicopter. During one race I literally leapt right out of my skis at the starting gate as I kicked back to achieve some miraculous lift-off like a World Cup ski racer.

Now all of this has had me thinking that life has a DIN setting too. The question is when, under extreme stress, do your bindings release and can you adjust that setting so you don’t get hurt or injure others in the ensuing “yard sale”? Experienced ski techs know that people and bindings change so that DINs need to be checked regularly with properly calibrated equipment helping each skier keep their optimum DIN. The idea is to allow yourself to neither release before you have had a chance to experience the thrill of success or release too late harming yourself and others around you.

My therapist is my mental ski tech. She claims with proper care and feeding I can be taught to do simple tasks and with well-balanced medications I can actually achieve some modicum of success without hurting myself or anyone else. But sailing is my real therapy. A week out on Penobscot Bay allows me to double check my DIN setting. So, with that thought in mind, have you checked your bindings lately? Or is it time to book a cruise along the Maine coast and double check you DIN?

Have a great day. Be well. Do good.

Good morning everyone. I probably should have posted this at Halloween. Once again, here I am, a day late and a dollar short. I was flipping through some wonderful pictures that windjammer guests Wendy and Jim Cahill sent to us. I got a good chuckle when I saw this picture of me during one of my more intense moments. I swear my shrink is close to getting my medications sorted out. I should be back in equilibrium by next summer. As you can see from the slack main sheet in the background this photo was not taken at a particularly breezy moment. So why the clothes pins in the beard?? If you figure it out please let me know so I can explain this to Jen and the kids.

This whole blog thingy was intended to inspire folks to take a windjammer cruise with us. This kind of silliness might scare more than just a few guests away. Laughing at myself is a hobby that I (and many others) enjoy. No one really takes me that seriously so why should I. And I guess that is my thought for the day…life is too short so don’t take it too seriously or you might miss the journey.

Have a great day. Be well. Do good.

Good morning everyone. Finally, news from the global headquarters. It isn’t so much that we have nothing to write about. It is more a function of having the time to write. I was up very late last night putting the “final” touches on Chadwick’s, our harbor tug, engine. She has received what I fondly call an aerosol rebuild.  The engine was looking pretty darn sad when we hauled it out of the yawl boat a few weeks ago.

I think you will agree that she is looking a whole better better and we have had a chance to really give her a thorough going over. The process involved stripping the block of all its accoutrements, rust busting, priming, painting, polishing and refitting the parts back in place. I simplified systems where I could. For instance, there was a 15 lb. three sheave pulley on the front that has been weighing things down and not serving any useful purpose in our application. I will be pulling the propellor for cleaning and balancing and reinstalling the engine in the next week. She will be in service after the New Years holiday when we move the schooner during the dredging project in Camden.

As the great Altitude Lou McNally says, “and at this hour, that’s the way it looks from here.” Have a great day. Be well. Do good.