Paddling around

The extreme overhang of the Bolero’s stern is a thing to behold. Photo courtesy Chuck Roast

May 2024

By Chuck Roast

It’s late spring, and promises to be the perfect day to push the dinghy around the harbor. Sunny all day: check. Wind less than 10 knots: check. Feeling the energy of three geezers: check. My mighty seven-foot craft is nice and dry and bobbing at the float ready to go.

The moorings in Newport are beginning to fill up and there seem to be quite a few schooners around. The schooney – America’s gift to mariners everywhere. I spent many years sailing around Penobscot Bay, and made a practice of trying to identify at a distance the scores of fine schooners breezing up and down the bay. Outside of Rockland, the WoodenBoat School on Eggemoggin Reach is the best place to spy schooners.

A couple of nice yawls on their moorings. They are in absolutely perfect condition. What would we do without rich guys? The Coast Guard go-fast blow-up putters past. It’s a good day to be on the water. I’m heading over to the shipyard to see what’s going on. And I spot Bolero.

It is the rare day when human design even begins to approximate anything in the natural order. But as I paddle over to the stern of Bolero, it’s clear that marine architecture can be as awe-inspiring as almost anything in the natural world. The extreme overhang of the stern is a thing to behold. A bit of research reveals that the yawl was built by Henry Nevins and designed by Olin Stephens. She went down the ways in 1949.

I began to laugh when I looked her over. What yachty worth his salt doesn’t want to show his brightwork? The coach roof was enclosed in a canvas sock. And this was a first for me . . . the toerails and rubrails were covered in their entirety by canvas. Really, who likes to do brightwork? But if you don’t whip the Epifanes on every year you can lose respectability quickly. And if you’re gonna’ slave over the damn craft to get it looking good, you want everybody to see the product of your slave labor. Not much else happening down here unless you like monster yachts. Off to the State Pier.

It’s around midday, and I have to start sweeping because the wind is picking up. There are a couple of fish boats tied up, but most everybody must be out working. I spot a 50’ fish boat lashed to the south side of the pier. I’ve never seen anything like it. To call it a rust bucket would do an extreme disservice to buckets everywhere. Huge chunks of rust were falling off her. There were actual rust holes in the hull above the deck. I thought, “Why would any sane mariner crew aboard this vessel?” She is missing a name. How about Neversink?

It was time for my afternoon boost. I tied up behind a little sport fisherman and walked up to my usual caffeinator. Upon returning, I sat down and watched the parade of bad fashions, sucked up the afternoon sun and munched on my oatmeal-raisin cookie. Three young fellows walked down the gangway and out to the float. They stopped by the mighty Sturdy. They were looking into the dink and having a discussion. I couldn’t hear them, but I could read their minds. They were trying to decide if they were going to continue on to their sport fisherman, or if they were going to cop my nice new inflatable life jacket from the bottom of my boat. They made the right decision. Hereafter, I’ll have to remember the immortal advice of Dorothy, “Toto, we’re not in Maine anymore.”

It was off to windward in the mighty Sturdy. Passing by the 12-meter Weatherly, I was struck by what a beautiful blue she was. She had always been that color. I remember painting her in high school art class from a photo in “LIFE” magazine when I didn’t know fore from aft. Cerulean blue revolutionized the art world when it was formulated. Weatherly blue not so much, but it is a fine color, indeed. She is double-planked African mahogany on oak. An all around superior sailing vessel and with only two spreaders mind you! Phil Rhodes designed the sloop. I can attest to his prowess as a designer because he also designed my old Cape Dory.

Poking around a few wharves on the way back there wasn’t much of interest. There was a big barquentine called the Peacemaker, fully rigged and ready to go. A friend had been aboard and told me she is beautiful below deck and filled with tropical woods. A couple of modern Twelves looked kind of undistinguished after the Weatherly.

And then there was a big catboat. She looked very old, but reasonably well-kept despite the many weeping rust spots. I’ve never been aboard a cat and know little about them, but when did my impressive ignorance ever stop me from giving an opinion? With apologies to catboat lovers everywhere, she looked tubby and ungainly. Probably around 25’-30’ LOA, she looked almost as beamy. She didn’t have a name, but she had a big barn-door rudder. With that rudder and a tiller she must have had a wicked weather helm. Cats always seemed to me like good lake boats. Who knows? You can probably enjoy a martini in the cockpit in a four-foot chop and not spill a drop.

Nearing home I come to Perrotti Park. Nothing to serve the marine trades here anymore. The entire acreage is being leveled. We must be in need of a new hotel. And me, clueless. Tugboat, big barge, marine crane, the whole nine yards here. They are pounding in new steel bulkheads. There really is an art to it. Leave the old bulkheads in place, and install the new bulkheads three or four feet out from the old bulkheads. The harbor diminishes, but the development gets bigger by a couple thousand square feet.

By the time I pull around to my sleepy little nook the three-geezer energy has diminished substantially. There must be a beer on the horizon. The harbormaster has attached a posting to the piling announcing that all small craft must be removed from the float by Oct. 22. Five months. That’s the kind of window any mariner would love.

Jim Barr, aka, Chuck Roast, sailed his Cape Dory 33, Navicula, around the Gulf of Maine for about a decade but now lives in Newport, R.I. These days Jim is “a total land-lubber,” having sold his mighty Sturdy (dinghy) for $450. “I really didn’t row around as much as planned,” he said. “An eight-foot dink with six-foot sweeps, plus a geezer, do not do well in 15-20 knot afternoon breezes.”