Sailing history photoday!!

[TomY]

There was no recreational sailing being done out of my harbor just before the end of the 19th century. Our harbor was all industrial with schooners loading lime from the smoky wharfs and shoreside kilns that baked the raw material dry. Raw lime was brought in by a narrow gauge RR.

There were some boat building sheds (needed schooners), as well as the last, pre-refrigeration ice houses.

Unlike wealthy Camden just to the North, Rockport was a blue collar town and poor by comparison. The poorest residents lived on the smoky harbor.

I don't know the exact date of this next photo, below, but I'll say 1955-60, give or take a decade or so. Sailing for recreation (late by NE standards), was now underway with a small one design racing class in the harbor(Luders 15?).

Fish weirs right in the inner harbor showed the commercial fishermen were well established. To this day, commercial users (including fishermen), are given the prime mooring spots in the inner harbor.

The railroad had put the schooners out of business decades before. Creative owners put the old boats to good use hauling, 'dudes' as the tourists were called (evident by these early anchored charter schooners).

I would guess the first fiberglass boat hulls were being tested about this time.

All the buildings along the water (in the previous photo), are gone. The town now owns nearly all of the land around the harbor. This photo would have been taken from the new Rockport Boat Club founded in the 50's. A tiny building may have been to the left (or didn't exist, yet).

Today, the Rockport Boat Club sits in this spot. Things have changed. Every bit of the shoreline and foreground in the first photo, is now owned by the town. The modest 'Boat Club' now leases the land from the town.

The lime kilns and RR are gone (examples are preserved in place for the public), and the West side of the harbor is the public Marine Park, where people boat, paint, fish, picnic and swim.

I've seen the park expand in the last two decades to include now; 500 or so feet of public dock space (and more coming,...), and a state of the art launching ramp where I've seen nearly 100' boats launched(you pay the town).

More adjoining shorelands have been acquirred by the town and various philanthropic groups adding more public access to the water.

Due to space pressure along the waterfront, boat storage and maintenance, has grown inland.

Sailing has been on an upward, steepening curve, for the last century in Rockport.

Where are the sailors coming from?

4 or 5 clubs within 10 miles or so, have been introducing kids to sailing for many decades. That plus the age old family connection - which I believe supplies most sailors - more than fill the pipeline.

What is the sailing history of your harbor? Is sailing growing or in decline?

 

[rgranger]

There was no recreational sailing being done out of my harbor just before the end of the 19th century.

You have help up rather well considering ...

 

[TomY]

You have help up rather well considering ...

Poverty, can have a silver lining, when it comes to preservation.

While some nearby coastal areas 'flourished' with development in the mid 20th century, our working harbor was spared long enough, for some to see the writing on the wall. We were lucky.

 

[Will Gilmore]

Awesome post Tom.
But where are the pictures of that beautiful boat of yours?

I Will add my pure history lesson later, when I have more time, but this is going to be a fantastic thread.

- Will (Dragonfly)

 

[nat55]

Belfast is my harbor and town these days. I have an old cruising guide to New England from the late 70's, Belfast doesn't get very good reviews, as I recall it says something to the effect "Belfast stinks and is best avoided" With the chicken processing plants the harbor was foul (pun intended). There was also a canning factory on the harbor and that contributed to the general nastiness. This is the Stinson Canning factory....sardines were king back then!
Sailing as sport was limited, there are some pics from down in Bayside/Northport but not many. This end of Penobscot Bay was all about commerce. I would say that recreational sailing is still strong though not increasing by any measure.

Well that has changed alot and the harbor and is full of recreational vessels. Belfast has retained a commercial aspect with Penbay tractor tug company, their tugs assist the commercial vessels, bulk carriers that call in Searsport and Bangor. Front Street Shipyard is a huge presence in the harbor now with large commercial and recreational vessels calling there for work.
Belfast today..

This photo shows that there were some fancy yachts even back in the day.....

Belfast was famous for its boat building, the company that built them, Mathews Brothers is still in business today though now they build windows and doors.
The Jennie Flood Kreger was the largest sailing vessel ever built in the midcoast Maine town of Belfast. At 243' and 1838 tons, and with her five masts, she was one of the largest vessels built in the state in 1918. She was 42' in beam and 19.5' in depth.....

This is the old Steamboat Landing in Belfast, quite an impressive structure, some of the pilings are still visible at low tide.

This view is from the east side of the harbor looking south.......

 

[pateco]

What changes a century makes to a location
Hillsboro Inlet 1907

1930s

1950s

Today

 

[Tod]

Clearfork Reservoir, southwest of Mansfield, Ohio, back in the 70s. That's me pushing my first boat out to deeper water, with a cousin already aboard the 8' pram that I had purchased with money from my paper route. Yes, that is a cotton sail. There were quite a few sailboats back then, with a fleet of Hobie 14s and 16s and a couple Prindles near the marina, quite a few sailboats in slips in the marina, and an active sailing club with a fleet of about a dozen Penguins for a youth sailing program, some US-1s, Lightnings, Flying Scots, and maybe some others.

