Month: July 2019

Mystic Seaport Museum announces it honored the Dark Harbor 20 class owners with the William A. Baker Award. The award is given to promote the awareness and appreciation of fine examples of one-design classes or boats of like kind, and to foster faithful preservation and restoration, and encourage their continued use.

The owners are being recognized for their effort to preserve and maintain a significant class of American sailing craft.

Antique and classic boat organizations throughout the country typically present awards for the preservation of wooden boats. As a rule, these awards are presented to individual owners or vessels, recognizing some superlative aspect of the work that has been done to keep them up, maintain original status, or examples of fine craftsmanship.

The William Avery Baker Award is unusual in that it is presented to a class association or group of owners. The purpose is to recognize the people and communities that do the bold, arduous, and often expensive work of keeping a large group or class of vessels actively sailing.

The Dark Harbor 20 was designed in 1934 by yacht designers Olin Stephens II and his partner, Drake Sparkman, in response to a request from members of the Tarratine Club of Dark Harbor in Isleboro, ME, for a new sloop for club racing. The resulting boat is a narrow, fin-keel hull with long overhangs and a Bermudan rig. The first batch of 16 boats was built by George Lawley in Neponset, MA, during 1934-5. The design proved to be a success, both on and off the racecourse. The boats are fast, easily driven with particularly good windward performance, and easy to handle.

A second batch of five boats joined the fleet after World War II. All but one of the original Dark Harbor 20s are still sailing, and in 2006 a fiberglass version was added to the class. The new boats were designed and engineered by Sparkman & Stephens to be identical in all relevant aspects to the wooden boats to ensure fair competition.

“The owners of the Dark Harbor 20s are to be commended for their dedication to authenticity and active use of the class. That so many of the inaugural fleet are still sailing is a remarkable accomplishment and yet there is room for a next generation to continue the class for the future,” said Steve White, president of Mystic Seaport Museum. “We are proud to honor the Dark Harbor 20 owners for their continued effort to allow future generations to sail and enjoy these fine boats. As Camden was my childhood home, I had the opportunity to sail the DH20s, loving them all”

The award was presented at a ceremony at the Tarratine Club July 30.

Mystic Seaport is pleased to announce the latest recipient of the William P. Stephens Award is maritime photographer Benjamin Mendlowitz.

Established in 1988, and named after William P. Stephens, long known as the “Dean of American Yachtsmen” and “the grand old man of American yachting,” the award is given periodically in recognition of a significant and enduring contribution to the history, preservation, progress, understanding, or appreciation of American yachting and boating.

“We are deeply honored to present this award to Benjamin Mendlowitz to recognize his life’s work capturing the beauty and craftsmanship of wooden boats,” said Mystic Seaport Museum President Steve White. “Much as the Rosenfeld family chronicled the early and middle of the 20th century of American yachting with their iconic black-and-white photographs, Mendlowitz applies his talented eye and intuitive sense of light and curve to portray the classic boats that remain from the past and to document the important vessels from our generation. His work helped drive the renaissance of wooden boats in America over the last 40 years.”

Mendlowitz was born and raised in New York City and drew his passion for boats and the sea from summers on the New Jersey Shore, where he was influenced by the local traditional boat builders. After graduating from Brandeis University, he embarked on a career in photography with his work appearing in WoodenBoat Magazine and other nautical publications. Through his company NOAH Publications, Mendlowitz publishes the Calendar of Wooden Boats, which has been a staple on the walls of wooden boat enthusiasts for more than 30 years.

Mendlowitz photographs have appeared regularly on the covers of many trade and educational books, and in feature articles and on the covers of the most respected boating magazines including WoodenBoat, Nautical Quarterly, Sail, Yachting, Cruising World, Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors, Soundings, Chasse-Maree and L’annee Bateau (France), Classic Boat, (Britain), Yacht (Germany), and Arte Navale (Italy). His work has also appeared in magazines such as Time, Esquire, Money, People, Atlantic Monthly, Connoisseur, Historic Preservation, Field & Stream, Down East, Yankee, Sports Illustrated, The London Times Magazine, The Boston Globe Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, among many others.

