In 1969, The National Geographic Society sent some of its writers and photographers with their families on vacations quite new to each. Dean and Lee Conger and their three boys chose a week on the Maine coast with us on our Friendship sloop, Eastward. She is a 32-foot, wooden, sloop, gaff-rigged, and carrying gaff topsail and jib topsail. She is equipped with a small Universal gasoline engine.

Accommodations were cramped at best. Dean and Lee slept on comfortable bunks in the cabin. Chris, 8, had a short bunk in the forepeak. Kurt, 10, had a narrow bunk over Lee. Eric, 11, spent the night on an air mattress on the cockpit floor while the skipper occupied two boxes which served as seats by day. We rigged a tarp to shelter the cockpit. The skipper cooked on a charcoal-fired iron Shipmate stove. It says a great deal for the youth and good spirit of the crew that they never complained.

This entourage with all its gear, pushed off from Blake’s wharf in Boothbay Harbor in the thick fog at about 2:30 on July 12, 1969 to enjoy a Maine vacation. Dean, as a photograph and writer for National Geographic

had probably traveled a good deal, but Lee and the boys came from where the tall corn grows, and none of them knew anything about the water.

By clock and compass, we pushed through the thick fog over a calm sea under power. I showed Dean and Lee how I laid out compass courses on the chart, and Dean soon got the knack of steering by compass. All hands served as lookouts and exulted when Ram Island light appeared. A little breeze struck in and we alternately sailed and motored into Christmas Cove. After a lesson on anchoring, the boys went right to fishing. Lee, Dean and I rigged the tent, air mattress, and sleeping bags for the night. We had a supper of canned stew, spent the evening getting acquainted, and turned in.

Along about midnight, it began to blow and rain. Eastward dragged her anchor across the cove, and the skipper came on deck, his pajamas flapping below his oil coat. I dislodged Eric, started the engine, and hauled the anchor. The engine smelled very hot. I had forgotten to turn on the cooling water. I shut her down at once and dumped the anchor and chain where we happened to be. We fetched up with our counter about a foot from a fiberglass racing boat with our long peapod painter fouled in his dagger board rudder. I stepped aboard the racing boat and cleared the painter. The peapod swung away, still fast to Eastward, and the racing boat dropped back on her mooring out of reach of Eastward.

Here I was, marooned on a strange boat with no peapod, out of reach of my sleeping crew for whose safety I was responsible-and in the rainy dark! I pulled up on racing boat’s mooring line until I could reach Eastward and gratefully scrambled aboard. I crept into my sleeping bag again, ready to help these westerners enjoy their Maine vacation.

The next morning, the rain stopped and the wind turned north and puffy. It looked like a good chance for Monhegan. After getting things in order and instructing the crew on how to set sails, we struck out for Monhegan under mainsail, staysail, and jib. Under a chilly, cloudy sky, the crew was ranged along the weather rail in oil clothes-a picturesque sight. Rain squalls hovered about and obscured the island for a while, but at length it emerged from the mists and we found ourselves to leeward of the harbor. I decided to beat up to the entrance and motor in, instructing the boys on handling jib sheets. They were quick learners and proud of their new seamanship skills. When we were ready to start the engine, she declined to start. The excursion of the night before, I found out later, had condensed a drop of water in the gap of each spark plug.

“OK, we’ll sail in,” I boldly declared. We took in the jib and I stowed the anchor where it would be out of the way and quickly available. I took Dean forward and explained to him that when I gave the word, he was to let go this rope, (the staysail halyard) and pull on that rope, (the downhaul), and the staysail would come down. Then he was to take the boathook and hook up whatever buoy he found floating under the starboard bow. Meanwhile, Eastward was lying more or less hove to in the harbor entrance.

We reorganized in the cockpit and beat in under main and staysail, Dean standing ready on the bow. The mooring I picked was on the west side of the harbor close to the cliff under Mannana and a little out of the tide. A serious mistake might put us on the rocks. We approached slowly to leeward of the target, gave the word, “now“. Dean did just as he had been told to do. I swung into the wind and let go the main sheet. Dean leaned over the starboard bow, shouted,

“I have it. What do I do with it?”

“Pull it up, fast!” I shouted as I hurried forward to make it fast before the strain came on it.

We tied up the sails and went below to draw breath. Lee stood in the cabin, shivering a little. I said,

“You can relax a little now and take off your oil clothes.”

She replied in a wee small voice,

“I don’t think I should take off a thing.”

 

The situation improved rapidly. Lee and Chris slept ashore at “The Island Inn.” The rest of us slept below under cover. The weather cleared. We went on to Tenants’ Harbor, Camden, and Mt. Desert. We boiled lobsters in a bucket over a driftwood fire. Dean found plenty of things of which to take pictures and even got up in a plane to take some aerial shots. We wound up in Friendship after several more interesting adventures where we set the Congers ashore to photograph more of Maine. Altogether, it had been a pleasant and instructional week for all hands.

Dean Conger’s account of the cruise was published by The National Geographic Society in Vacation Land USA.

A regular contributor to Working Waterfront, Roger F. Duncan is the author of Maine: A Maritime History, and other books.