Boatbuilding With Burnham: Harold and Dan Go On the Road

One of Dan Tobyne's many amazing photographs of the Builting of the Schooner Ardelle

Harold and photographer Dan Tobyne are heading down East at the end of this month - Sat. March 31 to be exact. They are participating in a talk at the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, ME where Dan will also be exhibiting and selling his photographs of the building of the schooner Ardelle. Dan, who is quite a humble but remarkable guy, took it upon himself to offer the proceeds from the sales of his photographs to a non-profit organization called Windward Passa,ge, a Castine-based organization that provides traditional sailing experiences and sail training to Maine teenagers. If you ever thought a teen might WANT to go on a sailing adventure...just ask 17-year old Zack Teal who helped us build the Ardelle. . Oh, yeah, Zack is sailing now in the Caribbean and won't be back til summer!

Dan used to work with teens in our public school system so it is a organization that he really supports. It is also one of the organizations' Wooden Boat editor Matt Murphy is involved with so we look forward to seeing the venerable editor who is also a good friend. If you are in the neighborhood, please come to the lecture or support the organization.

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. For more information go to Penobscot Marine Museum's website.