Some Good Folks We Met on the Way to Searsport

The lecture at the Penobscot Marine Museum was great and we all had a good time. Dan and Harold really impressed the folks who attended and there were some real good folks there including our host Matt Murphy, editor of Wooden Boat magazine and his family Holly, Linus and baby Oden. Also, boatbuilder Ralph Stanley of Southeast Harbor, Me and Captain Havilah Hawkins of Sedgwick, Maine who takes Maine teens out sailing through the organization Windward Passage, folks like Maynard Bray, our friend Rick Miles who is captain of Wanderbird expedition cruises whose ship is in nearby Belfast, Maine, among many other good people who really were impressed with the work done on the Ardelle, the volunteer effort and Dan's photos. We also showed Len Burgess' launch video at the end of the event and there were a lot of hoots and shouts from the audience as they watched the boat race down the bilgeway. Great time and hope to get down east again soon!

Prior to the talk at Penobscot Marine Museum, we stopped to see Jim Sharp who has his own museum in Rockland. He has a great collection of items and his place is called Sharp's Point - sail, power and steam museum in the old Snow shipyard. He is standing next to a model of the schooner Adventure which he formerly owned and sailed in the windjammer fleet out of Camden Maine for many years.

A shot of Jim Sharp's model of the schooner Adventure which hangs proudly at his museum.

Another shot of the Adventure

Harold and Jim look over the Friendship sloop he and some other folks are restoring at Sharp's Point.

After the lecture at the Penobscot Marine Museum, we all went out to dinner and it was Chuck's birthday. He is pictured here with Patty next to the big brown bear at the restuarant. Chuck went to Bowdoin College and just wanted to be in Maine fo rhis birthday...and it was worth it as he really enjoyed the presentation by Harold and Dan.

Just a typical scene on the road to Castine

Lots of schooners getting ready for the upcoming windjammer season

Over St. Patricks Day weeekend we were at the Portland Maine Boatbuilders show. These guys are doing great work with USHarbors.com. Thanks Pam Fullerton for the photo!

Big Night in Maine and a Big Thanks to Dan

Dan Tobyne

Well, since Harold and Dan will be presenting the story of the building of the schooner Ardelle in photos on Sat. night in Maine, it seems appropriate to pick out a few of our favorite Dan fotos ... and display them here. We are not sure what Dan will be bringing with him to Maine...but we think there will be about 20 or so framed photographs of our favorite shots (and many of you are in them). The proceeds of any sales go to Windward Passage, a non-profit sailing program for Maine teens.  Dan worked for one year on the Ardelle - and shot in all kinds of weather. Many of you have seen his photos but others were never posted. They are just fantastic and I have uploaded a sample of some you may not have seen and other favorites. Thanks so much Dan

Build Locally, Sail Globally

Harold on the staging

Perry Ardelle Burnham

Dusk 

Got Carhartts?

Bruce Slifer

Harold 

Chuck Redman

Chuck in the loft

All hands

Bernie Power

A tired Harold

Bulwarks and deak beams

View of the barn and the Ardelle

Harold and Geoffrey Richon

Harold and Jim Chambers

Harold and Zach

Harold on the stern

Harold covered in sawdust

Harold on launch day

Amanda, Harold, Chuck putting the cabin tops on

Henry Szostek

Jeff Lane

Charles "Chuckie" Burnham

Dan's kids

Justin and Geoff

Harold, Tim Walsh and Geoff Richon

Zach Teal and Bernie Power

Justin Ingersoll

We added some silver coins before putting the masts in.

Night before the launch

Deck work!

A view of the barn 

Justin in the barn.

Morning of the launch

The morning of the launch with Ardelle shipwrights, friends and family

Under the Ardelle

Mast going in.

Harold and Dave Brown

Night before the launch

Mastheads on both spars. Harold and Zach

Chuck Redman

Chuck, Harold and Simon Koch guide the mast in.

Mast-stepping day.

Ardelle on the sea

Ardelle and barn at night

Harold, Robin Tattersoll, BIl Cronin, Kirk Williamson helped us get a great start during schooner festival 2011

Steve Willard

Pinky Maine and the Chebacco boat in the creek

Zach and Harold

Thanks, Dan!

Shipwright Harold Burnham To Speak At PMM

Traditional Pinky Schooner Ardelle is Subject of Talk

2 March, 2012 – Harold Burnham, a 14th-generation shipwright from Essex, Massachusetts, will discuss the construction of the pinky schooner Ardelle in a talk at Penobscot Marine Museum. Burnham's presentation will be illustrated with photographs by Dan Tobyne, author and photographer of Thoreau's Maine Woods, published by Down East Books. The free event will be in the museum's Stephen Phillips Memorial Library on Saturday, March 31, from 5-7 p.m.

Ardelle is an authentic wooden pinky schooner, completed in 2011 to run day trips and private charters out of Essex, Massachusetts. Pinkies – so-called for their distinctive, high pointed or "pink" stern – were a common New England boat type used for commercial fishing in the 19th century. Burnham, whose family has run shipyards in Essex since 1819, designed Ardelle, using as a model the pinky Maine, built in 1845 by Ebenezer Burnham. Harold Burnham and his volunteer shipyard crew of friends and family built the 55-foot, 45-ton vessel using local woods from a nearby tree company as well as components salvaged from a replica of the pinky Maine built by the Apprenticeshop of Bath in the early 1980s.

Photographer Dan Tobyne, who is also known for the books Boston's Emerald Necklace and Thoreau's Cape Cod, documented every step of Ardelle's construction. Color prints of Tobyne's photographs will be offered for sale during the event to benefit Windward Passage, a Castine-based organization that provides traditional sailing experiences and sail training to Maine teenagers.

Admission to "Building the Schooner Ardelle: An Evening with Shipwright Harold Burnham" is free, and refreshments will be served.