Boats, Paddling, Wind & Whales

The just-built Wheeler 55, right, is dockmates with the company’s 38 footer, inspired by Hemingway’s Pilar. Photo courtesy Brooklin Boat Yard

New Wheeler 55 launched

Wheeler Yacht Co. has added a new Wheeler 55 to the fleet. The cold-molded wooden vessel, built at Brooklin Boat Yard and scheduled to be launched in July, merges classic elegance with cutting-edge technology.

Inspired by both the iconic 1931 Wheeler “Playmate” model and the company’s contemporary 38-foot Wheeler Legend, Wheeler’s yachts are steeped in maritime history. It was aboard his beloved 38-footer, named Pilar, that Ernest Hemingway wrote The Old Man and the Sea, hunted for U-boats during World War II, and revolutionized sport fishing. The Wheeler 55 combines that classic adventurous spirit with state-of-the-art features. Constructed of African mahogany, with Douglas fir structural elements and teak decks, the Wheeler 55 is powered by 850-hp i6 MAN engines, with the option to upgrade to MAN V8-1000 engines, and twin straight shaft propellers, giving it a cruising speed of 25 knots. Features such as the synchronized joystick controls with bow and stern thrusters ensure easy docking, while the Seakeeper gyro stabilizer and Zipwake systems provide a stable ride. Accommodations include three sleeping cabins, three heads with showers, a spacious salon and pilothouse, as well as two well-equipped galleys and a washer-dryer unit. An aft promenade deck and a swim platform with a transom door enhance relaxation and recreation. The vessel has a 1,000-pound-capacity rooftop crane and optional 12-foot tender.

Two fiberglass Dark Harbor 20 hulls came out of the Lyman-Morse shop in the spring of 2024. Photo courtesy Lyman-Morse

Revitalizing a classic one-design

If you’ve spent time in Penobscot Bay, you’re likely familiar with the Dark Harbor 20, a 30-foot LOA one-design classic sloop designed by Olin Stephens in 1934. Most of the 21 plank-on-frame wooden DH20s built in the early 1900s still exist and actively compete in Tarratine Yacht Club races off Islesboro’s Dark Harbor. The crew at Lyman-Morse’s Thomaston yard is helping continue the classic design’s sailing legacy, with the construction of two fiberglass Dark Harbor 20s.

“They are nimble, exciting to race,” Stephens noted back in the day about the design. “Displacement is light, and the hull easily driven…The boats are also attractive in appearance, as would be expected of a class sailed in this stylish and long-established enclave.”

The two boats, built at Lyman-Morse and finished by Pendleton Yacht Yard, were scheduled for a summer launch.

Hinckley’s new Picnic Boat 39 sports the builder’s first forward cockpit. Photos courtesy Hinckley Yachts

Hinckley launches a new Picnic Boat

Coinciding with the 30th anniversary of its first Picnic Boat, Hinckley Yachts is now taking preorders for its newest model, the Picnic Boat 39. The all-new design features a forward seating area—a first for the company.

The 39’s C-shaped lounge area on the foredeck is accessed via a sliding window mechanism that opens from the helm area. There’s additional seating adjacent to the helm and also in the spacious aft cockpit.

The 39 is equipped with JetStick 4 technology for close-quarters maneuvering. With waterjet propulsion, there’s no exposed running gear, making skinny-water adventures possible. The 42-foot-7-inch boat’s draft is just 2 feet, 2 inches. The boat is powered by twin Volvo D6 480-hp Common Rail engines. Other features include Smart Mode Selection, which automatically shifts from JetStick to helm steering, Heading Hold for tracking underway, and Dock Hold that maintains the boat’s position while securing lines.

A day of interstate sea paddling

Maine kayaker Joe Guglielmetti likes to go on long paddles in the ocean and has been challenging himself to go farther and farther. In June, he paddled his 18-foot sea kayak from Boston Harbor to Portland in under 24 hours. Just. He completed the 107-mile trip in 23 hours and 55 minutes, according to a news article in the Bangor Daily News. He was so tired when he reached Portland’s East End Beach that he fell out of the boat, according to the BDN. “I started shivering uncontrollably,” Guglielmetti, 43, told the newspaper. “My body was like, ‘Nope, you’re done.’”