Except for one afternoon sail with my nephew, I haven't sailed there since the 70s. You can see three sailboats in this picture, but today that would be an unusual sight. The fleet of Penguins is gone, as are the US-1s, the fleet of Hobies and the Prindles. There is a handful of sailboats in the marina and a few Lightnings and Flying Scots down at the Sailing Club, but most of the boating today involves pontoon boats and some bass fishermen.

 

[rgranger]

Okay... since we are sharing embarrassing pics of our first sailing adventures...

This first pic is circa 1975 and was taken from my dinghy. This little pond had an active fleet of about 15 sailboats.

The second pic is a photo of my first sailboat. I'm the one wearing the hat ... and I still have this sailboat.

 

[pateco]

OK, Vintage 1974 My brother and I on the first boat I owned myself. Bartered for yard work.

 

[Will Gilmore]

I'm still waiting for more time to write, but inn the mean time. Here are a few pictures of my first boat.

Setting the nails in my Clark Mills built pram. My father told Clark I would finish it. OMG! It seemed to take forever.

My first mate was eager to return to the dock.

Messing around behind Sunflower with my brother Jim. When we climbed abroad, my little pram got yanked beneath the wake and dragged underwater. She survived though.

Clark, the designer and builder of Sunflowerseed.

- Will (Dragonfly)

 

[DArcy]

My club has been around a while. This photo must have been 1880s or 90s, this original club house on the pier is long gone, we are on the 3rd house now.

There were a few logging boats on the river up until the 1970s, but even before 1900 it was mostly pleasure boats

The boats around here have always been fairly modest, this is one of the bigger ones from back in the day.

Even now, we call boats that can't be lifted on the 11,000 lb crane "big boats". The harbour grew up until the 1960s when we ran out of room to grow any more. Until the 80's, when a new club opened across the bay, the club was always at capacity with a waiting list to get in. These days we fill the harbour, barely. There is usually a slip or two available. There are a few power boats but sailing is by far the dominant way to get out on the water. I would say sailing peaked in the 90's early 2000's and has been fairly level since.

 

[Will Gilmore]

I would say sailing peaked in the 90's early 2000's and has been fairly level since.

I think a lot of members her will be glad to hear sailing is so strong.
Great pictures. That funky staysail is wild.

- Will (Dragonfly)

 

[Will Gilmore]

The Cheney Sponge Company of Tarpon Springs, sold almost a million dollars worth of sponges in 1890. The sponge boom was on. Pre-1940, the sponges were the largest industry in Florida, bigger than oranges, cattle or fish.

Greek hardhelmet divers came in droves to work the sponge beds.

In the 1940s, however, there was a blight that killed of the sponges. The sponge divers and their boats had to do something else. Most of the boats sold or were converted to party fishing head-boats. Tarpon Springs turned to small scale tourism. And the sponges sold at dockside shops were mostly imported instead of harvested locally. By the time I was old enough to remember, a couple of boats and divers ran tours, taking tourist out to watch a diver gear up and go over the side

while connected to their long air hoses. The diver would surface and display the bag of harvested sponges, but the bag was a plant. There were no sponges to harvest any more.

circa 1964

My earliest memories of Clearwater Marina, just a few miles down the coast, was of those old converted sponge boats dominating the commercial space.

My father obtained a loan from the bank to buy one to start his own fishing fleet, circa 1966. Then, he decided that it was just a little more to have one built new. The bank approved. Then, he had the idea for a catamaran instead. Nothing like that had ever been done to that scale, certainly not for passengers. It wasn't a whole lot more money and it would have more space for customers. He talked the bank into that.

He and Clark worked out the concept , but Clark refused to design it because he wasn't sure it would work. He did, however, agree to build it. About 1967-68, the Double Eagle I was born. The coast guard came out and gave her a dead weight stability test by placing weights on the gunnels. The procedure is intended to identify the actual GM or gravitational metacenter by achieving a set of list angles between 1-4 degrees. On the Double Eagle, they were not able to cause her to sink on one side more than 2 inches across her 25' width (approximate). The coast guard didn't expect to need more weight for a 65' vessel; and the first catamaran licensed by the coast guard to carry passengers was born.

this is a picture of the number two. She was designed and built by Clark. Same size as the number one but lighter and faster.
The results of this success was that the Double Eagles took passengers or 60 to 80 miles off shore in up to 300' of water where their competition went 20 miles out. Less than two years would see the Queen boats, their next-slip neighbors, launching a cat to compete. You can hardly find a large marina with a deep sea fishing fleet that doesn't have catamarans running the head boat business now. Hobie cats had been a big hit before this and now the navy builds them, they are used for ferry boats and you all are familiar with

I'm not saying the Double Eagles lead to the maxi cats, but...?

Additional notes: to be fair and balanced, the Anderson family out of Panama City built a catamaran party boat at about the same time and also make the claim to being the first licensed catamaran to carry passengers. It was also their yard that built the Double Eagle III at 85' from steel.

- Will (Dragonfly)