Maine Maritime Academy

CASTINE – Maine Maritime Academy’s schooner Bowdoin will sail to Newfoundland and Canada this week as part of the college’s sail training curriculum. The eight-week course began earlier this month in Castine, with the vessel scheduled to have gotten under way on Wednesday.

The course will serve as an introduction to the overall maintenance and operations of a large, traditional sailing vessel.

Sponsored by Maine Maritime Academy’s William F. Thompson School of Marine Transportation in support of a new academic concentration in sail training, the course is designed for students with little or no prior sailing or boating experience.

According to Capt. G. Andy Chase, course coordinator and former master of the historic schooner, the program began May 4 with nautical activities based at the college’s waterfront facilities. The 11 students in the course are participating in painting, rigging, cleaning, engineering and voyage planning.

Students also work with the vessel’s professional steward in a rotating schedule. They learn to cook and prepare the day’s meals, clean the food preparation area, and conduct provisioning and menu planning for the voyage.

According to Chase, students live in the Maine Maritime Academy dormitory as an introduction to living in semiclose quarters. On May 24, students began living aboard the vessel in preparation for the northern sail training expedition.

Cruising experiences will include standing watch, navigation techniques, underway maintenance and seamanship. Activities will take place under the direction of professionally licensed seafarers.

This year’s voyage plan includes a stop at Canada’s Sable Island and the French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. The Bowdoin will sail the south coast of Newfoundland to the town of Placentia, the hometown of a student participant. The return route will follow the south coast of Newfoundland to the Nova Scotia coast.

Sailors will visit Cape Breton Island and traverse the Bras d’Or Lakes. Port visits are planned for Halifax and Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. The Bowdoin is due to return to Castine on Thursday, June 30.

The Bowdoin, a national historic landmark and Maine’s official sailing vessel, enjoys a long history of seafaring education and exploration. Built in 1921 at the Hodgdon Bros. Shipyard in East Boothbay, the schooner was sailed on 25 scientific expeditions to the Arctic Circle by Adm. Donald MacMillan.

Following withdrawal from Arctic service in 1954, the Bowdoin supported the educational initiatives of Mystic Seaport in Connecticut and the Outward Bound School in Maine. The schooner was later acquired by the Schooner Bowdoin Association. Maine Maritime Academy leased the vessel in 1988 and bought the schooner outright a year later.