A professional kayaking trip leader, his previous expeditions include traversing the state’s coastline in four days, paddling from Portland up the Kennebec River to Augusta, crossing the Bay of Fundy, and circumnavigating Mt. Desert Island. “I call them paddle challenges” he told the newspaper. “They’re more dynamic than just how fast you can go. You have to kind of use knowledge of wind, waves, currents, boat traffic—and knowing your body. You’ve got to do it with those things in mind or else you won’t be successful. If you have no wind, or a help wind or a headwind, it makes a big difference.”

On the trip from Boston to Maine, he landed three times, at the Annisquam River in Massachusetts, at Wallis Sands in New Hampshire, and at Cape Porpoise, getting out to stretch. He was joined on a couple of legs by paddling buddies.

As for his next challenge, it’s not on salt water. He said that he’d like to paddle the 410 miles from the source of the Connecticut River down to the sea.

Bucks Harbor Marina reopens 

The Bucks Harbor Marina, which remained closed in 2023 as a result of a legal dispute between its owner and the town of Brooksville over the marina’s mooring maintenance, reopened this summer under new ownership. 

The marina was sold in June to seasonal resident Andrew MacArthur and his family, according to a story in the Bangor Daily News.

MacArthur said he has been a customer at the marina, and both his daughters have had summer jobs there. He told the newspaper that he decided to buy the marina to help both the previous owner and the town end the dispute.

Open seven days a week from 8 a.m.-6 p.m., the marina offers slips, moorings, shower and laundry facilities, but could not sell fuel this year. Fuel sales will have to wait until tanks on the property can be replaced, MacArthur said. Plans call for resuming diesel and gasoline sales next year. The marina store with snacks, gifts, beer and wine also was re-opened.

Disappearing coast

The damages caused by last winter’s big storms and high tides were not an aberration; Maine can expect to see more coastal flooding and not just during big storms, according to a new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

According to a story about the report in the Portland Press Herald, sunny-day floods caused by rising seas will hit critical infrastructure along the coast as soon as 2030 under a business-as-usual emissions scenario.

“Even without storms or heavy rainfall, high-tide flooding driven by climate change is accelerating along U.S. coastlines,” the report concludes. “It is increasingly evident that much of the coastal infrastructure in the United States was built for a climate that no longer exists.” Record-high sea levels were measured on the Maine coast in 2023 and 2024. The Maine Climate Council says Maine will experience about 1.5 feet of sea-level rise by 2050 and 4 feet by 2100.

The Union of Concerned Scientists report includes three different sea level rise projections for 2100: 1.6 feet if emissions are greatly reduced, 3.2 feet for a reduced emissions future; and 6.5 feet if emissions rates remain as they are now, according to the Press Herald.

In a business-as-usual future, the report identified at least six at-risk structures, including a power plant (Brunswick Hydro), a post office (Trevett), two wastewater treatment plants (Nobleboro and Saco), and two polluted industrial sites in Bath, that face the prospect of flooding every other week, according to the paper.

Planning for sea level rise

The report by the Union of Concerned Scientists urges the state and its coastal communities to adapt and build resilience before it is too late. And efforts to do just that are underway. Eleven Maine communities received coastal planning grants totaling $451,553 from the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry’s Municipal Planning Assistance Program, in collaboration with the Department of Marine Resources Maine Coastal Program. The grants will support projects focused on climate vulnerability assessments, designing resilient infrastructure for working waterfronts, and updating municipal land use regulations to address current and future coastal hazards and guide development away from vulnerable areas.

Communities receiving the grants include: Frenchboro, Gouldsboro, the Hancock County Planning Commissioner, South Portland, Surry, Blue Hill, Chebeague Island, Jonesport, Kittery, Monhegan Island, and Vinalhaven.

