The HMS Bounty
in dry dock at the Boothbay Harbor Shipyard

The HMS Bounty sinking
Photo courtesy of the guardian.co.uk

Claudene Christian has been recovered dead and the Captain, Robin Walbridge, has been lost. The other fourteen crew were recovered safely.

For a moment when I heard the news, I realized how a 19th-century resident of this very town must have felt when they heard similar news; “The Bounty is lost!” and I felt a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

The Bounty was a very important ship to this town; there’s hardly anyone who didn’t have a friend or family member on the crew at one time or another, or had worked on her one of the numerous times she’s been in dry dock at the foot of our hill.

Why is this community of sailors so strong? Let me give you an example.

Charlie, Tammy’s son, started working for us when he was 12. When he was in high school, Susan managed to get him on board an Ocean Classroom boat for a semester. When he came back, he announced this was what he wanted to do. Not just go to sea, but to go to sea on a schooner.

Now, at age 20, he is in California going to school for his captain’s license. He called his mother this morning to check in, but not until he had called one of the Bounty crew members to see if she was OK. This crew member had been a crewmate during his first sail, and so she is in some ways as important as his mother.

This ferocious dedication to the craft has kept the tall ship alive through the steam, coal, diesel and nuclear power ages. Once you sail on a tall ship, you understand the reason why men traveled by sea hundreds of years ago, blindly sailing farther and farther into the unknown. The natural rhythm of the sea, the sway of the ship, days and nights out on the ocean are so otherworldly.

And then there are your trusted friends and shipmates. Your Captain. His Mate. The Cook. People that you eat with, work with and joke with. People that you rely on, and who rely on you. I can only imagine how close these crew members became.

I believe these relationships are the reason why Schooner sailors are how they are. Relationships between the crew. A relationship with the boat. A relationship with the sea.

The pain that is felt by the crew and owners of the Bounty is shared not only by Tall Ship sailors in Maine, but by sailors around the country. Claudene and Robin died doing what they loved to do on the ship they loved to sail.

We mourn them and the beautiful HMS Bounty.

The HMS Bounty
in dry dock at the Boothbay Harbor Shipyard

Waiting its turn on the rail is the Amistad, moored in the outer harbor.

For almost 150 years, a boatyard has occupied the same spot on Commercial St., and over the years, the men and women that have worked there have crafted Schooners, Tugs, PT Boats, Minesweepers, Yachts and replicas of historical vessels. Most of wood, the shipyard has a reputation for their craftsmanship, most recently launching a replica of the Discovery for the state of Virginia.

Boat builders at the Boothbay Harbor Shipyard
working in wood

Some mornings, you can hear the shipwrights pounding oak pegs into the hull of their current project. The sound of wood on wood softly resonates up McKown hill, and I know that it was the ancestors of these folks that built the Welch House. Certainly not some land-locked carpenter.

And yet, these craftsmen are not alone. There’s Hodgdon Yachts, designer and fabricator of the Scheherazade, a 154′ private yacht, and composite assault boats for the US Navy. Washburn & Doughty makes some of the world’s finest Tugboats. Southport Island Marine turns out fiberglass fishing and pleasure boats. And the list goes on. There are dozens and dozens of men & women that make their living on this peninsula the old fashioned way.

They build boats. Wicked nice boats.

Elle Logan
Olympic Gold Medal Winner 2008 & 2012

This is Elle. She was both a housekeeper and a front Desk Clerk for us in 2006. Like many of the local young woman that we employ, she was a hard worker that put 110% into her job. Smart and quick to pick up new skills, Elle was a really, really good employee.

It wasn’t all puppy dogs and ice cream, though. Like most young people her age, Elle had her share of post-adolescent issues, some of which we actually saw resolved during her tenure. I’m sure that some of those issues are still waiting to be addressed.

