Sail on, Bowdoin

The schooner Bowdoin plunged into what looked like a deadly squall last summer – figuratively, anyway. But the sturdy wooden ship, the official sailing vessel of the state of Maine, has come through the crisis just as handily as she emerged from 30-foot seas and hurricane winds on her most recent cruise to Greenland.

The latest trouble began when the trustees of the Bowdoin’s owner, the Maine Maritime Academy, worried about how much it was costing to keep an 80-year-old boat in good condition and in service. Some may have wondered what was the value of sailing experience for students preparing for careers on big motor ships or even behind desks in the marine industry.

The Bowdoin had been taking charter cruises much of the summer to help earn its keep, thus reducing its value as a training facility. A tentative plan would have laid off the Bowdoin’s captain and crew, assigned upkeep to a part-time shipkeeper, and downgraded the vessel to “a stationary exhibit at an undetermined location.”

All that is over. Elliot Rappaport remains captain of the Bowdoin. As master of small craft at the academy, he will continue to skipper the vessel and supervise its maintenance. Charter cruises, to be gradually tapered off, will emphasize catering to high school students, some of whom may later apply to the academy. A pilot cruise this summer will take academy students in coastal waters for a few days and then head off into the Bay of Fundy, possibly as far as Halifax. A summer cruise on the Bowdoin eventually will be a requirement for the 70 or 80 students majoring in small vessel operations. The cruises will be available also to others among the 700 students.

The Bowdoin’s future has been assured by incorporating a $1 million endowment into the current three or four-year endowment drive, raising the total from $20 million to $21 million. Nearly half of that total has already been raised. Earmarked for the Bowdoin are an anonymous pledge of $500,000 and a similar amount proposed from the state of Maine in a pending legislative bill.

Andy Chase, the Bowdoin’s former skipper and now professor of marine transportation, sees sailing experience as invaluable for any seagoing career. He says it takes a person close to the elements, requiring close attention to winds and seas and preparation for any trouble ahead. Students learn to furl a sail properly so that they won’t have to struggle on deck in the midst of a storm.

So look for the proud Bowdoin, with its distinctive spoon bow, its lack of the usual schooner bowsprit, and its “ice barrel” crow’s nest – a lookout station for arctic ice – at the top of the foremast, to go on sailing indefinitely, as a training vessel for maritime students and as a symbol and reminder of Maine’s seafaring tradition.