Mendlowitz’s newest book, Herreshoff: American Masterpieces, created in collaboration with Maynard Bray and Claas van der Linde, was published in November 2016 by W.W. Norton & Company of New York. In 1998, Norton published Wood, Water & Light, a large-format, full-color book featuring more than 180 of Mendlowitz’s finest early images with accompanying text by Joel White. In addition to seven other book published by Norton, two books published by NOAH Publications feature his photography: Joel White: Boatbuilder, Designer (2002), with text by Bill Mayher and Maynard Bray and Aida (2012) by Maynard Bray.

The award was presented as part of the Castine Classic Race Symposium at the Maine Maritime Academy, in Castine, Maine, on July 31.

Previous recipients include Olin J. Stephens II, Jon Wilson, Elizabeth Meyer, Briggs Cunningham, John Gardner, Carleton Mitchell, Maynard Bray, John Rousmaniere, and Louie Howland.

By Paul O’Pecko
Vice President of Research Collections and Director of the G.W. Blunt White Library

With the help from an Arthur Vining Davis Foundation grant over a decade ago, Mystic Seaport Museum developed a website called the National Maritime Digital Library. It consists of a number of elements including databases, digitized material and a portal to a new maritime history journal called CORIOLIS. The core of the site, though, was the American Offshore Whaling Voyage database. Judith Lund, former curator at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, had created a database of more than 16,000 whaling voyages and teamed up with Mystic Seaport Museum to put it online in a format that would be useful to researchers around the world. Fast forward to 2017 and the AOWV database took on a life of its own to become WHALINGHISTORY.ORG, an extraordinary collection of information and digital objects that has far surpassed our original dreams for the material.

Over the last two years, Mystic Seaport Museum and the New Bedford Whaling Museum cobbled together funding to expand the website with the guidance of web developer David Caldwell. Dave’s ability to organize the data and digital material that we have compiled over the years has been a herculean effort that is paying dividends by way of all the scholarly work done by users tapping into the site. In addition to the original database, other participants from around the world have begun sharing their data with us. This includes databases for the British Southern Whaler Fishery (1775-1859), the British North American Whale Fishery (1779-1845) and the French Whaling Voyages (1784-1866). Add a collection of new crew lists, links to hundreds of scanned logbooks and a new search function that links all the material together, and you have a virtual smorgasbord of whaling history at your fingertips. Quite interesting is the cross pollination of whaleships and masters between the different databases, especially among the Nantucketers who occasionally registered their voyages in both America and France, for example.

Other additions to the site include a new EXPLORE menu that offers new ways to dig into the Whaling History databases and features aspects of the data that might not otherwise be discovered. One of the first EXPLORE topics is “Women Who Went Whaling,” an opportunity to find voyages on which the master’s wife sailed. The EXPLORE menu also assists users in finding all the 1,300 voyage maps that are included on the site. These maps display voyage location information from the American Whaling Logbook database that combines logbook data from the Maury, Townsend and Census of Marine Life logbook projects. One of the most gratifying elements of the site for researchers is the ability to download any or all data to be manipulated for their own purposes, rather than having to construct tables from data that they would otherwise need to type out or cut and paste.

Goals yet to be achieved include linking art and objects to individual voyages and bringing in additional institutions to add their records and logbooks to the collection. Fund raising for this will start soon, so feel free to participate!

While some gray rain clouds formed in the distance, approximately 170 Mystic Seaport Museum volunteers, staff, and guests gathered in the River Room and on the outside patio at Latitude 41° Restaurant & Tavern to participate in the 2019 Celebration of Volunteers Awards on July 17.

EveAnne Stouch, associate director of Volunteer Services, welcomed everyone to the awards ceremony, an event that has been held since 1998. At that time, there was one award to present, while the number of awards has now risen to six. Stouch handed over the microphone to Steve White, president of Mystic Seaport Museum, who was happy to see so many gathered for this year’s celebration. After a few words, White introduced the new Chairman of the Museum Board, Michael Hudner. “Mike is a great friend of the Museum,” White said.