The point is, we were, and are still, committed to hiring local high-school and college kids to staff us through the summer. While most of our peers hire foreign workers for the season, we feel an obligation to look for local talent. The resulting staff may offer its own unique challenges, but we find a way to work through the drama and still provide an excellent service for our guests.

There are times when I think that Tammy, Susan and I are the only stable (me, stable?) adults in some of these kid’s lives. Molested girls, teen mothers, college honor students, confused kids. They are all part of the family.

They tell us their problems while we’re making breakfast and stay after their shift to talk with Tammy.

They grow up, they finish school, they get married, and they live their lives. They come and visit, when they can. They bring their husbands, sometimes their babies. They tell us about their new lives, their jobs, and their dreams.

We are so proud of each and everyone of them.

And then there’s Elle proving to each and every one of these kids that you can grow up in Maine, you can get a good education, and if you work really, really hard, you can win gold.

Thank you, Elle. I’m proud to have been a part of your life, and I am grateful that you were part of ours.

Boothbay Harbor from McKown Hill
in the late 19th century.

They carried ice from nearby ponds, there was a fishery and a fish oil company. We canned lobsters and made fertilizer. All the while great ships moved in and out of the harbor and were an integral part of the local lives. We sailed boats, fixed boats and made boats by hand. It was all about the boats.

During the 1930′s, Mill Cove, a shallow backwater of Boothbay Harbor, was a popular layup location for schooners. At least five large schooners, and probably several more, spent years in Mill Cove, awaiting their fates. The bones of two big schooners are still there, left to rot after their owners decided that there was no more money to be made from them.

You can still see those rotting hulls today, and for many years, that was the only reminder of the great sailing days and how important the industry was to Boothbay Harbor.

2012 Poster Contest Winner
Pat Berger

Then, in the 60s, somebody had the great idea that we should gather Windjammers from across the State and invite them to Boothbay Harbor, under sail. Fifty years later we are still thrilling to the sight of a dozen or more Double- and Triple-Masted Schooners sailing into our harbor.

Participating Schooners this year include the Eastwind, the Heritage, the Lazyjack, the American Eagle, the Harvey Gamage, the Spirit of Massachusetts, the Timberwind, the Nathaniel Bowditch, the Lewis R. French, the Amistad, the Sherman Zwicker and the Bowdoin.

Download the entire schedule of events here.We still have some availability on Sunday the 24th and Monday the 25th, so take a few days off and join us for Windjammer Days!

May I present Elle Logan, Stanford graduate, Olympic Champion and former Welch House employee. She’s a really nice lady, too. And check it out. . . She even has her face on a Bubblegum Card.

Elle Logan, gold-medal winner
and former Welch House employee

Since day one, we have hired locals (instead of overseas workers) to be part of the Welch House team. Under the watchful eye of Tammy, our lead Housekeeper, and both Susan & I, these high school and college-aged girls worked side-by-side with adults who listened, offered advice and corrections when necessary. For some strange reason it resonated with many of them, and they grew up and moved on and looked for great things to accomplish along the way.

After making beds and cleaning bathrooms and folding laundry and weeding the garden for a summer or two, many Welch House girls have gone on to become really great women. Not that they weren’t good girls to begin with, but I like to think that we helped.

When they come home to Boothbay Harbor, they stop by the Inn and see us when they can. They sometimes bring their husbands and their children, and they talk about their current lives in New York or Boston. And despite the hard work they engaged in here, they speak fondly of their friends they worked with and of Susan & Tammy & I and what it meant to be part of the Welch House family.

Tammy, Leah, Ginger, Mae and, of course, KJ
former Welch House employees

We real like parents all over again, complete with wedding and baby pictures on the fridge, and while our legacy here at the Welch House may be defined by when we replaced the Kitchen or last paved the driveway, I like to think we’ll live forever in Boothbay Harbor, as long as some former Welch House employee drives by with their grown kids and says “I used to be a housekeeper there. God. That was a great summer.”