There are two things we can say about our schooner Brilliant: the boat is fast and the boat is beautiful. This past weekend, at the annual Eggemoggin Reach Regatta in Maine, Brilliant proved once again the truth to those statements.

Captain Dan McKenzie and his crew brought Brilliant across the line for first place in her class (schooner and gaff). The Eggemoggin Reach Regatta is the premier classic yacht race on the East Coast. There were reportedly 113 vessels in Saturday’s race.

Brilliant also brought home the trophy for Most Photogenic Boat as judged by the Calendar of Wooden Boats®.

The schooner is the work of legendary naval architect Olin Stephens II, whose ability to combine speed and beauty in his designs is renowned. Brilliant was built in 1932 at the yard of Henry B. Nevins at City Island, NY. After a number of years as a yacht and a stint in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II, the boat was donated to the Museum in 1952 to become a sail training vessel, starting in 1953. More than 11,000 teenagers and adults have sailed in programs since that time. Brilliant’s excellent condition is a testament to the designers and skilled craftsmen who built her to the highest standards, and to the careful maintenance she has received ever since. Originally built for offshore cruising, Brilliant has proven herself in many races.

Congratulations to the crew and everyone who supports Brilliant over the course of the year.

Mystic Seaport Museum is proud to announce it is accepting pre-sale orders for its new book, Conversations with Turner: The Watercolors, published jointly with Skira. Edited by Senior Vice President for Curatorial Affairs Nicholas Bell, the book accompanies the major exhibition at the Museum opening October 5.

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) is widely considered the greatest artist in the history of Britain. Central to this claim is Turner’s mastery of watercolor, a medium he tackled in childhood and returned to throughout his life as he challenged, then surpassed all expectations of what could be achieved with the simple ingredients of paper, water, and pigment.

In this book 16 scholars, historians, and artists come together for a series of thematic conversations centered on this medium. Topics include the role watercolor played in Turner’s practice, its relationship to oil painting, what these works reveal about Britain in the grips of the Industrial Revolution, Turner’s relationship to the sea, and his impact today on contemporary art.

Contributors include Glenn Adamson, John Akomfrah CBE, Timothy Barringer, David Blayney Brown, Amy Concannon, Susan Grace Galassi, Ellen Harvey, Elizabeth Helsinger, Olivier Meslay, Mariana Marchesi, Alexander Nemerov, Katie Paterson, Victoria Pomery OBE, William S. Rodner, Sam Smiles, and Scott Wilcox.

This book illustrates more than 100 watercolors from the Turner Bequest at Tate, tracking the artist’s progress as he rivaled peers in the 1790s through to the 1840s, when Turner’s annual travels to Italy, Germany, and Switzerland fed an increasingly radical approach to color and technique. Many of these works were never intended to be seen by others, and were instead painted, in contemporary art critic John Ruskin’s words, “for his own pleasure.”

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.

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.