Brooklin

Brooklin, ME is just before the resume speed sign on Hwy 175- their downtown consists of a general store that sells gas and pizza, a closed place that used to be a small restaurant and Betsy's gift shop. Amazing enough the clerk at Betsy's, Marsha Wilson, used to live in Fernandina Beach, in. Amelia Park and volunteered with the A I Chamber Music Festival. The town was founded in1763 and was once the home of five boot and shoe making factories and later known for producing canned herring and lobster. One of Brooklin's best known residents was longtime contributor to The New Yorker and author E.B. White whose timeless classics include Charlotte's Web and a few others.

There are two reasons that we stopped at Brooklin, the first being the WoodenBoat School of boat building where they teach both building wooden boats and publish the magazines, Wooden Boat and Professional BoatBuilder. Their mission is to support the building and restoration of wooden boats which is an old Maine tradition. The school is located on the Eggemoggin Reach which is the location of their annual wooden sailboat race.

 The other reason that we wanted to visit Brooklin is because, just down the road, is the Brooklin Boat Yard, a major shipbuilding and boat repair yard in Maine. Here's Susan talking to Shadow with the harbor in the background. She's telling him all about  a former life when she lived on a wooden sailboat in the Caribbean. Probably the parts that she has never told me.

This is a dock next to the shipyard that show how the docks and parts of the shipyard are built on foundations of granite slabs. From the size of the slabs I wouldn't think they are not going to be pushed around in a storm.

This is the newest of the several buildings in the yard, where there office is located and where a major ship building project is going on. We spent several hours in the yard looking at this project and salivating over some of the sailboats that were being stored and/or being worked on in the other buildings. This is close to the start of the season and the crews were busy doing their thing to get the those stored boats in the water.

Now here is the project that they have been working on of over a year an expect to have in the water by mid June. It's a 74' day sailor/racer play toy for very wealthy owner. After one race on the east coast it will be sailed through the canal and berthed in Marina del Rey near Santa Monica.

This is the side of the hull. Those little things on the side  and on the deck are openings, designed by famous designer, Frank Gehry, that will be glassed and allow light into the interior of the hull. The boat itself was designed by the well known naval architects and engineering firm, German Frers.

This shows the huge cockpit and the stern of the boat The pink area is where the transom will be placed.
Now here are some interesting items: I thought that when we started wandering around that we would, maybe not so politely, asked to leave. To the contrary, we met a guy on the dock who we found out was born in Coral Gables, moved to Maine and has worked at the shipyard for the past forty years. He said that we would have no problem, we could climb all over the structure  surrounding the new project and ask questions of any of the workers.We did as you can tell by the pictures.

He also told us that we could walk through all of the buildings and look at all of the other boats that were being stored or worked on.

We had previously asked and been given permission to take the pictures. This was hard to believe since neither of us had heard or read anything about this project. I'm sure that after the boat is launched it will be written up in the the yachting magazines. The cost of the construction was not given but it appears that it could be upwards of $8 million.

After leaving Brooklin we drove through a sweet little town called Blue Hill, stopped at a Hannaford grocery and were able to arrived at the post office in Ellsworth before closing but alas, our package had not arrived. No problem since we are in striking distance to Acadia National Park and we're hanging around for at least three days.