For every commercial sailing vessel carrying passengers along the Maine coast between May and September each year there is a captain with an interesting story to tell.

Some are veterans of the trade. Others are refugees from city-bound professions. Still others have stories that read like something out of a child's bedtime tale. Neal Parker, who sails the schooner Wendameen out of Rockland, has just such a once-upon-a-time tale, which begins when he was 12.

Growing up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and haunting the waterfront at Coney Island and Sheepshead Bay on his bicycle, he watched waters filled with motor boats and freighters. But what he wanted had real sails.

At age 13, he read "Clipper Ships and Captains" from cover to cover several times. "It struck such an overwhelmingly romantic chord," he said. "All I wanted to do was sail a clipper and be kicked by the first mate."

When he was 15 he volunteered for a summer at the South Street Seaport Museum in New York City, spending weekend nights sleeping on the decks of exhibits like the tug Matilda, "with the dust of Brooklyn Bridge falling on me."

There Parker met Rick O'Shea, who had formerly sailed with the Coast Guard. O'Shea tipped the young enthusiast toward an aspect of sailing that has stayed with him ever since, even as he sought out his present career – making model boats.

But Parker also began spending as much time as he could aboard real ships.

He was a deckhand aboard Clearwater, the Hudson River schooner designed by Cyrus Hamlin of Kennebunk, Maine and built at the Harvey Gamage yard in Bristol, Maine, for a consortium of environmentalists that included singer Pete Seeger.

When he was 16, Parker was given an old catboat by O'Shea. He took her to a marina on the Hudson and beached her to begin repairs. He learned a hard lesson that summer, and deeply regrets ever listening to the people who told him the vessel was beyond repair.

"I know I could have repaired her the way I planned," he said. "I have learned never to listen to people who say things cannot be done, who cannot do it themselves."

At 20 he came to Maine as an apprentice at the North End Shipyard in Rockland, a move that was to play a large part in the aspiring seaman's future. At North End, Capt. John Foss of Rockport was restoring the schooner Lewis R. French, a 64-foot coaster, built in 1871 at Christmas Cove. Today it is owned by Capt. Dan and Kathy Pease of Rockport, and sails from Camden.

It was the winter of 1975-'76, and Parker lived in a small apartment above the Rockland boat shed, sharing it with Foss, with whom he fought continually about how high the thermostat should be set. Together, the two of them worked on the restoration.

In the spring of 1976, Parker signed on as mate aboard the schooner Stephen Taber, which was then owned by Mike Anderson, who later built the steel-hulled ketch Angelique, which today sails from Camden. Taber, also built in 1871, at Glen Head, N.Y., now sails from Rockland. Foss now has American Eagle, a restored Gloucester fisherman.

Parker's first command came at age 22 when he persuaded an investor to buy the Richard Robbins. His mate was Ed Glaser of Rockland, who was later to become owner and skipper of Isaac H. Evans, another North End Shipyard resident vessel.

In 1979 he took command of Mistress, a 46-foot schooner yacht built in 1960 at Little Deer Isle. Today it belongs to Capt. Ray Williamson, who also owns two of Frank Swift's ships from the original Depression-era windjammer fleet, Grace Bailey and Mercantile. All three sail from Camden.

Around 1980 Stephen Taber was bought by Ken and Ellen Barnes of Camden. Since Ken did not yet have his master's license, Parker was hired as skipper. The Barneses still have Taber, as well as the motor vessel Pauline, a converted Maine sardine carrier.

In 1985 Parker bought one of the strangest vessels he has ever experienced. Ethel was an 84-foot Thames River sailing barge built in 1892 and brought to the United States for the bicentennial celebrations in 1976. She was owned by the sugar company of Tate & Lyle, and had just been condemned at a shipyard in Brooklyn.

He lived aboard, and in the summer of 1986 brought Ethel to Rockland, at the North End Shipyard. He is convinced she was haunted. "Two years ago I built a model of a generic Thames River barge, and even so I did not have the courage to put the name Ethel on it."

Haunted or not, the barge was sold in the fall of 1986, and Parker bought a collapsing hulk known as Wendameen, which he found in a mud bank near New York. Designed by John Alden, Wendameen was built in Maine in 1912 for Chester W. Bliss of Springfield, Mass. The new owner spent close to two years bringing the hull to Maine and researching her history, and two more years restoring her.

After six months of work, Parker says he "tricked a bank into lending me some mone." He was able to hire another Parker, the boat carpenter James Parker of St. George, to work on the project, and together they finished the hull.

In the fall of 1989 the bare hull was put back in the water, and the owner was back at the bank urging them toward a repeat performance. "I told them if they wanted to see a dime of their money I needed some more." The bank obliged, and Parker hauled the vessel out at North End Shipyard.

Suddenly there were people to work on the project with him, and things started to get done. But in the spring of 1990, three weeks before he had planned to begin sailing, the money ran out $3,000 short of the target. This time the bank was unwilling to oblige.

A couple of the carpenters said they would be happy to accept tools in exchange for their wages, and they left. The naval architect hired for the job, Reuel Parker of Florida, agreed to stay on. On July 1, 1990, Parker sailed Wendameen past Rockland Breakwater lighthouse on her first paying cruise. Later that day, a passenger was looking at some scrapbooks in the cabin, and asked if the skipper knew the significance of the date. It was the anniversary of the vessel's original date of commissioning, 78 years before.

Now it is spring, and Wendameen is sailing again. And the boy from Brooklyn, who was willing to be kicked by a clipper's mate, if only it meant he could sail, is at the wheel.

David Grima is a reporter with the Camden Herald in Camden, Maine.

Published DATE

Return to top of page