Hudner could feel the warmth of the volunteers, “who seems to feel so comfortable here tonight,” he said. “I would like to propose that we change the name of this group to the ‘Salty Dogs,’” a remark that was met with laughter from the assembled volunteers.

First up at the award presentation was Paul O’Pecko, vice president of Research Collections and director of the G.W. Blunt White Library, who spoke warmly about this year’s first recipient of the Volunteer Special Recognition Award, Martha Murphy, who volunteers in the Rosenfeld Collection.

Chris Gasiorek, vice president of Watercraft Preservation and Programs, who was presenting the second Volunteer Special Recognition Award, joked that he still feels like a stranger when he walks into the Museum’s Boathouse to talk to the volunteers working there. “They sometimes give me a cookie,” he said, “before I leave them to their task.” The second Volunteer Special Recognition Award went to Boathouse volunteer Andy Strode.

Molly Kulick was the 2019 Junior Volunteer Special Recognition Award winner, an award that was presented by Susan Funk, executive vice president and COO of the Museum. Molly is a dedicated and hard-working volunteer in the Sailing Center, Funk said. Funk read some of the remarks that Molly’s co-workers had mentioned about her, and one, that Molly always had a smile on her face, everyone among the gathered volunteers could see – Molly was beaming when she received her award from Funk.

Laura Hopkins, senior vice president for Advancement, spoke enthusiastically about the recipient of the Special Staff Recognition Award, her co-worker Chris Freeman, director of Development and Legacy Giving, who for the last 10 years has run the Museum’s PILOTS program. “Chris is a strong ambassador for the Museum, Hopkins said. She continued, “and who knew that PILOTS is an acronym for Passion, Integrity, Loyalty, Optimism, Tenacity, Service?” Chris Freeman was met with kindhearted applause when he went up to receive his award from Hopkins – many of the gathered volunteers this evening are also PILOTS in Chris’s program.

Left for the evening were the two most prestigious awards: the William C. Noyes Volunteer of the Year Award and the Rudolph J. Schaefer III Volunteer Lifetime Achievement Award. Susan Noyes, daughter of Bettye Noyes who for many year’s presented this award, which is named after her husband, was proud to give this year’s award to RJ Lavallee, a member of the Watercraft Gung Ho Squad. He is the one who has received most nominations throughout the years for this award, Susan Noyes said. According to his co-workers: “He’s always cheerful, a team-player, and truly unique,” Noyes mentioned.

When Steve White, who presented the 2019 Rudolph J. Schaefer III Volunteer Lifetime Achievement Award, read out the name of the award winner, the volunteers cheered loudly. The award went to Rebecca “Becky” Jackson, who has volunteered at the Museum for 35 years, the recent years in the Membership lounge. White went over to the table where Becky was sitting to escort her to the front where she received her award. With Becky’s consent – as one is never to ask or reveal a lady’s age – White informed the volunteers that Becky will turn 100 years old later this year! Becky was a more than worthy winner of the Museum’s volunteers 2019 Lifetime Award.

Mystic Seaport Museum announces it is honoring the Dark Harbor 20 class owners with the William A. Baker Award. The award is given to promote the awareness and appreciation of fine examples of one-design classes or boats of like kind, and to foster faithful preservation and restoration, and encourage their continued use.

The owners are being recognized for their effort to preserve and maintain a significant class of American sailing craft.

Antique and classic boat organizations throughout the country typically present awards for the preservation of wooden boats. As a rule, these awards are presented to individual owners or vessels, recognizing some superlative aspect of the work that has been done to keep them up, maintain original status, or examples of fine craftsmanship.

The William Avery Baker Award is unusual in that it is presented to a class association or group of owners. The purpose is to recognize the people and communities that do the bold, arduous, and often expensive work of keeping a large group or class of vessels actively sailing.