Windy talk in Searsport

Plans to build a port in Searsport for offshore wind assembly and shipping remain the subject of intense dispute. 

A detailed story in the online PenBay Pilot described the ins and out of the duel between the state, which has chosen undeveloped Sears Island as its preferred location and environmentalists who would like to see the facility built on Mack Point, which already is an industrial site. Sprague Operating Resources, which owns the site on Mack Point, joined the fray this summer, arguing that the state should reconsider its decision.

Officials from the New Hampshire-based company propelled their intent into the public eye June 11, according to the PenBay Pilot, offering tours of its Mack Point facility. The company has submitted its alternate wind port plan to the DOT and is advocating for it before the state, as well as federal regulatory agencies that will review Maine’s plans.

The privately-owned Sprague Energy wants to lease its Searsport terminal land for use as an offshore wind port. It is in the business of unloading land-based wind turbines from ships that tie up at Mack Point, having sailed in from as far away as India. Sprague offloads the turbines, stacking them for truck transport to wind-power sites scattered around Aroostook, Franklin, Hancock, and Washington counties.

The state has argued that building the port on 100 acres on Sears Island will be less expensive than on Mack Point. In 2009, some 330 acres on the 941-acre island were set aside for future development. The rest of the island is in a permanent conservation easement held by the Maine Coast Heritage Trust.

According to the Pilot, officials at Maine DOT said the agency will continue to evaluate both Sears Island and Mack Point, as required by federal environmental impact rules.

In addition to handling shipments of wind turbines, Sprague’s operations at Mack Point include offloading cement, caustic soda for the paper industry, and materials used in Canada’s oil fields, and loading vessels with metal for recycling, according to the Pilot. The company continues its oil and gas transport business.

The state has applied for a number of grants to fund the project, which also must still undergo review by federal agencies.

Whales, dead and alive

A couple of adventuresome humpback whales delighted folks in the midcoast last June when they visited Penobscot Bay and put on a show, leaping and diving in the waters off Camden and Rockport. Later in the summer viewers in southern Maine also were delighted by a visit from a humpback that came in relatively close to shore.

These are the happy stories. Less wonderful was the news of dead whales washing ashore. One in Cape Elizabeth was entangled in fishing gear and likely drowned, according to news reports. A second whale that washed ashore near Orrs and Bailey islands was so decomposed that authorities could not determine the cause of death.

Since 2016, NOAA has been investigating an unusually high number of deaths of humpback whales, as well as North Atlantic right whales, which are endangered.

Sailors return to home port

Camden rolled out a watery welcome in July to Camden native Jamie Van Alstine and his wife, Jill Peacock, as they returned from a year of sailing abroad.

Based in the United Kingdom, the family sailed “home” in their Chuck Paine-designed Bowman, Cupid, to show their two daughters, ages 6 and 11, their parents’ childhood sailing grounds. The family sailed over 8,000 miles in the past year, from the U.K. to Maine via the Canary Islands, Cape Verde, and the Caribbean. 

After they cruised Maine in July, they were headed to Canada and eventually Scotland, where they’ll resettle after a year’s sabbatical from their jobs. The two are lifelong sailors, who have sailed extensively in northern Europe, the Caribbean, Bahamas, the East Coast U.S., and Atlantic Canada. Their usual summer cruising ground is the west coast of Scotland. Originally from Camden, Maine, Van Alstine spent nearly a decade teaching outdoor education at the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School. Peacock, who is from Saint John, New Brunswick, grew up on boats on the Saint John River and Bay of Fundy. 

Over the bar

Maine’s boating community lost a good friend in early July with the passing of Guilford Ware Full, known to most as Giffy. He was 97. 

A marine yacht surveyor who specialized in wooden boats, Giffy grew up in Marblehead, Massachusetts, where he worked for many years on the waterfront as a captain and a surveyor, before moving to Brooklin, Maine, where he taught a popular class at the WoodenBoat School. 

We will miss Giffy, his infectious grin, and his many wonderful stories. Bon voyage, “Cap.” 

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