Zip, Kip, and Victory Chimes – each a piece of work. Recipe for a lively, long weekend: Mix that trio of pieces with 34 other passengers and nine crew members, blend in sunshine and music, add a large dash of spirits – high. The result is an experience like no other.

The Victory Chimes, the three-masted schooner pictured on the Maine quarter, is the largest passenger sailing vessel currently under the U.S. flag. Kip Files, captain and co-owner of the ship, was a swim teammate of Zip Kellogg’s at Bangor High School in the late 1960s, hence very obliging when Zip and two friends approached him in late 2004 about chartering the Chimes for her early June 2005 weekend shakedown cruise.

Kellogg is well known among canoe racers as the man who paddles standing up during the Kenduskeag Stream canoe race.

Throughout the miserably cold and rainy month of May at least one of those who committed to the trip wondered if she’d made a mistake. But early June produced beautiful weather, and buoyed by predictions of continued fine weather the group boarded the Chimes on a Friday evening at its home port in Rockland.

Mary Kellogg brought her mother, Julie (86), and Julie’s sisters Mary Eddy (80) and Betty Evans (93) aboard the ship on Friday evening to chat with friends and relatives and wish them bon voyage. They heard Captain Kip Files greet his passengers: “People always ask where we’re going. I tell them, ‘you have arrived.’ We go wherever the winds and tides take us, and we just cast anchor when we get there.”

In other words we had no need to be anywhere by anytime – just throw our cares to the same winds that were going to whisk us away from the busy mainland.

In some ways we could all have been 100 years back in time – no television. Quiet! We entertained ourselves with music, storytelling, storytelling- music, and weaving – weaving a tapestry of memories. Jokes and other mini-talents kept popping up, producing colorful accents resembling those tufts of yarn that hold together the sides of a friendship quilt.

One evening, Judy Kellogg Markowsky, director of the Fields Pond Audubon Center in Orrington, imitated both motions and sounds of a bittern so skillfully that some other passengers were later seen imitating her imitating a bittern. Bucky Owen, at Frank “Woody” Woodard’s suggestion, imitated a raven.

Woody knew from experience that at least one raven thinks Bucky’s call is the real thing: one day while the two were skiing in Lapland they saw a lone raven flying some distance away and Bucky gave his call, whereupon the raven made a U-turn and headed straight toward them. On the Chimes when Bucky called, “Cr-r-ruck…prruck,” no ravens boarded in response, but the rest of us were impressed.

Upon hearing that one of Pete Murphy’s hobbies is making Adirondack chairs, and that Marjorie Ryerson just completed a book, “Water Music,” some of us considered proposing to the Captain that he allow – encourage – cruise passengers to set up booths on the deck to sell their wares. We appointed Sara Kellogg Meade, an obstetric nurse, to staff a delivery booth on the floating flea market. Perhaps there could be a special charter trip for expectant mothers?

Food? The Saturday night lobsters were perfectly cooked, delicious. We ate our fill, yet there were some lobsters left over, the first time I’ve ever seen that happen. (Bob Kellogg was observed trying very hard to keep it from happening.)

The thank-you galley bell rang profusely that night, and chef Pam Smith-Sheridan took a bow. Pam, also a BHS graduate, was asked in 2000 by Captain Files to help out for three weeks. She’s been his galley chef ever since.

“Keep your fork after the main course each evening,” Pam advises passengers (sweet words for pie and cake lovers). “If you ask for an extra fork the galley crew will most definitely make you pay some kind of penance.”

Where did the winds take us? On the first day they took us to the Cape Rosier area, where we anchored just off Holbrook Island Sanctuary State Park. The next morning, those who wished were ferried ashore to explore the 1,345-acre park. And some hardy souls, forgetting May, went for a swim.

On the second night we anchored off North Haven, where passengers and crew gathered around an imaginary campfire and swapped more stories and ballads. The first mate, Mike Stevens, who recently moved to Maine from Texas, treated us to a reading from a journal he started as a youth:

“The past Nor’easter was exhilarating…The smell of the air, the wind…

“My God the wind. It wasn’t howling. It didn’t sound as a whistle…

“In fact I don’t believe it was the wind at all. It was her…Victory Chimes.

“A seductive moan from deep in her breast.

“The strong wind and chilling rain caressed her with all the excitement of a new, young lover…coaxing from her a lust that only a few of us can see.”

Victory Chimes, gaff-rigged and originally named the Edwin and Maud, was built in Delaware in 1900 for use as general purpose cargo hauler and was converted to a passenger cruise vessel in 1946.

The only survivor of the many three-masted schooners built on the U.S. East Coast, she is 127.5 feet long, 23.8 feet wide, with an offset centerboard and 19 cabins, 15 of which have double berths. Electricity is 110 volts, showers are hot, toilets are push-button.

Victory Chimes tows a 19-foot motorized yawlboat to assist in harbors. Her Oregon Douglas fir masts are more than 80 feet high, which means the ship cannot go under the Deer Isle Bridge when the tide is high.

In 1988, while owned by Domino’s Pizza, she was extensively repaired at Boothbay Harbor and then purchased in 1990 by Captain Kip Files and Paul DeGaeta.

“Some Japanese businessmen were trying to buy it with intentions of taking it to Japan to put in a park,” said Files. “We never intended to keep it, just save it. When I told my wife we were thinking of buying a large 90-year old wooden boat she said, ‘The couch is comfy.'”

But buy and save it they did. They saved its life and changed its name to Victory Chimes. Not everyone approved of the name change recalls Files.

“A man chased me off the dock with his cane because we changed the name,” he said.

Files somehow survived both couch and cane, and along with the U.S. and Maine flags he now routinely hoists a flag that declares: “No guts, no glory.”.

Seems like Files’ likeness should be added to the Maine quarter, for it is largely due to his efforts that the Victory Chimes, rather than being in Japan, is now a sailing national historic landmark.

Her trip schedule vary from weekend to weeklong for an amazing variety of groups: music, weddings, family reunions, ash-spreading, sail-training, corporate retreats – even quilting.

Those seeking more information may contact 1-800-745-5651 or P.O. Box 1401, Rockland 04841 or visit www.victorychimes.com.