The Dark Harbor 20 was designed in 1934 by yacht designers Olin Stephens II and his partner Drake Sparkman in response to a request from members of the Tarratine Club of Dark Harbor in Islesboro, ME, for a new sloop for club racing. The resulting boat is a narrow, fin-keel hull with long overhangs and a Bermudan rig. The first group of 16 boats was built by George Lawley in Neponset, MA, during 1934-6. The design proved to be a success, both on and off the racecourse.

The boats are fast, easily driven with particularly good windward performance, and easy to handle. Boat number 1 (Widgeon) was built for Rebecca Crane Tompkins, daughter of famed yacht designer Clinton Crane. Mrs. Tompkins sailed with Donnie Durkee and Gilbert Leach as crew for more than 25 years. Widgeon was then raced by her family until recently when her great-grandsons Ned and Peter Truslow donated it to the Islesboro Central School.

A second group of five boats (Hulls 17-21) joined the fleet after World War II. They were built by Al Norton on 700 Acre Island at what is now Dark Harbor Boatyard. All but one of the original Dark Harbor 20s are still in existence – Hull 19 was lost in a storm. With no way to expand the fleet to new owners, and with maintenance costs of the aging fleet growing, there was talk of switching to a new model, but instead in 2003 under the leadership of Commodore Bill Elkins, research began on a fiberglass version. The new boats were designed and engineered by Sparkman & Stephens to be identical in all relevant aspects to the wooden boats to ensure fair competition. They were built by Shaw yachts of Thomaston, ME, and launched in 2005 (Hulls 22-25).

According to a 2016 article by Art Paine in Maine Boats, Homes and Harbors: The goal in developing the fiberglass version was to not only maintain the same weight, stability, and sailing characteristics, but also to preserve the classic feel of the existing boats while utilizing modern but conservative (low-tech) construction techniques.

Pendleton Yacht Yard weighed 11 different boats, soaking wet, in the fall of 2003. Then S&S Naval Architect Carl Persak spent several weeks documenting hull, keel, and deck geometry, testing construction materials, doing inclining experiments, and scale measurements of all the existing boats.

Based on these measurements, S&S produced a detailed weight study confirming the weight, vertical and longitudinal center of gravity, stability, and righting moments of existing wooden boats. This study was the basis for the calculations of the 3D hull file for the fiberglass version.

According to Stanley Pendleton, who oversaw the calculations for the new boats, the molds for the hull, deck, and rudder are now at Pendleton Yacht Yard, located in downtown Dark Harbor. Their first project with the molds was a restoration of wooden Hull 10 into fiberglass Hull 26. All of the bronze Lawley castings, bronze fittings, mahogany seats, mahogany main bulkhead, rudder and tiller, trunk house and mahogany coaming, and lead keel were removed and re-installed into a new fiberglass hull and fiberglass deck. The original bronze rudder post was also saved and used for a new fiberglass blade. The spars were stripped and refurbished, keeping the original castings but installing new bronze tangs and other fittings. The boat sails as #10 and is a perfect replica of a wooden boat. Special care was taken with the hull and deck joint so it could be hidden by a proper 3/4-inch wide toe rail and have a proper reveal between the toe rail and rub rail.

Pendleton Yacht Yard then splined and refinished the left-over original hull, handsome by itself, re-framed and flattened the deck, made a floor mount, and it is now used as a stunning tasting bar in a rum distillery in Massachusetts.

More new fiberglass Dark Harbor 20s are planned.

“The owners of the Dark Harbor 20s are to be commended for their dedication to authenticity and active use of the class. That so many of the inaugural fleet are still sailing is a remarkable accomplishment and yet there is room for a next generation to continue the class for the future,” said Steve White, president of Mystic Seaport Museum. “We are proud to honor the Dark Harbor 20 owners for their continued effort to allow future generations to sail and enjoy these fine boats.”

The award will be presented at a ceremony at the Tarratine Club on Tuesday July 31.