Bowdoin’s long voyage ahead

Maine’s official sailing vessel, the Bowdoin, has been joining the world’s tall ships this month at millennial celebrations at Boston and Halifax. Wherever it sails, it heralds Maine’s seafaring tradition. Soon the historic schooner, with its characteristic spoon bow and striking lack of bow-sprit, will be sailing proudly into Portland Harbor for another such spectacular gathering July 27 to 31, and a plan in the works could keep it coming back for many decades to come.

Built in 1921 in East Boothbay, the Bowdoin was designed for Arctic exploration and fitted with heavy inch-and-a-half sheathing of greenheart, a tropical wood that is one of the densest and toughest known. The sheathing protected it from being crushed in icepacks. The original owner, Donald B. MacMillan, named the boat for his alma mater. As a practical scientist, he raised funds and led two dozen cruises to Arctic waters. Scientists, students and adventurers joined in exploring the bleak region to record tides and currents, draft new charts, study bird life and research medical needs of Eskimo inhabitants.

The Maine Maritime Academy acquired the vessel in 1988 as a training ship and sends it up and down the coast and to such places as Labrador, Newfoundland and Greenland. You may wonder what good these days is experience on an old-fashioned sailing vessel. Andy Chase, the Bowdoin’s former skipper and a member of the academy faculty, acknowledges that the students may never again work on a sailing vessel. But he says that on the Bowdoin they can learn the timeless lessons of the sea: teamwork in close quarters, responding to unforeseen crises, coping with storms and hazards, and practicing seamanship and navigation in tough conditions.

Unfortunately, budgetary problems in-trude. It costs about $150,000 a year to maintain the Bowdoin. To make ends meet, the Bowdoin must spend much of the year on paid charter cruises, leaving only a few weeks in September and October for student training. Only a few academy students get a chance to sail on the Bowdoin. But a committee established by the academy’s board of trustees is working on a better method of financing. It plans a $3 million endowment. Without disclosing details, President Leonard Tyler reports that “progress is being made.” With secure funding, the Bowdoin can cut back the charter cruises and concentrate, as it should, on training. Many more of the students will be able to learn the ropes of old-time sailing.

And how long can the Bowdoin keep sailing? Indefinitely, says Andy Chase. It re-quires continual maintenance and was completely rebuilt in the early 1980s. Hardly an original frame or plank remains in her hull. The Bowdoin is like the old ax that has had three new handles and two new heads, but it’s the same old ax.